User talk:DGG

“ One person at a time, one article at a time ”

“ I am very gratified to have learned that so many people seem to like me, but even more gratified that they understand and like (or at least tolerate) the work I'm trying to do. ” —  at my RfA

Archives: Sept-Dec 06, Jan-Feb 07, Mar-Apr 07, May 07, Jun 07, Jul 07, Aug 07, Sep 07, Oct 07; Nov 07, Dec 07, Journal talk , Speedy talk, IPC talk,

(some still current material from these pages is below:) :

Please post messages at the bottom of the page - - - I will reply on this page, unless you ask otherwise

---

Blood libel

Thanks for your note. I think mentioning his name violates WP:UNDUE, particularly as he himself has recanted his previous views. What do you think? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

columns

Use

 
 {{Col-begin}}
 {{Col-1-of-2}}
 Column 1 here
 {{Col-2-of-2}}
 Column 2 here
 {{Col-end}}

Or

 {{Multicol}}
 This text appears in the first column.
 {{Multicol-break}}
 This text appears in the second column.
 {{Multicol-break}}
 This text appears in the third column.
 {{Multicol-end}}

The latter's obviously more flexible. Hope that helps, --Steve _(Stephen) ^talk 02:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

SPARC

←I am a little confused by what happened to this page SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation you changed to a redirect yesterday --I see the speedy for the redirect but I did not notice the speedy or other deletion process for the original. In any case i want to recreate it as it is one of the things I know about & I'm sure i could do a proper article whatever may have been wrong with the first--If you're an admin could you restore it to my user space for the purpose? DGG 00:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The SPARC mess was confusing, I'll give you that. :) Someone — I don't know who — moved the SPARC article to the silly title SPARC - Scalable Processor ARChitecture, and created the new silly-titled page SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation. Someone else sensibly requested that SPARC - Scalable Processor ARChitecture be moved back to SPARC. I'm not actually an admin, so my contribution to the mess was limited to moving SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation to Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation, and proposing it for speedy deletion since its only content was a link to the organization's Web site. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=Scholarly_Publishing_and_Academic_Resources_Corporation for the entire text of the page.) Since then, somebody else has speedy-deleted Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation (per my suggestion), and SPARC has been moved back to its rightful place.

If you would like to create an article about the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation, then Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation is the right place to do it. As long as you can find something encyclopedic to say about it, I wouldn't worry about the fact that a previous page on the topic has been deleted. --Quuxplusone 02:29, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Contextual information

I have noticed that essays, e.g. WP:LISTCRUFT, are often cited in deletion debates, such as the current Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Socialist Party of Great Britain debates. It might be worthwhile to jot down a concise essay on the value of contextual information, which one could cite so as not to repeat the contextual argument every time. One could argue that such an argument is a natural offspring of policies such as WP:NOT#PAPER and WP:SENSE. Then one could post it as WP:CONTEXT. I am interested in your opinion about this. Stammer 09:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Actual usage of the European Library by librarians?

Hello DGG. Please see my my question for you over on WP:COI/N, regarding the European Library. EdJohnston 21:07, 4 May 2007 (UTC). You asked me about it sometime back, and I've been noticing announcements that it is finally now becoming actually useful; union lists are not used until they have almost as much content as the national ones. It's like OSX, it was obviously going to be universal , but wise people didn't switch over for a while. I waited for 10.4. DGG 20:41, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations

I'm pleased to inform you that you are now an administrator. Please read all the material on the administrators' reading list before testing out your new privileges. For instructions, please see the administrators' how-to guide. Best of luck — Dan | talk 02:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Congrats. Well done. Do well with the mop :) -- Samir 02:20, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations. Your RfA reached WP:100 and is palindromic to boot. :) Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 03:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow congrats DGG! 111 supports, that's fantastic - if you ever need anything just give me a shout and I'll try my best to help. Good luck... Majorly (hot!) 09:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations. I'm glad I was one of those 11 extra to push you over the top at Wikipedia:Times that 100 Wikipedians supported something. You'll do a great job. Smee 11:58, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Congratulations. Here are what pass for words of wisdom from the puppy:

Remember you will always protect the wrong version. Remember you must always follow the rules, except for when you ignore them. You will always pick the wrong one to do. (See #5) Remember to assume good faith and not bite. Remember that when you are applying these principles most diligently, you are probably dealing with a troll. Use the block ability sparingly. Enjoy the insults you receive when you do block. Remember when you make these errors, someone will be more than happy to point them out to you in dazzling clarity and descriptive terminology. and finally, Remember to contact me if you ever need assistance, and I will do what I am able. KillerChihuahua?!?

DISCLAIMER: This humor does not reflect the official humor of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, or Jimbo Wales. All rights released under GFDL.

Notability of scientists vs their science

Hey DGG (first off, congratulations on adminship). In this AfD you write "I cannot imagine that a paper written by a scientist could possibly be notable more than the scientist himself" which seems diametrically opposed to my thinking, so I thought I'd invite you to try entertaining it. If a scientist is notable (in the sense of passing WP:PROF) I would assume it is because their work is notable. Surely then they must be at least a degree more trivial than their work. For example, the Hershey-Chase experiment is a very important piece of science, which definitely belongs in an encyclopedia, but I'm not sure that Alfred Hershey or even more so Martha Chase are of the same level of notability. Similarly, Milikan's Oil-drop experiment important in a way that I just don't think the details of Robert Andrews Millikan's life are. Ditto Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority Study and Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment. In all these cases, the experimenters are certainly notable, but I think they are all less encyclopedic than their work. I guess this is what bothers me about the majority of the stubby little wikipedia entries for assorted professors, that their inclusion makes WP look like a cheap Whos-who unless their work is also encyclopedic. The writers of these bios seem disinterested in writing encyclopedic articles about their research topic, the benefit to WP of these articles does not extend to dissemination of knowledge about science, just the vanity, or vanity by proxy, of a puff-biography. Anyway, best of luck with the mop pushing. I'm certain that you'll do fine. Regards, Pete.Hurd 05:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, & I went back & adjusted the AfD comment,because you are right that I overgeneralized. Fuller reply in the works. DGG 07:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

i'd appreciate your opinion on something

Have a look at Talk:Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. Before I start an AFD, do you think this is below the cut? ··coelacan 07:50, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

That would be great; thanks. ··coelacan 00:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes please about citation count

Please yes a citation count would be good. I suspect the count will be high. Wenocur's major work includes the VC-paper, joint with Dudley which established values of VC-dimensions using hyperplanes and other techniques that were new. The paper with Salant is notable work. Her work on order statistics was new. in abstracting ideas of Einstein and Bose on gravitation as gravitation affecting numbers not particles. In other papers, the alternative proof techniques of identities were publically admired by H.S. Wilf. The indices of many books on neural nets contain references to her work with Dudley on VC-dimension. I personally have employed the order statitistic work and the VC work to analyze data and make predictions for clients. Currently, she is either self-employed or retired or semi-retired; she is not a young person, certainly over age 55. She corresponds with me, a humble consultant, but also with others who are noteable. I think she is tutoring now, also she mentioned, precocious children, and those who need to learn VC-theory for their work at universities or industry or consulting. I think she is also using mathematics for investment counseling in new ways. She won several awards from the U.S. Senate, the President of Temple University, New York City as a noteable woman of science and other awards. This is all I can think of, offhand, right now. Back to work now. Thank you. Alfred Legrand 16:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

AfDs/blogs

Hi, the assumption is that I'm "pro" the blogs I'm currently fighting to keep an entry for, but that is jumping to conclusions. I wrote many new entries on Muslims and Islam, and I would fight to keep them. They're there because I think it's important people have access to information about these issues. In any case, a pattern won't be seen since this user first did a "speedy delete" on several entries using an IP and only identified themselves when I argued that an anonymous user shouldn't be speedy deleteing (to point out that it's against wiki policy and an ip user shouldn't be discriminated). The reason I went out directly against him is because of his claim that he's being attacked for something he's only been doing for "two-three" days, and of course, looking at his "user contributions" that's what it looks like, so why accuse him? I am not accusing him that he's anti those blogs, I'm accusing him of abusing the system and I don't like it. As I wrote him directly, his only contributions are nitpicking those of others. I think that's anti-wikipedia behavior.

I think blogs are in a catch 22, since old style newspapers have no interest in writing about them, and at most they'll reach the editorial page. Most blogs are not worthy of an entry, but I just wonder how many entries are going to be deleted before the policy is changed.

About the Fjordman blogger, for example. When the original speedy delete came up I said that if you google, it comes up in amazing numbers. To which I was told by this user "it's a common name in Scandinavia". But then, why does the blogger get top billings on the first 3-4 pagse of Google (at which time I gave up looking). What do I need to do to prove that this guy is immensely popular? Misheu 06:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions and input. I do need somebody with some common sense to tell me this :-) I'm not so anti what you say as you think. When I told this user that I actually appreciated his speedy delete since it caused me to look up sources he thought I was joking and took it as an insult. I wouldn't be so "up in arms" this time if it wouldn't be posed as "look up all sources now for all entries or else" and come as a 'second wave'. There are so many other ways to approach articles you think need sources. Again, some of the entries he brought for deletion, i agree with, but most of them he's going against established, well known, influential blogs. Misheu 06:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

DGG, thanks for your help in this recent mess. I appreciate the good words helping move this process forward. --Edwin Herdman 21:02, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Gordon MacPherson

Not sure how you did your article search, but I got >120 peer-reviewed articles. Which still doesn't make him notable. What is needed is an independant secondary source specifically referring to 'Gordon MacPherson's important scientific contribution to x'. -Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 03:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a number of people by that name, even in medicine. I was being very conservative--clearly over-conservative. I re-did it in Scopus to get a citation count, and found 58 peer-reviewed papers. I agree that I would in general not automatically consider an associate professor notable (that's the equiv. rank), but to my surprise, I found 427, 279, 250, 176, 146 citations for the five top papers. I think it covers the notability question. (I haven't put it all in the article quite yet. I find it much easier to cut spam down to size than to build up these over-modest articles.) Fiction writers get shown notable by reviews, athletes by competitions, scientists by citations. I can expand on this. DGG 03:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not the point. I strongly suspect that he is notable, but that is not the same thing as 1) knowing what he is notable for, 2) having an independant reference that establishes his notability, and c) having content in the article that discusses the thing he is notable for. Deleting an article doesn't prevent anyone from writing an article about that same subject in the future, it simply says that there's nothing in the current article that justifies having it. -Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 05:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I recognize you know the academic world, probably very well, so I don't have to explain why people there are important to start with (smile) (The next paragraph is what I have evolved as my standard reply-- it's addressed to people who do not know how scientists work, and I do not mean to sound as if you didn't know about this stuff--but it is better worded than what I can do on the spot)

• "We don't judge the work, even in subjects where some of us could, because this is an egalitarian place--we just show how other people have judged it. Notability for academics is typically established by their publications. People become professors by writing notable research papers. That the papers are notable is established by their being published in peer-reviewed journals. The review by two or more specialists in such peer review establishes those papers as evidence of N. For appointment, for promotion to associate professor of senior lecturer, they pass stringent reviews by peers, including particularly peers from other institutions.

this establishes notability much more strictly and reliably than we could here. The profession establishes notability; WP just records the fact.

In general, nobody writes magazine articles on professors, and they dont get a biography until they retire or die. Therefore, since notability in each field is judged by the standard of the field, and notability in this field is established by publications and positions, their publications and positions are always considered suffficient, as is explained more fully in WP:PROF., and consistently maintained at AfD."

"The standard there is more notable than the average." To be noticed by 400 peers is much more important that to be noticed by two book reviewers. To be noticed by more than 200 peers for several different publications is more notable than by being noticed by two book reviewers for several different novels.

Answers to specific objections: What he is notable for, is the subject of the papers. The abstracts are on PubMed for a description. There is no need to discuss the plot of a prize-winning movie to show it's notable. The recognition is sufficient. WP articles have to show their subjects are notable, by the standards of the field. They do not have to explain why the field holds them as notable; its best to get in some sort of orientation, but not essential.

The independent references are the papers themselves, and the are reliable because they have been published in peer-reviewed reliable journals. (in this case, of the very highest quality, and that can be shown too from Science Citation Reports). As a compromise rule of thumb, it seems to have been accepted that Full professors at research university are almost always notable, assistant professors rarely, associate, it depends. In this case, that many citation and papers would be enough even for an assistant professor, not that I can recall an assistant professor article here where he had such a strong record.

There is never much need to re-create an article about a scientist, since by the time enough people show up, it has become clear whether or not it's notable. If I can't get it rewritten or explained in 5 days I go on to the next. I do not defend the non-notable ones. (I do have a list of a few slip-ups when nobody noticed; when people write inadequate article that happens.) The article as it stands is sufficient, and these standards have been shown in multiple prior AfDs --I am not being idiosyncratic (actually, I should probably go back myself and make a list of informal precedents--there are no formal precedents here). DGG 06:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Librarian stuff

Hi DGG, I recognize your username from around the wiki (recently at some Afds I'm watching). I see you're an admin and a librarian, and that you've contributed to similar discussions in the past, so I'd like to point out the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Unusual university spam. I think it's about time we developed a clear policy about this sort of thing. As an established wikipedian and wannabe librarian, I've taken a great interest in this debate. Thanks for considering it! Latr, Katr 02:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your thoughtful reply. There seems to be a lot of hostility and misunderstanding around this issue, so I hope we can reach a satisfactory conclusion. If I go for my MLIS, I'll do the UW's distance-learning program, since I don't really want to move to Seattle. It sounds like a lot of fun, but I have to do my research and determine if the extra money I would be making would be worth the extra debt I'd be taking on! Latr, Katr 16:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

P.S. There is a similar thread that I moved just below the one in which you responded that you might want to check out. I'm taking everything related to that off my watchlist, as I seem to have unknowingly created some hostility between myself and one of the editors involved. If you would, please keep me posted if any new policies or guidelines are developed out of this. Thanks! Latr, Katr 17:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Plot summaries

I have in the last couple of days called for keeping a plot summary for Les Miserables, Angel (TV series) and Buffy (TV series) because the Hugo novel is important in popular culture, and one hears references to it or to situations and characters in it, but no one should have to plow through the endless turgid prose and meandering plot. The TV series are quite different. The plot article provides an overview of the plot arc for the season, which is an emergent property not found in the extremely short capsule summaries for each episode. I am opposed to having detailed, scene by scene plot summaries of every comedy, drama, and cartoon, but a well written overview of series with season-long plot arcs seems quite encyclopedic. These do not relate every event from every episode. I know there is a bias against keeping an article because it is "useful" (heaven forbid anyone should ever find something "useful" in Wikipedia), but if I've heard about a TV show like "Lost" with a complex plot line, knowing the history of the show helps make the next episode comprehensible and entertaining. Seeing one sentence about each episode of a show which has been on several years does not give the reader/viewer the "big picture" like the 2 TV plot guides do. I feel that WP:NOT strongly needs a revision to this effect, but I am all too aware that a cabal will smite down anyone who tries to change a policy without "consensus" when it only takes one or two doctrinaire editors to object and deny that consensus and revert the change. Consensus can also be shown by a set of AFD outcomes. Other TV shows like this might be "The Sopranos," "X-Files" or any other long running series wherein there are plot arcs beyond the individual episode. In contrast, many comedies, cop shows, westerns like "Gunsmoke", and even juvie sci-fi series like "Lost in Space" had pretty much stand alone episodes, with little or no carryover of plot elements from one episode to the next. The fallback position is to call for the season-arc episode guides to replace the existing series-long episode guides in articles about such shows as "Buffy" or "Angel." Shows like these two have been the subject of reviews and conferences with scholarly papers read, and there have been books written about each season, so one could add as many references as necessary to satisfy any requirement that the content be reference based and not OR. Edison 16:26, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

There are 100 references for the main Buffy the Vampire Slayer article. Major references for the plot arcs would be the series of books called "The Watcher's Guide". These are reliable, but arguably not independent, since they have ties to 20th Century Fox. But there are lots of fully reliable and independent sources about the larger plot arcs, also listed as refs at the Buffy main article, such as DVD reviews at Rotten Tomatos, many of which are from legitimate sources such as Salon, which has editorial supervision and identified reviewers (as opposed to fan reviews)., for instance [1]. There is the whole Buffy studies which lists academic works on the series, for those who are more into it than casual watchers such as me. Edison 17:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

RE: Past Presidents

A valid point about the references. They were already in the article (but rather hidden)and now I've given them their own spot at the bottom of the page. As having members with WP articles, the pickings are slim. But where you might see an AFD, I see a small project of sorts. Many of the people on that list are notable professors/teachers/scientists in their own right. So, I was planning to Start writing articles on a few past presidents of interest, and give them overdue praise for their contributions to education and science. I'd be happy to discuss this further, but probably not tonight--I'm off to sleep. Violadamore

sampling deletions

I've replied on my talk page. SamBC 06:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Episode review TfD

I posted this on the TfD as well, but I really wanted to make sure you saw my reply:

DGG, I can't stress this enough, these tags were never meant to be used like this. They were never meant to be added in mass without the tagger looking at the articles and doing some initial evaluation. Abuse of the tool should be addressed, deleting the tool because one user over did it is not a good thing, and just screws everyone else over. The discussions themselves are now being held on individual "list of episodes" articles, instead of a centralized area, and these tags are a way to help more people collaborate with the process. By deleting these templates you are only making that small group stay small. A new idea will always start small, but on Wikipedia things like that grow extremely fast. If you snipe the process before it has a change to get off the ground, then people won't be able to find it. The first template was nominated for deletion before a single episode article even got reviewed. -- Ned Scott 05:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I have come to oppose the entire project, because of the demonstrated effect it has already had on articles. I think the reasonably extended presentation of content of a primary source is appropriate--though I agree that it should be accompanied by analysis. I particularly dislike the method that is being applied-- that the correct policy that there should be both presentation and analysis is being addressed not by adding content discussing the material, but by removing material presenting it. I do agree however, that some of the existing discussions were over-detailed. I agree with merging individual episode articles. I do not agree with deleting their basic content, and such is the practical effect of the tag. DGG (talk) 17:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I respect that and all, think about things like WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:WAF. It's not that, it would be nice to have real world information, but rather, we require real world information. This "project" was started as a way to find potential in episodes, rather than taking them to AfD. You seem to be blaming to the process because no one can find the potential, or even something to hint towards the potential.

You said: "that the correct policy that there should be both presentation and analysis is being addressed not by adding content discussing the material, but by removing material presenting it. "

Did you stop to think, maybe there wasn't anything to add? -- Ned Scott 03:56, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

And as far as merging goes, I haven't been watching the closure themselves that much, but stuff should be merged that can be merged. I'm sorry if anyone is not doing this, and if you have any specific review in mind I'll volunteer to clean up the mess myself. -- Ned Scott 04:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

fair enough, and I've had these discussions end up in joint projects before. Even afds sometimes end that way. its the way things should go.

(and I was about to send:

for video shows and the like, the question of finding material is relative tricky for me, because I myself am neither willing nor qualified to find the material, and it's uncomfortable making bare assertions of the existence of material. (though i think the plot of these shows does tend to be discussed in both specialist publications and often newspapers, for at least the most prominent--certainly for shows like the Sopranos. And they also are increasingly discussed in academic writing on popular culture--but the discussion inevitably comes several years behind. But in this part of the field I'm a consumer, not a producer--I want to read the material, not write it. The only area of pop culture where there is good material of this sort in the articles is rock music, where many easily available publication do analyze it, and the followers know about them.

However, for something where I know the research methods a little better, and where it was challenged, I did find it--Les miserables. There were at least a hundred articles in Google Scholar that clearly discussed the plot, and I was able to select 5 or 6 where the titles made it really evident.

Had i done a serious job with professional indexes and non-english sources, I could have found many more. And from these the critical material could be written. But WPedians are not that great on academic writing, as you know, and it will be a while until the work gets done. I would not remove the articles in the meantime. i would keep, and add.

had those challenging spent the time on adding material to the articles where possible, instead challenging them and removing them, it would have been a start. Of course, had those defending them spent half their arguing time on adding, it would have been better as well. The tendency at AfDs in general on all topics of people to say there is material, and cite it at length at at the Afd, but put off adding it to the article doesn't help. Anyone can edit, and most are lazy about it. I'd love to have a rule that one could not place an afd without documenting where one had looked. I wont delete a speedy or expired prod until i've confirmed the absence for myself. (I'm talking generally here, not this project in particular, and certainly not you in particular.) DGG (talk) 04:24, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

academics

Thanks for your navigation. I added something from GGC’s old resume, which I found on the Internet and books from WorldCat and Amazon. I’ll be trying to add some more substantial info on both academics’ work from other sources.

I translated a few US textbooks on writing and related subjects. If you need any help with Russian, feel free to contact me. My e-mail is anstan@bk.ru.

Anstan07 10:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Episodes

I saw your comment on the Notability page. So I take it you'd rather see something like this for television show episodes, rather than something like this?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 00:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Printing

No, I think it was an honest mistake - my edit summary was meant to be taken literally, not as minatory (perhaps not the best phrasing). He is on the warpath again at Four Great Inventions of ancient China but I don't worry too much about that. There's absolutely no chance of me going for admin. Keep up the good work at AfD etc, & I'm still waiting for the Master of the Playing Cards expansion. Johnbod 03:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification

Response at Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification#How long before delete unreferenced article?. We both know that there is some unreferenced content in Wikipedia that is not appropriate. I am asking you to help me build a tool that will address that problem. There are a thousand what if's and a million more discussion, but lets start someplace. We can build a tool that is an appropriate compromise between M:Inclusionism and M:Exclusionism. Jeepday (talk) 14:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd be delighted to work with you, because first of all in individual cases good people generally agree on most subjects, and also because I think cooperation including people known for different views of things will be more readily accepted--as it should, because there will be less individualistic bias. Also agreed that inclusionism and inclusionism are not the right terms for most things and people (the only real inclusionists in a pejorative sense are those who want an article on every human, & the only exclusionists in that sense are those who would confine us to the limits of paper.

I'm not sure we could build an inclusive tool: there are too many problems why they might be inappropriate--and the basic problem isn't in my opinion unreferenced--the reason unreferenced picks up so many problems, is that unreferenced articles are often defective in other ways.

There are also areas where there is no agreement on inclusions, and if there is to be a general effort it probably should stay clear of these, which should be discussed separately until there is some real continuing consensus: crimes, plots, for example. If we go too fast on these we may end up doing the work over as consensus changes.

As policy, I am only willing to cooperate on a project aimed at deletion if there is a genuine commitment to improvement when possible, or if there is a high bar to limit consideration to the articles almost certainly unimprovable. For example, many business articles as they stand are not adequate, but could be improved in knowledgeable people used the right sources, and for this example there's a shortage. We can still work cooperatively, but in perhaps different ways.

The only tools I know of are good objective human beings. Only humans can integrate disparate factors. But there can be technical helps. Personally, in my own opinion I think them secondary--my preferred approach to weeding--and as a librarian I have certainly done a lot of it, though to storage, not disposal--is repeated systematic passes through even the largest set, looking for particular criteria each time. WP has 2 million articles. I've worked with collections that size--though not doing it all myself. But I haven't done them all myself. There was a philosophy common to all, agreed to and applied over 40 years by over a hundred very individualistic professionals--get the obvious, leave the others for a subsequent round. This is the way to go fast. Our consistency was pretty good--the rate of restoration from storage to main collection has been well under 1%. But we had commitment to one common principle: the goal was to help the users, & anything the users had found useful in recent years was to be kept.

Since you started here, lets keep the general discussion here. I'll do a separate archive if appropriate. DGG (talk) 17:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

• Agreed, As you know I work towards inclusion and improvement. on questionable content I am more likely to suggest delete then you are, but I readily accept keeping with a less stringent verification requirement then you. Improvement is the primary goal. "high bar to limit consideration to the articles almost certainly unimprovable" I am not sure that you can dictate this in usage, I understand what you are saying, and I think I have addressed it by placing a very low threshold for removal (or nonplacement) of the template. Like anything there will be room to misuse it but, as proposed placing the template is only a suggestion for deletion. Even if absolutely no references are added to the article, before it can be deleted an adim has to come along and agree to remove the article by actually deleting it. Additionally it places articles in a category, that will be monitored (the same as Category:All articles proposed for deletion for much longer then a prods 5 days. I made some changes (earlier today) to Wikipedia:Requests for verification take a look and see what we need to address. Jeepday (talk) 18:13, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

the problem is that one person can place templates in one day that will take ten people a year to address. Thus the end result of such a process, however, well intended, will be destructive. I care for WP, and do not wish to sacrifice half of the potentially good articles.

You trust the accuracy of admins more than I do; I am one of them, and from doing the work, know how easy it is to make mistakes. DGG (talk) 19:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think putting source tags on uncontroversial statements it diverts energy from challenging and sourcing the controversial ones, and is not a constructive way of improving the encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 21:48, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there is potential for worthwhile articles to be deleted with {{RfV}}. Keep in mind there is no original work in Wikipedia so no knowledge will be lost, articles may be temporarily not on Wikipedia, but someone will add them back. I try to focus more on the future, think of the benefits in 3 to 5 years, every article will be verified. Thanks for joining the team at Wikipedia talk:Unreferenced articles Jeepday (talk) 13:00, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I am glad we agree on where we are going.But WP is also for today, and removing articles in the hope that someone will add back the notable ones is not in my opinion a reasonable approach.

Incidentally, I maintain some degree of sanity here by not getting over-involved in the fate of individual articles. I know I can't save them all, or, for that matter, delete them all. And certainly not get them all written right. DGG (talk) 16:44, 17

Blogs etc as references

I am wondering about when blogs become useful as references. Some blogs are written by known figures who are notable already from their other writing, or from their qualifications or expertise. Some are associated with people who give their real names and professional positions and credentials. Some science blogs have been highly rated. For example, Nature magazine placed a "review of some of the best blogs written by working scientists" on its website in July 2006.[2][3].

Some examples:

• Pharyngula (weblog) by PZ Myers, a biologist from the University of Minnesota, science category winner in the 2006 Weblogs Awards
• Panda's Thumb (weblog), with many professional scientist posters, also highly rated (second place winner?). Almost every poster I have seen on there already has a WP article, and is noted for other writing already. Usually with good sources.
• talkorigins not a blog exactly, but with many articles written by well-known professional scientists and well-sourced
• RealClimate, a blog produced by "real climate scientists at the American Geophysical Union"
• Aetiology, found at [4], written by Tara C. Smith, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in Iowa
• scienceblogs, a provider of science blogs includes many interesting and useful blogs [5]. Note that they are selective in who gets to blog, in fact.
• Nature itself hosts assorted science-related blogs [6]

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?--Filll 04:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

essentially, i think a review like that of Nature gives authority to the blog. The best way of establishing the authority is to write an article about the blog for Wikipedia. I think this is true in general for any type of sources which not everyone will recognize as notable without an explanation, and I have done so for a few reference sources, and have always intending to do more, including some blogs. Blogs run by magazines are like letters to the editor. Some places screen them very very carefully, some don't. (remembering again to distinguish from the letter to the editor type of short article, as in Nature). Something published in a blog by a recognized authority is an easy case--regardless of where she publishes it, she gives it authority. But remember to be fair about this--some blogs by those with whom we do not agree are also responsible.

so I encourage you to write some articles about blogs. Let me know & I'll look at them. DGG (talk) 04:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

For your consideration: A description of a science blog

Please take a look at my draft of an article on the science blog Aetiology, which appears here. Thank you.--Filll 16:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have slowly improved this draft a bit and also, at your suggestion, started a draft on the author of this blog at User talk:Filll/Tara C. Smith. I think I am getting close to showing she is notable, but you tell me what you think.--Filll 23:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Smith has published 3 books, and taught at 4 different Universities, and has several journal publications as well. Smith organized the Iowa Citizens for Science (with a few dozen members), and been engaged in lobbying and organizing public Darwn events (1 so far, another upcoming in 2008), and an article about her activities in this area has been in the Des Moines Register. I think she is well on her way to notability, if she is not there already.

Her blog is rated number 7 in science from Nature, out of 46 million blogs evaluated. I count 4 print mentions (including in Cell (journal) and 5 cyberspace media articles about Aetiology (in addition to just 1000s of general blogosphere discussions on other blogs). Notable?--Filll 16:09, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

An essay I've written

Hello. Though we are often on the opposite side of deletion debates, I thought you might want to read an essay I've written, found at User:Eyrian/IPC. I'd be interested to hear any feedback on its talk page. --Eyrian 15:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Primary source only articles

I would tend to agree that a teacher would and should insist on the student looking at the book itself. That's because any self-respecting teacher would have the student writing a secondary source—a research paper or the like.

On the other hand, this is intended to be a tertiary source. It's intended to be a collection of the reliable and verified research of others from looking at primary sources, not our own work in that vein. Sometimes, primary sources can be used for some supplemental material with secondary ones being used for the main bulk, if purely descriptive claims are made. But in everything, we should be mirroring secondary sources, not second-guessing them. If a reliable source says something I believe to be wrong, we go with the source, not me. By the same token, if secondary sources don't write about a given subject at all, or a given aspect of that subject, we should mirror that—by not writing about it at all. Students in class are intended to be the original author and first publisher of their work. (If they're not, they'd better hope to have a dumb teacher!) That's not the idea here at all. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure there. I think it's good we tend to require secondary sources, just because of our nature as a tertiary source. I guess I just don't see "List of times X got mentioned somewhere" as of particular relevance to that, it seems to fail indiscriminate information collection. (I'm aware that's significantly overused, but here it really does seem to apply.) I think the cultural influences of works are better done by citing works that actually speak to how the work has influenced culture, rather than just saying "X seems to have been influenced by Y" with nothing to back that up. In some cases that is a purely descriptive statement which doesn't need secondary sourcing (for example, to state that Weird Al's "Like a Surgeon" is a parody of Madonna's "Like a Virgin"), but in a lot of cases it steps over the line into original synthesis if no one's actually studied it and come to that conclusion. I think what TV Guide or other secondary sources do there is allow more elaborate conclusions to be placed in and sourced, where it would be original research to draw them ourself. If that can't be done, and it's basically just a list of "Family Guy spoofed X one time, and so did The Simpsons", I guess I fail to see the value. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, I'm certainly not saying "never notable". (WP:IDONTLIKEIT is just as invalid as WP:ILIKEIT, and mirroring, not second-guessing, sources applies just as much in the other direction). There's tons of material, for instance, on the cultural impact of shows like The Simpsons, South Park, and even some soap operas. I'm sure articles could be written on those subjects and sourced perfectly well. But a good article on that subject would go far beyond "A was mentioned in X, Y, and Z." Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Use of blog as source

At your suggestion, I have now built up Tara C. Smith's article to hopefully reach notability, as well as the article about her blog, Aetiology. Do you think these are now reasonable? Do they demonstrate notability? Can I now use them as sources at [7] ? If you think that this is a good source now, would you help me reinstate the citations on the article Physicians and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism for me? I have not found other sources, at least yet, because it is pretty obscure so far. If you know of other sources, I would welcome those as well. Thank you. --Filll 20:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Another editor has disagreed that the general audience, popular nature of the 3 books should be mentioned. They also disagree that the book reviews should be included. They also want to put personal information in the article, such as material about her d.o.b, ethnicity (???), family life, etc. I disagree with this, even though I can put it in there. Possibly the year she was born can be included, but I think the rest is sort of irrelevant. I want to concentrate on her professional career. Comments?--Filll 14:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Relevance proposal

Hi. Can I ask you to offer your thoughts on WP:RELEVANCE? It's a careful and ongoing attempt to cut a middle path on the subject of "trivia", among other things. Much obliged.--Father Goose 09:02, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

AfD notification proposal

Hi DGG. You do not need to change policy to have people notified about AfD. You might want to contact the developer of User:Android Mouse Bot 2 to see if s/he can create an Android Mouse Bot 3 to post the AfD notifications using stats from Wikipedia Page History Statistics. If you check out my contributions, you'll see that I am in the process of manually using Wikipedia Page History Statistics to add AfD warnings to those AfDs listed at the bottom of the August 13th AfD list. I also add {{Welcome!|-- [[User_talk:Jreferee|Jreferee]]}} to their talk page if they are new. I utilize Microsoft Word to assist me in all this. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 16:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Another thing that happens is the article itself sometimes is not tag for deletion even though the article is listed at AfD. See this, for example. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 17:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Schools Proposal

DGG by David Shankbone

Notification of proposal: Guideline/policy governing lists

Given your participation in recent AfDs involving lists, and given your track record for neutrality and diplomacy, I'd appreciate your input on the following:

Wikipedia: Village pump (policy)#Proposal to make a policy or guideline for lists

Thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have on the topic. Sidatio 16:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

FYI, this conversation has moved to User:Sidatio/Conversations/On list guidelines. I look forward to your continued input in order to reach a consensus on the issue! Sidatio 00:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello colleague

Hello there ! I was away sorry for the delay in responding. Thanx for the welcoming message and information, glad to find another "filing sufferer" around . I have been around a bit and is fully comprehensible (the wiki environment I mean) You see many incidents though. But I think I manage myself. Tell me something, how I make a nice signature ? I mean nice but keeping the level, not toons kind , just code it up or ? Let me know if I can be of assistance at any time, I have some acces to real antiques (books not people) See ya around Librarian2 16:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC) See WP:User. (but you need to know some elementary html markup). or tell me what you want to do--I'm not an expert, but I can do simple things. Incidentally, I am really a filing sufferer--I am the last certified instructor at Princeton for the filing rules in the old AACR1 card catalog. DGG (talk) 16:45, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Gosh! You are really a filing-sufferer. (even if I love that feeling of paper more than the screens) (for the first 5 minutes that is). About the signature, whatever makes me find my postings fast in a chain, any ideas ? (Yeah, ctrl-f right ?) Librarian2 19:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot you told me about the username similarity right? I have no problems with that but if you prefer I change it (I am the new one here I yield for the experienced elders) Just let me know how I do that Librarian2 20:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

CSA Trust and "2 users"

The "two users" remark was in response to the entry by User:Steinbeck, who said, "If only two people in the world want to learn about either the village festival or the CSA Trust through looking at their Wikipedia article, the existence of these articles is justified." Obviously, I don't agree. Realkyhick 17:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello colleague

Do you feel like a Librarian today? If you do, give a look at WP:KIS and let me know if you have someone in mind who could have the time to code the most used labels (languages and most known projects). Also I have a problem with the box for the labels, I don't know what code to enter for the labels display horizontally inside the box instead of vertically. If you don't feel like a librarian today, that is fine also, we file it for another time ℒibrarian2 20:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The box problem is solved, I made instead a rail kind of thing where the labels go (makes you remember something?) I like it better anyway. But the need of someone as I said above is still actual ℒibrarian2 21:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Content policy analysis

Wikipedia:Relevance of content/Content policy analysis: let's try to synchronize our views on this subject so that our continuing work on it can be more effective.--Father Goose 23:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

For you

[8] Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate list of all journals related to a subject--I'm on break. KP Botany 06:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's about 1% of the total and 10% of the ones in JCR. things could get a good deal worse. We normally do this as a separate list when possible , e.g. List of scientific journals in chemistry, or List of botany journals but we sometimes have included such a short section in a subject article. I do not think the number is excessive. The logical first step is to try to write articles for the journals. I will advise accordingly. DGG (talk) 08:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

No, the first step is for the editors of the article to decide which journals and sources are the most important that should be named in the article. This user is only adding Elsevier and Springer links, to at least one article where the leading journal, unmentioned, is a Wiley publication. The logical first step is to delete the spam, explain again that this requires talk page discussion, and expect that this be done. KP Botany 17:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The journals that were added in the first instance were only about 20 titles in a number of fields, from a range of publishers including the leading scientific society in the subject, and not unreasonable. I advised the person adding them, reminding him he had to show notability for the journals, and how to go about it. I see he is continuing in a less useful manner and i will deal with it a little differently now. DGG (talk) 03:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's another one

[9] KP Botany 18:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The spammer

He's not a publisher, but he works for a company that somehow represents both publishers commercially. I don't have time to refind it. He somehow represents more than one journal, and it's the company he works for that represents more than one journal in some way or another, or more than one publisher, and I saw it somewhere, it was a PR firm or a marketing firm or something, in Chicago, maybe, and I had come across it a couple of times in some of the earlier ones. They have a very small Wikipedia article, and I twice cross referenced same day accounts with minimal contributions to adding journals, but who were editing in between the journal socks, and made single edits to this company. I'm sorry, let me see if I can retrace my steps. No, I'm not having any more luck. But you realize there appear to be hundreds of these one day sock puppets for the publishers? This appears to be industry wide. [10] I don't think this is one, though:[11] KP Botany 04:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I really can't think of it. But when I saw the first edit, I looked it up, then when I saw the second one, it vaguely dawned, and then it hit me what he was doing and why he's posting more than one publisher, and why an earlier one I dismissed for the same reason was doing the same, it's was a US firm, but they were all European publishers represented. There was an additional international connection with an ASEAN publisher, maybe Singapore? Sorry. I'll be off for a few weeks, in the mountains. It will probably hit me, or maybe you'll find it. KP Botany 04:21, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking along those lines also. In this particular case, I think I can find out the names through another channel. I also know just how to spread the word more generally & will do so quietly & without names on the appropriate list. Personally, I regard the inclusion of one ACS journal probably just a clever attempt to look impartial. On the longer run, the way to prevent this is to add the major journals ourselves, or with carefully controlled assistance. But most of the ones added in this batch do deserve to be in WP eventually, but of course not preferentially. The scientific societies remain the priority.

i do not like to block without really strong reason. But I will do it to get attention when needed.

technical details I like to do: In some cases, I like to comment out sections than to revert the addition--it's easer to re-add the key ones. I do not think it wise to insist upon the use of "cite" templates, especially as there is no actual requirement--I rarely use them myself except if an article has them already or if things are complicated. I think they make the code hard to read and edit. -- I use <ref> </ref> .

But have a good time--I assume you will be coming back with some more pictures. DGG (talk) 04:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Example clean-up for WikiProject?

Current Opinion in Immunology got kept. At the moment, the article has no more information than is found in Current Opinion. Do you want to perform a clean-up that can be used as an example at the WikiProject of how to do this sort of thing? Carcharoth 11:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

you mean, do I want to fill in as extensive an article as possible. I will improve the article, but its would not be the best model for others, because of the complications of being part of a series of which only some is shown, a situation I hope we will soon change. But we already have a number of other good examples. For instance, though I cannot think of any that are ideal. But look at Journal of Chemical Physics, which I did a little while back to save it from deletion, or Annals of Mathematics, for a different type of article.DGG (talk) 17:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. How did J. Chem. Phys. ever get put up for deletion?? Carcharoth 23:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Academic conferences

I'm not going to mention it on the Journals WikiProject (unless you think it is relevant), but I thought you might be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Conference on the Gulen Movement as a way to gauge feelings for notability of conferences. I'd be particularly interested in a reaction to my comment "The question seems to be which academic conferences are notable? It is rare for academic conferences to get coverage outside of their specialised areas. Does this mean Wikipedia shouldn't cover them?" Thanks. Carcharoth 15:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course, picking a conference that hasn't even taken place yet might not have been the best idea... :-) Carcharoth 15:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

In my view, almost no individual conference is notable--the bar is very high. I can thing of a few exceptions--none of which presently have articles, nor would I at this time try to introduce them. The few that have made it as far as AfD, I've usually said delete. Series can be; in some cases their proceedings are major information resource. We need articles on most of the major ones--there are probably at least 50 in the sciences--though not 5,000. The current practice is usually to put them under the names of the sponsoring organisation. I may mention it at the project, because there is a related question of how to handle book series in general--but again, I'd want to get journals more throughly established first. 16:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)== TfD nomination of Template:Trivia==

Template:Trivia has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Pixelface 20:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Orangemike again

Orangemike re-deleted an section in Corset article without/against consensus again. What to do? --78.0.18.147 11:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Masterfully done! --83.131.80.42 23:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

DGG's edit made sense, unlike the original section (which I feel was deleted in accordance with consensus, thank you!). I still feel it's Undue Emphasis (especially on catsuits), but it's not the silly spot-the-corset game which the original list would lend itself to. --Orange Mike 15:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

agreed that the catsuit part needs further expansion--so does the rest of the material--it doesnt even mention what I think the most notable use: Gone With the Wind. DGG (talk) 15:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"agreed"? I'm saying it should go out, not get expanded. None of this stuff is very notable; it might be relevant for a Corsetry wiki or fetishist forum, but I really don't see why you think it belongs here at all, much less at greater length!? --Orange Mike 18:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

we obviously disagree on the importance of this material--I've given my reasons at length at multiple AfDs. The use by notable artists of a particular theme is notable, and goes under the theme as well as the artist. As a general field, it forms one of the parts of the academic study of cinema etc and popular interest as well. (In art history in fact it's the basis of dating and provenance). When editing this sort of material I remove references from non-notable artists, judging in fields I do not know by the WP entries, as for a list. I'll do the GWTW tonight--it's one of the most famous scenes in the movie. I notice you use the term "very notable"--but it doesnt have to be very notable or even notable to be acceptable content, that standard applies only to articles. And even for article notable, not very notable is the standard. One could indeed make an encyclopedia of only the very notable, but it wouldn't be WP--there are other projects with that goal. I replied hoping your comment was an attempt to find some common ground. (My current suggestion is to abandon video game uses as in practice unsourcable, to accept other cultural refs, and to integrate bio into the bio. and adaptations into the main section on versions.) DGG (talk) 18:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Columbia University's School of Continuing Education

Following up, please note - this paragraph is a word-for-word copy of page four from the school's 2006 Dean's Report.[12]

(details refactored)

I hope that's enough to demonstrate the problem: most of the page is copyvio from university publications, posted by single purpose IPs or accounts that either resolve to the university or are obviously related to it. The abuse is so blatant that bulleted lists aren't even reformatted in wikimarkup. Please speedy. Durova^Charge! 22:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

indeed yes--I perfectly well realised that it would all have been copied from various places. I left that edit summary just to prevent deletion while I reworked it quickly. I have now removed all the detailed sections and stubbified the basics. I think a stubbified article can serve a useful lesson--more on your page--our postings seem to have crossed. DGG (talk) 22:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Small-world Experiment page

I recently learned that the Small-world Experiment page is scheduled to be reverted over possible copyright violation issues. As the person responsible for the suspected copyright infringement, I have posted a clarification on the talk page. Hopefully this clears up the issue. For further clarification, you are welcome to contact me. --Jerfgoke 20:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC) I've replied at length to your question about this on the article talk page Talk:Small world experiment. Please also see [13] for how I proposed to deal with this. DGG (talk) 20:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Journals added

I added another article to the sandbox page, User talk:Journals88/sandbox, using your advice from the previous article. Would you be able to critique and make sure it is not a COI? Thank you for your help and sorry I have been taking so long to get back to you.Journals88 17:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

try them now. DGG (talk) 18:53, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Another one.

These users should have been blocked and severely warned, as I'm tired of this. I don't have time for this one, as I'm writing a report right now. [14] KP Botany 00:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Same user, back again. Has been blocked & I will clean up. I too have now lost whatever patience I have. If you see any additional ip addresses , let me know. DGG (talk) 02:14, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I got inspired to track things down further, found several additional ip addresses going back to Sept 1, blocked them all, removed links (& a good deal of misc. spam from others), & figured out some other ways to find them. Will follow up on COI page. Yes, you are right that my initial AGF was not correct. Kept going till my mouse stopped working from overuse. Literally. DGG (talk) 14:32, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Yup, pretty bad. Thanks. KP Botany 01:09, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Technical book categories, any input?

Any insight on technical book categories would be appreciated.[15] KP Botany 01:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:TIMETRACE

Hello, I wonder if you could, while editing diverse articles, check if they have sources in their history or chronology (or when they mention any important date. If they don't, could you please place inline {{Timefact}} calls where those citations to sources are missing, this will display . If you find an article with too many inline calls to place or totally lacking needed history of the subject, you can instead place {{histrefm}} at the footnotes of the article's main page, just before Categories. If you could add this to your routines, it will most certainly help WP:TIMETRACE. Thank you for your help. Daoken 06:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

In-popular-culture notability guideline proposal

Hey, I've been told you would have a lot to say about Wikipedia:Notability (in popular culture). Please take a look at that page and give us your thoughts. MessedRocker (talk) 14:28, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

New proposal: Wikipedia is not a trivia collection

This proposed guideline is so that WP:NOT#TRIVIA can be returned to Wikipedia. It is distinct from Wikipedia:Trivia sections in that it is a content policy, not a style policy. This guideline states that trivia may be removed.

I know in advance this is not your point of view, and this proposal may be seen as in competition with the Wikipedia:Relevance of content guideline, which I think is mostly your work. However, I'm hoping you can find elements of my proposal that might help your proposal, and I'm hoping I can receive some feedback from you about what is needed to make my proposal better.

As I've stated at WP:VPP, it doesn't help my proposal for contradictory philosophies to be introduced — this is, after all, a proposed guideline and does not need to contradict itself. However, I would also be interested in feedback from people have problems with excluding trivia, and you are an experienced editor who I trust can collaborate in good faith. I'm hoping you might have a few specific suggestions on how this guideline can be made better, preferably on a relevant Talk page, either mine or Wikipedia talk:Avoid trivia.

If you are not interested in supporting this proposal in any way, I won't hold it against you, but I think I can only benefit from your suggestions. / edg ☺ ★ 14:37, 23 September 2007 (UTC).

I have replied at the VP discussion--I do have some suggestions. I do think we need a guideline--I don't wantto be aguing this in 10 different places forwver. But it should reflect the factors that do seem to matter and still be flexible enough so people of all tendencies can support it. The Relevance of content section is, however, not my work. It was written almost entirely by User:Father Goose, and the history will show I made one single edit only. [16]. Even on the talk page I only made two comments-- [17] and then [18] Maybe they have influenced the subsequent discussion. But my interest in that guideline page is about something else: balance and proportion in general. DGG (talk) 18:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

But where do you want to centralize the discussion--I'll copy it there. DGG (talk) 20:01, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

No one seems to think Wikipedia:Avoid trivia was useful in its current form, so I'm retiring it as an unneeded distraction. At least now I know.

As to where this discussion should continue, I dunno. I'll follow it wherever, but it seems deadlocked in 2 or 3 places. And "deadlocked" is optimistic on my part; really it's moving toward abandoning trivia exclusion of any kind. / edg ☺ ★ 01:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

There is an immense amount of article content labeled trivia ( or not labeled trivia) which is inconsequential or infantile and should be removed. How to do it fairly I do not know--see my long comment above to Becksguy. But it's interesting we see the trend differently--I think I am fighting against all odds to try to retain notable content. T reason this problem is so difficult is, in my view,the over-zealous actions of those who tried and are still trying to delete everything resembling popular culture. If there had been a reasonable effort at removing clearly inappropriate content, it would have gone much more smoothly. But anything that appears to be a concerted effort to remove wholesale any sort of article or content that is not liked, tends not surprisingly, to arouse opposition. DGG (talk) 01:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

article content labeled trivia (or not labeled trivia) which is inconsequential or infantile ... should be removed.

I don't see how a consensus can form around any means of doing this. The current environment is hostile to content restrictions of this sort, and there is considerable momentum for removing what already exists. At a later time when things have cooled down, there will be considerable precedent for retaining such content. Already plenty of editors think In popular culture and Trivia sections are standard features. / edg ☺ ★ 03:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

as for popular culture, I do think it should be a standard feature whenever there is enough material. As for the content of trivia sections, I think the consensus is that the usable material should be distributed in the article in a more appropriate way. I don't support inadequate articles or weak content & I think we can find a way by which reasonable people can work together for a reasonable compromise goal. One in which there may be articles that perhaps not everyone agrees are justified, but where the content is as good as possible. That's my goal in general on a number of topics--to stop disputing borderline cases of notability and work on content. And in getting the real junk out and keeping it out. DGG (talk) 04:57, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry to badger you with attention requests, but you may want to take a look at Wikipedia:Notability (in popular culture) which started yesterday. Not sure if discussion there would be redundant with other forums; your input is welcome. Best, — xDanielx ^T/_C 05:49, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: criteria for academics

Hi DGG -- I assume you're referring to Dlawer Ala'Aldeen? The way I work on AfD with academics tends to be to list all the information that I've found that I feel has a bearing on the notability of the subject, whether positive, negative or neutral, and then to see whether on balance I believe that s/he appears to have attained sufficient notice by his/her peers to meet WP:PROF.

I agree that citations are more important than raw numbers of papers, but unfortunately have access only to Google Scholar, which is partial at best. As to the professor vs other titles divide, that doesn't really make much sense in the UK at the moment, as we're currently transitioning from a system in which only heads of departments are given the title of professor to something more akin to the US system. In the meantime, what 'professor', 'senior lecturer', 'reader' &c&c means is entirely university and indeed department dependent.

My standards for keeping an existing article (that was created in good faith and without obvious conflict of interest) are significantly lower than my standards for creating a new article myself. Regards, Espresso Addict 21:50, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

creation of journal pages

Hello DGG. Thank you for the messages regarding the pages I have created for a number of UC Press-published journals. I am an employee of the Press, and was asked to create these pages. I was not aware that doing so was in violation of WP standards (let alone copyright standards), and it was not my intent to add content that does not warrant inclusion. Nor was it my intent to create additional work for WP to clean up the pages I created. I will do my best to bring the pages up to snuff, and I apologize for any inconvenience. Thanks. -Joe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph.tobin (talk • contribs) 18:20, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Fan fiction article

Hello, I recently returned from an editing hiatus of sorts, and decided to go back to work on some of the articles I had been working on previously. I was just looking through your profile and thought that you might like to contribute to the Fan fiction article, one of my prior favorite frustrations (heh) which could probably use someone of your experience and interests looking at it. I'm especially keen on seeing the early history of printed derivitive works improved, which seeing as it goes back to at least the 18th century, I thought sounded like it might be right up your alley. I also think we still have a bit of a dearth of academic references and mentions in modern times, despite the increasing interest in fan fiction in academic circles in recent years. You sound like you are a LOT better at digging this stuff up than I am, and the history really does seem to be rather interesting. Just thought I'd bring it up, in case you were interested. :) Any extra set of eyes looking at the article would be much appreciated! Runa27 21:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

h-index and CiteULike

Hi DGG,

Thanks for the kind words regarding my work on h-index. Once I have some spare time on my hand, I'll try to work in some recent research on the topic. V interesting stuff showing that women in evo/eco have generally lower h-index even though other attempts to show impact of research show them level with men.

Regarding the CiteULike article, please tell me where you see a conflict of interest. I attempted to remove the direct quotes from the website that were previously in the article. And rewrote most of it. Also emailed the authors regarding the free status of the service (see talk page) for a justification why there's no statement referring to that on their website. They were responsive and said that there are currently exploring ways to support the site, possibly via contributions from companies, institutions, etc. Since this is in the making, they said, it might cause legal complication to place such a statement on their website.

Please let me know where you see a conflict of interest, so I can rework that part and remove the tag.

Best, Jakob Suckale 11:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC) -

replied on your page, and fixed it a little more and removed the tag. 18:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

will contact you by email to discuss. best, Jakob Suckale 10:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Compersion

I don't understand your rationale for removing the afd tag about this article, but would like to. The article itself is a full wiktionary entry with a usage note. Is your rationale that it should stay because there is discussion and that might lead to an article? Why wouldn't we keep the afd tag and let that emerge from the discussion? If the afd led to some non-dictionary content in the article, that would be OK with me. DCDuring 10:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I saw your talk entry. That ought to do it. Afd has a too short a fuse for an off-the-beaten track article, I suppose. DCDuring 10:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Right--there are many attempts to try to find some intermediate or different way to get people to work intensively on articles. I support them as experiments, if they are not too dogmatic of bureaucratic about it, or want to add yet additional complicated rules or machinery; I can't think of a good way myself, but perhaps someone will be more ingenious. By the way, I removed a Prod not an AfD--See WP:Deletion policy for the difference. DGG (talk) 11:08, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Charon in popular culture discussion mentioned in Los Angeles Times article

Dear DGG, I don't know if you saw this, but it may interest you. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 01:58, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks and a query (magazines)

Thank you for the 'excellent work' message on my talk page. Did you mean extending that particular list and changing its name to reflect the greater coverage, or creating/working on a series of lists for diferent countries/periods?? I am game for either, on the understanding that my time for Wikipedia is limited, so I tend to have 'bursts' when nothing more demanding is happening in the 'real' world - like earning a living... ;~) --Abbeybufo (talk • contribs) 11:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC).

either way--Unless considerably more information can be added about the individual childrens' magazines themselves, I think a wider coverage would be better, either geographically or chronologically. The article will be strong if more extensive in any direction DGG (talk) 19:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

OK. I did a {{main| }} link to the History of British Comics, so my first thoughts are to keep this list as a British one, even if it gets extended beyond the early C20 period...happy to do some work on that. But my knowledge of other countries' magazine lit is limited - though as an ex-librarian myself (can one ever be an ex-librarian, I wonder?) I could probably find out quite a bit. Whether that would be enough to be more than a stub for each country, though?? - Maybe we should try and keep them all on the same page after all and have headings for different countries within the list, which could be extended by people with greater knowledge (one would hope) - what d'you reckon? --Abbeybufo (talk • contribs) 20:09, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I consider most of what I do here to be working as a librarian, if that's an answer. Advising people about information (& for that matter, about navigating bureaucracies. ) As for these magazines, did you see them as comics primarily? --I'm thinking of the nearest thing I know well, which is Wodehouse's school stories. and in an earlier period--Edgeworth--you might want to make the acquaintance of User:Awadewit. DGG (talk) 07:56, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

No I dont see them as primarily comics, but the History of British Comics page does include Boy's (& Girl's) Own Paper fairly early within the article, so I think that article does reckon to cover the magazines. This is why I added in some that are shown on that page (on which, BTW, there is quite a long list) and added the 'main article' link. Are we agreed that the page should be extended as far as poss to include all countries and periods, with country or area subheads [the link for History of British Comics can then go under the UK heading] and hope this will encourage others to contribute about the mags for countries they know about?? If so at what stage should the page title be changed and the 'move' [if that's what it is] get done? And does a move take links already made with it, or act as a redirect for them...or does that have to be done by fixing them separately via 'what links here'? - I'm new enough not to have got involved in too much of that sort of rearrangement yet. :)

I don't think one ever really stops being a librarian; once you've worked on an enquiry desk for 20+ years it is second [or possibly first!] nature to try to guide people to the right place for the information they're looking for - which I suppose is why I've felt compelled to keep coming back to WP and tweak here and there as my own expertise/interest allows. I will look at User:Awadewit's pages and maybe leave a message, thanks for the suggestion. Abbeybufo (talk • contribs) 13:46, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll answer the easy part--if you want to make it more general, now is the time. List of childrens magazines and annuals is presumably what you're after. in that case. A move takes care of the links if it's a straight move. A merge is harder, but I can do both for you as needed. what would mainly need cleaning up is categories, and you should think about that as well. But here is the real problem: in general, lists are supposed to include only notable things, normally defined as those with a Wikipedia article. So the "red links' will be a problem. How much of an article will be needed to support notability is not clear. There's a project Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals‎ which can probably be of some help, though the orientation is a little different. DGG (talk) 23:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Compersion

Compersion is a neologism. It appears to have been invented in the subculture of polyamory. They need to a better job of providing hooks to existing words (See meme for a clever coinage) for their own cause. In the same link cruise, I came across the terminology within polyamory page, which illustrates their concern for novel terminology, confirmed by visiting the external links. The article is a glossary. Doesn't the article name alone indicate a problem with WP:NOT a dictionary?

As to Compersion, my WP objection is not to the word, not to the concept, but to the mere dictionariness of the entry. There is a main entry, polyamory, that is a nurturing home for the concept. If compersion were a redirect to that page, it would be fine. Many smaller articles that don't represent potential forks to different articles from a user's point of view ought to be merged or converted to redirects to accelerate the user getting to a meaty article on the concept of interest, in context. I proposed the deletion (sloppily, trying to follow the instructions given in the prod template), because I was thinking in terms of deleting the text content, not so much the page itself. Maybe my goal could be viewed as a merge back into the polyandry article. But only deletion discussions seem to generate debate and significant editorial improvement for less attended-to articles. The source tags especially seem to be ignored. DCDuring 12:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

There is an overlap between dictionaries and encyclopedia. Articles giving merely the definition and etymology of the word, and examples of usage, go in Wiktionary. Articles that discuss the usage--or the etymology--in a substantial way go here--such discussions are not generally allowed in Wiktionary--they consider that information encyclopedic. . Obviously there will be many articles that can be seen from either perspective. The way I look on it is that if the information seems readily capable of development from a subject perspective, then it probably belongs in WP, on the same principle as we have stubs. If it seems unlikely that a subject article could be written, then it doesnt. In this case, there seems to be potential for discussion the concept as well as the word formation. Thanks for the link--I find the invention of these words a very curious phenomenon. On the one hand, the concepts seem to be real--or at least they seem to match what some people perceive in their own feelings and for which there is no standard word. Personally, I dont like this word--I keep spelling it comperson, as a sort of portmanteau between compassion and person.

as for the subject, yes, i did think that might have been part of the reason, and in general I try to support the expansion, not condensation of articles of sexuality. In this case its not really part of polyandry, which is much more limited. The feeling of friendship and love between multiple wives is as much a part of it, for which there is an immense historical record. There's much less literature on the reciprocal, primate males being as they are. There's also of course other possibilities, such as the relationship between a bisexual person's gay and straight lovers. There might be place for a general article, but we'd need a word for it--and here we are back again. DGG (talk) 01:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar award

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		I hereby award you this Barnstar of Diligence for your extraordinary contributions to the AfD process, whither the D be speedy or slow! Dreadstar † 06:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: welcome colleague

I'm taking a whole bunch of courses, no specialty yet:

• filosophy/theory of information science
• history of book and library
• statistics in the information sector
• technology for automated document information systems
• structure in document information systems
• retrieval in document information systems
• social aspects of information
• law and information
• management strategy in the information sector
• data processing in information
• present issues in publishing and booktrade

And I'm probably doing an internship transforming 18th/19th century etches into electronic form. For now, I'm pretty new to all of it. Still need to look around and try things out to see in what way I'll be helping the Librarians project though. Also depends on the area of information science that will get my preference in the future. Key to the city 09:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

IPC

Just wanted to let you know about Wikipedia:Notability (in popular culture), in case you didn't know about it. Someone created it recently as a proposal.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 15:14, 10/9/2007

Fallout from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boitumelo McCallum

As the current Emperor of the Inclusionists, would you be able to take a look at this can of worms and see if you can suggest a solution? I confess to being at a loss - I really don't want to nominate roughly 50% of an editors work for deletion, but even at my most inclusionist I can't really make a valid case not to do so. Can you think of any way we could at least save some of them? (My normal instinct would be to merge them, but I can't think of anything legitimate to merge them to; List of murder victims in New York City would be unmanageably large, to say the least.) Any thoughts? — iridescent (talk to me!) 18:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that... My gut feeling is to leave them until other people stumble across them and they're nominated one-by-one — a bulk nomination is likely to lead to a huge amount of arguing & bad faith — but I see real problems with any attempt to rewrite them. My gut instinct (assuming there's nothing to merge them to) is to cut them down to stub length (Wikipedia is not a true-crime magazine, and I see no reason at all for the precise details unless they're directly relevant to the case), but I've no doubt at all that that would spark a permanent revert war. There are 500+ murders in NYC alone every year, and I really can't see anything more noteworthy/notable about these than any others. (Sooner or later, someone's going to need to turn their attention to Billy again as well; he's still cut-and-pasting as fast as ever.) Ho hum. — iridescent (talk to me!) 21:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Trivia

Totally appropriate, dude. I completely agree with you. I'm watching the conversation to see how it goes...but I can't imagine wholesale removal of Triva or Pop Culture sections without an attempt to incorporate the content into the aricle makes any sense at all...unless it's a new rule come down the pike... Dreadstar † 20:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

There's an ANI thread about the whole situation here with some consensus slowly building in a subsection.--chaser - t 22:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. They may need to better deliniate the WP:V issues from the WP:TRIVIA issues, they're separate, imho. Removal of unsourced content from the trivia sections is fine, but is the baby being thrown out with the bathwater when the entire trivia section is deleted - as in reliably sourced trivia? "Reliably sourced trivia" - is there such a thing? It almost sounds like an oxymoron....heh. I'm not sure if I like trivia sections or not, but we don't currently prohibit them. Thanks for pointing it out, Chaser! Dreadstar † 03:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

trivia can in practice mean relatively trivial, or utterly trivial. But unfortunately it has been widely used outside WP to mean "collection of miscellaneous curious facts about a person or thing, some of which may actually be important but some are just amusing" and the use of our trivia sections copies this. We're stuck with the word, because the rest of the world uses it, and because of the intrinsic meaning it has a negative connotation to many sensible people, which is not always reflected in the material.

in popular culture,however, is a respected academic term for a way of studying literature and society, and is to some extent the currently popular specialty, both in writing and in courses for students. There are some old-fashioned people who think it a diversion from serious analysis, but they are a small minority. Some seem to have gotten involved with Wikipedia and are trying to restrict us to their preferred limitations. DGG (talk) 03:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Excellent analysis of the situation, DGG. I guess we'll have to convince those old-fashioned minds so we can serve our readers properly by keeping up with everyone's trivial pursuits..;) Dreadstar † 03:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

In fact, I came to my position by realising that my idea of serious topics was seen by others as a prime example of the pursuit of the trivial--that the academic world I have spent my career assisting was regarded by many here as not worth the attention. I have always myself been rather poor at the literal game of Trivial Pursuit--I would not make a good editor of such materials. The only way of preserving minority interests is live and let live. Some call it intellectual freedom and the promotion of diversity. DGG (talk) 04:02, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Well said. From reading your userpage bio, I knew you came from an academic background of the world of scholarly information, and your experience there is very helpful to our project. I'm very glad to have you contributing and I'm glad to have run across you here. Me? Well, I never liked the game of trivial pursuit...it always seemed...oh, I don't know...trivial? :D My head is so full of trivia in certain areas it's almost scary sometimes...and I use these bits of trivia to try and inject humor or interesting bits of info when I'm communicating with other editors here...heck, I've done it on this page... Trivia can be a effective tool..but beware of the power of dark side of the triv...oh, wait, never mind...another trivial leap 'o the braincells...;) Dreadstar † 05:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you're correct on your analysis of "Trivia" vs. "In popular culture", I think some analysis of some things in current mainstream culture is entirely appropriate. I tend to draw the line at "Is the in popular culture article or section prose based on sourced and verifiable analysis of the subject's impact on popular culture, or is it just a list of when it's appeared in this that or something else?" The first case is acceptable and appropriate, the second has to go. This being said, what would you say to working together on a project? I think it would be easy enough to find sourced analysis of a major subject's impact on modern culture, and we could set up an article to "show how it's done", as it were. Let me know if you'd be interested. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

As mentioned, I'm not the ideal person for most of these topics, as I do not know the sources for popular music or television, nor can I really judge importance. In those fields I use WP to learn, not to write. And so I think that perhaps smaller more focused articles -- or perhaps sections-- are clearer: "Dragons in computer games", for example. But I agree that everyone involved in this question ought to contribute to the writing as well as the discussion. Let me look for one that might interest both of us.

the question of the validity and appropriateness of list articles affects more than this topic, though the discussion is often inter-twined. In general, to be frank, I like lists and tables wherever they are appropriate. I think WPedians often write these clearer than they write prose. The sort of long turgid paragraphs used for many articles contributes to vague thinking and vague sourcing. It takes real skill to make descriptive paragraphs interesting and clear, but anyone who understands the subject should be able to do a fair outline. Would people here could write better, but we must adapt our demands to our abilities. DGG (talk) 06:17, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

== Fortuitious post-suggestion ;-) ==

I noticed that you mentioned to an editor that the fictional debates are not one and the same. I had just finished applying the following to all 3 related AFD's.

Cheers! /Blaxthos 00:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

creative use of the template! i think the best solution is to rewrite in somewhat smaller pieces whether or not these are deleted now. And there are too much of IPC/trivia related problems for one day. 01:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

pick a journal ... any journal

I have spammed everyone else on the project so, ... could you pick an old journal in a field that you are familiar with for a future collaboration project; enter it under "Nominations for future CotW:" in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Academic_Journals#Planning_ahead. Thanks, John Vandenberg 02:36, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, the notability discussion is picking up again. Nurg has done a draft based on the books guideline. I think you had some developed ideas on this, so if you have time to contribute, that would be great. Discussion is spread between the WikiProject talk page and User talk:Nurg/Notability (periodicals). Carcharoth 12:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Search LOVE in Google

Hi, DGG: Just for my edification, could you point out the assertion of notability contained in the Search LOVE in Google article. Thanks. --Evb-wiki 22:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I might perhaps have worded it better as the good faith willingness of the ed. to improve the article. He's got 5 days. Without the hangon, I probably would have deleted. DGG (talk) 23:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I can live with that. I thought I was missing something. Cheers. --Evb-wiki 00:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

ACM Multimedia

Where is the assertion of importance in this article? What are the notability guidelines for conferences and meetings? Robert K S 06:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

1. Speedy for non notability can only be used for the classes of material given as WP:CSD. Technical scientific, business meetings etc are not included among them. There has been very strong resistance to expansion of those criteria. 2. Further, according to WP:CSD A7 even for those things included any good faith indication of notability at all is sufficient to prevent speedy. If you doubt the notability, you may test it at AfD. 3. But since this is a major international conference of the major professional association in a field where professional conferences are the main avenue of communication, it will probably be held notable. There are no special rules for articles on these, just WP:N., but all major series of conferences proposed for AFD in the last 9 months have been held notable. Individual conferences have usually been held non-notable. In practice, the guidelines are determined by the decisions at AfD. But that's just my advice, and you have the right to test them. DGG (talk) 06:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. I'm not sure you answered my questions. All articles have to assert notability, no? I do not doubt that ACM Multimedia is a professional conference, but it must point to some source showing that it is in order for the article to stand. You seem to be saying that, to the best of your knowledge, there are as yet no notability guidelines for meetings and conferences, and that each such article must be tested on a case-by-case basis through AfD. Robert K S 07:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

"Assert" is a very weak word. the subjects of all articles have to do much more than that, they have to actually be notable. For some types of articles, many of them give so little indication or assertion of any possible notability at all that it is appropriate to remove them quickly on the grounds that notability would not possibly be able to be shown. That's for speedy--it deals nicely with the real junk. I, like most admins, take a share in deleting a dozen of so each day. Everything else goes for AFD or PROD.

Most types of articles have no specific guidelines, in fact, just WP:N. It's the default, and the others are just specializations--and are every one of them not fixed policy but flexible guidelines subject to interpretation. All questioned notability for whatever reason gets tested at AfD, and any good faith registered user such as yourself has the right to bring an article there to test it. I am advising you it will probably stand, on the basis of my experience with the last year's worth of such article brought there, but that is just advice. I am not the person who gets to decide. The question will be argued, and the consensus of the people discussing it there will be followed. I will advise you that the article can in my opinion certainly be sourced, and you might want to try to look for some yourself--it takes less time than the afd nomination process. The rule is that articles are not deleted for being unsourced, only for being unsourcable. An appropriate intermediary step is to place a PROD tag on it, saying something like no sources given for notability -- see WP:PROD for the procedure -- and notify the person who wrote the article to give them a chance to source it. AfD s a blunt and cumbersome tool to get articles sourced and improved. DGG (talk) 07:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

You seem not to be getting my point.

It's not enough, in my understanding of Wikipedia, for a subject to actually be notable in order for its article to stand. The article must express this notability somehow. In other words, the article must indicate its own raison d'être. This can be done qualitatively or quantitatively; it can be as simple as a reference to an outside source. For the ACM Multimedia article, it can be something like "The conference was attended by 52,000 people in 2007": such would oppose it to articles that could only claim "I attended this event by myself, alone, in my basement last night". In your edit summary of your removal of my speedy tag, you said that the article asserts its notability. I do not see such an assertion. As it stands, I see an unsourced repository of external links. Robert K S 08:45, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

1. to say something is in some real way related to a major national organization is in any case an assertion or claim to notability. Anything at all that might make someone--not necessarily yourself--think something notable is an assertion of notability. Such a bare association about someone real, that he was for example president of such an association or chairman of such a conference, would be enough to prevent speedy A7, whether or not it was actually notable. There are two levels of notability, the minimal level to prevent A7--which does not require any sort of reference, by the way--and the higher level to stay in WP, which is actual notability per WP:N, and does require it to be referenceable. The place this policy is tested is at deletion review. Any very slight claim is cause for undeletion, if someone does delete it via speedy.
2. but it does not matter for this article, because a conference does not fit under speedy A7 as one of the limited number of classes, real people, groups of real people, bands, clubs, companies, and web content. Nothing else. Not conferences, meetings, conventions, schools, churches, pieces of music, buildings, computer programs, commercial products books, videos, religions, events, theories, essays--as examples of things people sometimes try to use A7 for, but they cannot be done that way. If one wants to challenge anything of these for notabiity, it has to be at WP:CSD or WP:PROD. Even if there were to be an article about a local conference of a city subsection of such a organization--which would almost certainly not be notable-- it would have to go via AfD or Prod.

The reason underlying this is that all of this are generally disputable or need more than 2 people to be reasonably sure. The place this policy is tested is also at deletion review. If some administrator does carelessly or deliberately delete such an article, if it is taken there, it is always undeleted. If an admin were to consistently insist of doing so, he would probably be de-adminned, as he would be for violating any other clear policy. --and there is in fact a proposal to make the procedure for doing so much easier. Even if i thought they were unimportant altogether, I still could not speedy it.

1. The place to urge an expansion of the types of things that fit under speedy or a change in the degree of notability is the talk page for WP:CSD or the WP:VP. there have been no expansions of the criteria the past year or longer. The trend there is, in fact, to restrict it further. You are anyone is welcome to try otherwise. I do not make the rules. DGG (talk) 12:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

New trivia/pop culture WikiProject

I presume this will be of interest to you: Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia and Popular Culture.--Father Goose 23:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: UCfD

Re: User talk:Black Falcon#UCfD

There's absolutely no need to apologise, I assure you. It's simply that I'm almost certain that I've never posted to your talk page regarding UCFD (well, except now). Were you referring to someone else, perhaps? I initially assumed that it was in reference to me, but upon rereading your comment, I see that it's ambiguous on that point.

As for a means of increasing participation, I can't think of anything at the moment. UCFD is advertised about as much as any other deletion process. Participation there seems, for the most part, to fluctuate with the quantity of nominations: when many categories are nominated at the same time, raw participation increases. The quantity of nominations itself is quite variable: some days see a few dozen new nominations and other times numerous days pass with only a handful.

I don't think it's entirely feasible to combine most of the XfDs. The deletion/inclusion standards for categories, templates, project pages, and redirects are vastly different. If there is any move to consolidate them, I think it should be carried out in small steps, in order to allow the full consequences to be revealed.

To me, the most obvious target for consolidation is WP:STFD; since it deals both with templates and categories, its function could be split and allocated to WP:TFD and WP:CFD, respectively. I've also considered proposing combining WP:UCFD and WP:CFD (indeed, that's why I initially became active at UCFD in June), but I don't think that's viable at this point in time. Moreover, the standards for user categories are substantially different from those for regular categories. A 'year of birth' category for people would be kept at CFD but a similar user category was deleted at UCFD; an 'interest' or 'language' category for biographies would be deleted at CFD but those for users were kept at UCFD. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I have finally figured out who made the comment I referred, and it was certainly not you! I'll fix my implication. As for UCFDs, I notify the people individually with a bot. If none of them mind, we're done with it. I doubt many people watchlist their user categories (but how should I know really, since I don't use them myself). another way to notify would be through relevant project pages, in instances where it applies. Personally, I think very highly of WP Projects as a way for effective work in such a large overall setting as WP, , and we should continue to develop their usefulness. the real problem with UCFD is that some people dont want them except for strictly encyclopedia-related issues, and I think that is fundamentally wrong in principle, and we need some kind of a referendum. I really have doubts about anything that might suggest paternalism or telling other people how to organise themselves, unless there is actual abuse. That happens, of course, and when it does it should be dealt with. DGG (talk) 23:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. The diff of your response was also quite informative and helps shed light on the pattern of your participation. In response to your comment above, I would like to make two points.

First, I agree that WikiProjects are effective for bringing together and coordinating the efforts of various editors; that's one of the reasons that I consider the Category:Wikipedians by WikiProject category tree to be useful, and am generally hesitant to delete (or suggest deletion of) any page that is used by a WikiProject.

Second, I would be surprised if people watchlisted every user category that they appeared in; it's more likely that they just watchlist the ones they have created. Still, I don't view paternalism to be an issue with user category discussions, since appearing in a user category rarely involves an actual, conscious decision. In virtually all cases, users appear in a category because they transclude or have substed a certain userbox. Their appearance in the category is coincidental and they may even be completely unaware of the accompanying category. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Pop culture?

Any more input on User:Mangojuice/PC? Mangojuice^talk 19:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

as a start, change to /Cultural references. Second, are you aiming for user space or WP space. I would suggest WP space. Depending on which, I will look at details againDGG (talk) 19:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Aiming at a WP space essay, at Wikipedia:Popular culture. I don't like "cultural references" because people have the understanding that "cultural references" refers to sections such as the "references in" lists I talk about. BTW, I saw your point about "explaining humor" - obviously you're right, it's relevant and worthwhile to explain plot, but there's a limit, so that bit could stand some rewriting. Mangojuice^talk 19:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

You may be right about "references" let's look around at what others have tried as page titles for this material.My point is, that much of the material may not in either direction be "popular" culture. Uses of Moby Dick or the Bible is not making use of popular culture. In the other directions, a theme used by, say, Rushdie, does not quite fit either. Not even all of film fits into this category. I have sometimes thought some of the sections should be dealt with separately (video games in particular, since there are still very few conventional secondary references.) as for location, do you mean as a replacement? or a subpage? The original is just an essay--subpages are generally discouraged except in user space. It might be interesting, though, to have a good way of doing a collection of different people's essays. DGG (talk) 22:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

CFD/AFD boomerang

Hi DGG - on a CFD discussion you noted * Keep Many of the AfD discussions on such lists close as calling for the exactly opposite treatment--to use the category. doing this is at cross purposes. There are several ongoing discussions on how to deal with such articles, and this change is at the least premature.DGG (talk) 17:02, 24 October 2007 (UTC). Do you have links for the "several ongoing discussions" on this topic? It's of great concern to me, as well. --lquilter 18:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

starting point: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trivia and Popular Culture, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trivia Cleanup, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Trivia is what Wikipedia does best, Wikipedia talk:Relevance of content , and see Wikipedia:"In popular culture" articles , Wikipedia talk :Trivia sections.

Lots of interesting stuff on the trivia/IPC debate, but I haven't found much on the AFD/CFD boomerang problem in which a list goes up for AFD and people say "let's make it a category" and the same category goes up for CFD and people say "not appropriate for a category; listify". Or am I missing something? --lquilter 15:47, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

That particular line was used more a few months back, where one or two editors were consistently following a pattern of first splitting off content from a main article as too long to keep together, then nominating the split one for deletion as non notable. But it wasnt back-and-forth, it was just nominated as better in a category. I'll find some afds where this was used. The general question of list vs category is a tricky one, because it also concerns the question of whether redlinks should be removed from lists--whether they can and should include content not sufficiently notable for a WP article. What's going on there is an overlapping movement of general opposition to lists. A great many major lists are being nominated as indiscriminate because they contain a large number of items. I want to look for some AfDs where the list was kept , so it will still be visible. I think the answer is to always have both if there are enough to justify a category. I dont see how we can decide a priori which way or organization is better. DGG (talk) 16:08, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I think there are lots of good reasons to like one or the other, depending on the situation. But then I am fairly inclusive on lists and on redlinks, too. (The redlink think actually annoys me quite a bit, because of course there are lots of systemic bias issues involved in it.) I really think there should be some sort of list for monitoring AFD/CFDs that center on the category/list question, to ensure some consistency of approach across the two discussions. I guess I'll propose that at the cat/list/infobox page. --lquilter 17:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

HarvardScience

Ok, I re-read the article, and didn't realize it was an official site. The wording made it sound like it was an unofficial one. But anyway, I found a source for notability (though it's not much) and added it in, though to be honest, there's little else about it online if you do a search for it (and rule out sites with harvard.edu in it). Kwsn (Ni!) 16:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad you found something--now it can probably survive Afd. DGG (talk) 17:31, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm sure more sources will come out eventually, the site is pretty new. Kwsn (Ni!) 17:48, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

other schools may have similar. I think Berkeley does--I will take a look for it. DGG (talk) 18:13, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Sylvin Rubinstein

Could you take a look again at Sylvin Rubinstein? Much, of not most, of it is directly from the webpage [19]. For example, the "Nazi Occupation" section - both of those sentences are directly lifted from the news article. In the "Resistance" section, the paragraphs/sentences that start "It turned out..." and "Werner arranged..." are directly lifted, and that's most of the section that isn't direct quotes from Rubinstein. And before Apeloverage's edit it was even worse. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 06:12, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I am in fact quite unhappy with this article, and said so on the article talk page. I have now looked further, and commented in some detail there based upon both the English and the German material. The author of the article is a well-establish and reliable editor who has worked on a number of different topics, primarily films. Had it been a newcomer, i would probably have deleted the article immediately. Perhaps he can fix it, based on your & my information. If not, i will stubbify it. DGG (talk) 17:28, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Kewl. Thanks for your attention and participation :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:35, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Wrong Assumption

Although I know wiki pages have been created for some penn state faculty members during these weeks, I have to say I only created the page for James Wang in fact (I trided to create the page for another faculty member I also really admire once, but I gave up at last due to not enough notability.) Please do not make ungrounded assumption. I do not think creating wiki pages for interested people is a problem. But I agree that WP:PROF and WP:RS should be measured. This is my first time to make effort to create and maintain a wiki page, so it might be not enough good in these two aspects due to my unfamiliarity to wiki editing rather than James Wang's contribution. That is why I am keeping remedying these two aspects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wendy xxy (talk • contribs) 04:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I apologize if I have overgeneralized. it does however appear to me --and to other wikipedians-- that the pages seem to have been created in some sort of an organized drive, as judged by the extensive similarities between the information presented , the formatting, and the style of writing. The rest of us here do think that creating pages for people where a COI exists is in fact a problem, because it leads to uncritical presentation as in these articles. People usually do better writing from a little distance. the net effect of this apparent campaign is going to greatly decrease the likelihood of articles being kept at Wikipedia. You may be able to tell from my user page here that i work very hard to keep the articles on significant faculty, but I can only do it for truly significant faculty and well-written moderate articles. In general articles on faculty run into some difficulty from those who do not understand that the publication of notable papers is what demonstrates notability. It is therefore necessary to be careful. You might want to follow the following guidelines: 1/avoid adjectives saying how important the work is 2/ only include the 2 or 3 most cited papers--in peer reviewed journals, as determined by an objective source, preferably Scopus or Science Citation Index, and give the exact number of citations from there. 3/List only significant prizes--not faculty teaching awards and the like. Outside major research grants do very nicely. 4/include full publication details of all the books, including the ISBN, and exact references to reviews of them in published sources. Publishers blurbs are not acceptable sources, no matter how important the guy who wrote them. I will be glad to offer further help, and i could do so particularly well if you could put me in touch with whoever is coordinating this project. DGG (talk) 04:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello badge

Hi. I made a Wiki Hello badge in case anyone's interested in using it for the Meetup. It's on the Meetup page. Nightscream 16:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Academic articles, what I think is important

In answer to a question from User:Dgandco about what constitutes the important requirements--as I personally see them

1. . Do not ever copy anything from a website, unless you fulfill the requirements of WP:COPYRIGHT. even then, it must be suitable.
2. . Read WP:BFAQ for information about conflict of interest and the necessary precautions.
3. . Read WP:PROFTEST from information about what counts as notability for faculty and researchers
4. . Remember the difference from an academic CV, which lists everything pertinent, and an encyclopedia article, which contains only information about the most important accomplishments.
   1. . List only major works: Books, the most important peer-reviewed journal articles, major awards, chairmanships, and so on.
   2. .Books are shown to be important by first, the nature of the publisher, and second, reviews in peer-reviewed journals. Include exact citations to such reviews, and third, being cited elsewhere.
   3. It is appropriate to list all the published books. Works in progress don't count for much.
   4. .Journal articles are shown important by fisrst, being published in excellent journals, and second, being widely cited. In the humanities, Scopus and Web of Science unfortunately dont work for citation counts--do the best you can with google Scholar.
   5. Overall number of peer reviewed articles is important, but do not actually list them all. Only the most highly cited or most recent or most significant. Usually, 5 is sufficient.
   6. Internal university committees are not usually of encyclopedic importance, nor is service as a reviewer. Editorships are. Positions as the head of major projects are.
   7. Teaching is only of encyclopedic importance if documented by major awards, notable students, or widely used textbooks .
   8. University administration below the Chair level is not usually important.
   9. Details of undergraduate work is not usually important, nor is any graduate work except the doctoral thesis research.
   10. work done independently after establishment as a full member of the profession in one's own right is what is important.
5. Remember the difference between public relations and an encyclopedia article
   1. Avoid adjectives of praise or importance
   2. Mention things once only.
   3. Mention the full name , & name of the university and department, only once or twice.
   4. Avoid needless words. Write concisely.
   5. Avoid non-descriptive jargon, and discussions of how important the overall subject is to society.
   6. Important public activities need to be documented by exact references to reliable 3rd party public sources/. don't use vague phrases about importance to the community and the like--list specific activities.
   7. .Do describe the research in specific terms, but briefly. Link to a few very specifically appropriate WP articles.
6. . follow WP style
   1. . Differentiate between External links, and references.
   2. . Link only the first appearance of a name of an institution or subject, but link all institutions and places
   3. . Give birthdate and place if possible
   4. . Use italics for book titles and journal titles, never bold face.

AND

• Be prepared to meet the common objection, "all professors publish. What are the third party sources saying this one is important"

Has this account been compromised?

Evidence: You just agreed with me. This is unprecendented. Please relinquish control of this account to the real DGG immediately. Someguy1221 00:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

if you'll look at my deletion log, you'll see my dark side shows itself itself every day, generally when I start editing. After I get that expressed, I go on in the way you normally think of me. DGG (talk) 01:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Not only did he agree with me earlier today, he even voted 'Delete' on an AfD (admittedly on one of Billy's articles, but even so...). I agree this pattern of events is most peculiar and warrants a full investigation. — iridescent 01:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of deletions, I've been arguing for the validity of the concept in Xenofiction, but my characteristic bungling is hampering me. Could you give a hand? Thanks. --Kizor 02:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you've been doing whatever can be done--except that if you can find a few more uses of the term, it would certainly help.. DGG (talk) 02:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but more of it needs to be done and the fact that IRL my insomnia is starting to verge on mental instability has made that kinda hard. There's now a question there addressed to you, btw. --Kizor 15:16, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I recovered. The article was deleted, but you can't have everything, can you? --Kizor (talk) 18:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

from the AfD " not part of the critical/descriptive vocabulary I'm aware of. It might be someday, but not now" -- so try in a few months. If it is really expanded and much better sourced, and meets the objections, it can be Boldly inserted--otherwise it needs to be put on a user page and requested at DRV. If you don't have a copy of the latest version, ask me to send you one. DGG (talk) 19:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Antarctica cooling controversy

Thanks for your opinion, I think your judgment was balanced and fair. By the way, I love your quote, which you invented by the results of the search I did. You can bet I am going to use it. Go ahead and make a userbox. It's really good. Mariordo 04:38, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Sources

Hey David. I had a question about two of your edit summeries (here and here). In the second case (Azeroth), I did indeed look for references, and found only mirrors and references to World of Warcraft (which has its own Azeroth article). More importantly, I understand (and I am open to correction) that is the responsibility of persons adding facts to wikipedia to insure the verifiability of that information by providing sources. Thus, WP:V opens with:

The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. 
All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be 
attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation.[1] The source 
should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question.
If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.

The articles I prod'ed had been tagged as needing sources for almost a year; which, I would think, is ample opportunity for references to be provided. Again, I could be reading WP:V wrong, in which case I am open to discussion about it. I don't have a bone to pick with either of these articles, just trying to clear up the backlog of unreferenced, unsourced material. Pastordavid (talk) 19:19, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

It's Saturday, so let me answer at some length, for I do recognize the problem.

WP:V if interpreted strictly would condemn quite a number of WP articles, and most of the content in most WP articles. There was been a long discussion this Spring, for a suggested Wikipedia:Proposed deletion process for unsourced articles, following one a year earlier, Wikipedia:Speedy deletion criterion for unsourced articles. The idea was to delete articles after X days of a unfilled request for sourcing. The original proposal was x=5, like Prod,or x=14.. As you will see from the talk, it was rejected soundly, on various grounds. the strongest negative argument, as I see it , was that amount of work in the time required was impossible. There were some discussions in various places about how, if the measure were passed, some sort of minimal sourcing could be done quickly--such as taking a standard textbook on a subject and adding it as a reference to every relevant article. The general feeling was that this level of sourcing was not much better than nothing, and it would be much more valuable to work, however slowly, on finding specifics. It was also realized that for any article, online sources would not be available, and perhaps 10% of Wikipedians have access to a really good conventional library--and fewer yet know how to use one.

It is somewhat easier now to source some classes of articles than it was even 6 months ago, due to the greater time scope of the free online NY Times, and the increasing coverage of Google Books Search. At present, my estimate of the time it would take me to do the full sourcing to proper standards of a long and difficult article, -- assuming I was working inside the Princeton library-- and with my years of experience about where information was likely to be found for things in general-- would be several days of full time work, comparable to writing a term paper on the topic. I could probably find some sort of basic sourcing at the rate of one or two an hour. Working online, with those resources remotely available to me, I can in fact usually find something in an hour, but it may not be very good; using free resources only, I could still do it in that time, but it may be just barely passable. I do this basic sourcing to rescue an article occasionally, about two a week. I have not yet had time to do a full article to what I consider the proper standards.

In practice, the requirement for sourcing is asked for only when it is desired to delete an article. But it is always desirable, and we should certainly work to that standard. The first steps will be teaching basic research techniques to undergraduates and high school students, increasing their willingness to consult physical libraries and librarians, improving the libraries they use--and increasing greatly the amount of material available free on the internet, as has been my emphasis in the last 10 years of my actual RW career promoting the open access movement.

But the requirement to source every fact in an article is really only necessarily for truly contentious material, of facts that have been challenged, and is usually interpreted as such. In addition, in some fields of science at WP, it is customary to do similar sourcing in detail, as one would for a professional review publication--personally, I consider such effort misguided and out of place in this sort of encyclopedia, which would do better to highlight the key references and a suitable number of general sources, as for an advanced undergraduate textbook. I think this one of the many examples where our rules do not match our practice. That we do not change the rules reflects first the inability to agree of any significant change, and second the (usually unspoken) desire to leave a wide range for wikilawyering.

As for these articles: "Charity care" I know is sourceable, and in fact I intend to source it. It is a very widely used term, and should give no difficulty. "Azeroth" has me as well as you a little concerned. I am wondering whether to treat it as a spelling variation, but I think it needs some professional attention from the few people here with the linguistic abilities. And I am not altogether sure it is worth that much effort. I am frankly working on the vague memory I've seen it used that way, outside of a game context.

You may then reasonably ask me --as I think you are--why I did not do so immediately. As I hinted above, its because there is too much to handle. I see my present role as a first responder performing triage, as I would rescue people from a natural disaster: pull them out of the rubble, patch them enough to let them survive a little longer, and leave an quick evaluation of what needs to me done for those who will later do the full job. I do it along with the other side of triage--putting the hopeless out of their misery, and not wasting time on those for whom there are unlikely to be the resources.

And that leads to what I now try to do also: recruit others to help in the rescue, and also in the real fixing to encyclopedic standards. I'm trying actively to recruit other librarians.

And in the meanwhile, I want to keep the ignorant bystanders from simply covering up and burying everything that looks like it might cause some difficulty. - - DGG (talk) 23:32, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

AFD's

Well I will definitely take it down a lot after this batch, it is a lot after all, and it is very hard to defend 100+ deletions at once :) And to try to discuss intelligently each one, well.... I agree more spaced out would be better. Judgesurreal777 04:23, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

thanks for understanding --for one thing, it looks like some of the combination articles may be heading for keep--and then it would make it easier to discuss the others. I agree that many of them dont look like they need much in the way of discussion--that's part of what i meant by "discuss intelligently". DGG (talk) 04:27, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

My father's MBE

Thanks for your kind offer to do some research into my father, but I really think that that would be flogging a dead horse. He was made an MBE for acting as honorary treasurer to some local charities. He may have got a paragraph in the local press at the time but certainly nothing more. I think your time would be better spent continuing your excellent work in defending genuinely notable articles from some of our trigger-happy new page patrollers and admins.

My comment in the AfD wasn't meant to imply any lack of notability for Pat Haikin, but if want to look for sources you would probably do better to concentrate on the Hoxton Apprentice rather the MBE. That restaurant certainly got some media coverage when it opened and I'm sure it deserves an article of its own, but I don't know if Pat Haikin's involvement was enough to make her personally notable. Phil Bridger 11:08, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

thanks for your comment on my rhetorical device--I apologize for using what may be seen as satyrical comment. I realize about MBEs, though it's probably best not to give a personal illustration. People have used that sort of argument otherwise--e.g. "I'm a professor, and I'm not worth an article." --some of them have been & for some articles have been written and gotten to stick. Looking more carefully, she was principal of what might be a major secondary school, which must be why she got the MBE--and such can in fact be notable--both I suppose for a MBE and sometimes for WP. I'm not really in a good location to do research on UK local history. I'll comment further at the AfD. DGG (talk) 11:23, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Appleton's Cyclopedia

Thanks for your note on the Resource Exchange. I had no idea, I'm not that familiar with American sources. But it sounds like we better remove that Cyclopedia altogether, or what do you think? Key to the city 12:37, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

As far as Resource exchange, yes. Nor do we need it. The period involved is now adequately covered by Google Book Search, and true sources are now readily available. But it is still useful where it can be confirmed elsewhere, and is still used academically--as i understand the question, it contains information not otherwise available, in many cases derived directly from relatives of the people covered or manuscript sources. But this is not really my period, and i think we need to investigate further the scholarly consensus. I think historians still do use it, but historians are trained in the use of multiple sources with the recognition that some will be unreliable and contradictory. Wikipedians in general do not have that skill. (which is why we here use secondary or tertiary sources and report all views expressed, being unqualified to do an adequate synthesis). DGG (talk) 12:52, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'll remove it. Sounds like it would do more harm than good in the Resource Exchange context. Key to the city 16:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this from the academic / reliability side. I had envision it as being similar to Britannica 1911, generally valid for the time in which it was authored, but out of date today. Originally, I had concerns about it from a spam perspective, because in April 07 there were over 60 distinct domain names which pointed to the famousamericans.net content. --Versageek 17:03, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there are all sorts of problems: the possible spam concern would have been using exclusively one of the several sites that offer it, but that can't really be avoided entirely any more than one can avoid listing JSTOR or project gutenberg. The copyvio is a serious matter until we find out which posted versions of the text are in fact original. I still think it can be used as a reference, but i would question an article where it was the only source. I've long been unhappy with not indicating exactly the material copied even when its public domain--I consider it an absolutely necessity to avoid plagiarism, though that view is not really the consensus here. And I am in general very unhappy with our use of the material from any of the older encyclopedia to fill our gaps, instead of writing properly sourced articles. Brittanica, & the Catholic Encyclopedia. that was a decision made way back, when WP was desperate for ordinary encyclopedic content--I wasn't here then, but even then I would have said it was a mistake, and now I fully support the project of revising every one of those articles. Now the old DNB is available as well, but at least it does have a good reputation for its period--though the older articles were not scholarly in the modern sense, and thousands of error reports have accumulated and been published. DGG (talk) 17:15, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

According to the Virtualology site, which is a copy & attempted revision of the notoriously unreliable Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, its revised biographies are arranged separately, as explained there "If you would like to edit this biography please submit a rewritten biography in text form . If acceptable, the new biography will be published above the 19th Century Appleton's Cyclopedia Biography citing the volunteer editor." from, e.g. [1] However, I see no firm indication that this is in fact the case, and would like to see some examples of this. Ones directly from Appletons are not copyvios. Ones modified from Appleton's are copyvios, because the Virtualology site is copyrighted. Unfortunately, the original ones are also known not to be reliable or accurate.( It is additionally plagiarism to use them with just the tag at the bottom, without indicating that the entire article was copied and what the exact source is.) I therefore doubt that any material from this site can ever be incorporated in Wikipedia. If unmodified, they are not reliable. If modified, they are not public domain. DGG (talk) 01:19, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Here are a few Edited Samples

John Baptist Lamy Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.johnbaptistlamy/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.jhectorstjohndecrevecoeur/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Johannes Megapolensis Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.johannesmegapolensis/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages John Mary Odin Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons johnmaryodin/ - 27k - Cached - Similar pages Manjiro Nakahama Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.manjironakahama/ - 18k - Cached - Similar pages Charles Francis Baillargeon Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons charlesfrancisbaillargeon/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages John Finley Rathbone Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons johnfinleyrathbone/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages John Taylor Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.johntaylor3/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Cornelius O'Brien Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons corneliusobrien/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Louis Amadeus Rappe Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons louisamadeusrappe/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Sister Margaret Bourgeois Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons sistermargaretbourgeois/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Lucretia Maria Davidson Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors .... Edited Appletons www.lucretiamariadavidson/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Francisco Ximenes Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons franciscoximenes/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages John Francis O'Mahony Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons johnfrancisomahony/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages John Adams Webster Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.johnadamswebster/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Juan Jose Flores Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.juanjoseflores/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Francisco Jarque Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons franciscojarque/ - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Michael Joseph O'Farrell Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.michaeljosephofarrell/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Juan Caballero Y Ocio Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons juancaballeroyocio/ - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Garcilaso de la Vega Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons garcilasodelavega/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Sebastian Garcilaso De La Vega Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors .... Edited Appletons www.sebastiangarcilasodelavega/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Juan Maria de Salvatierra Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.juanmariadesalvatierra/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Diego Garcia de Palacio Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons diegogarciadepalacio/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Edgar Philip Wadhams Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons edgarphilipwadhams/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Agustin Davila Y Padilla Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons agustindavilaypadilla/ - 18k - Cached - Similar pages Andr6s Avelino Caceres Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.andr6savelinocaceres/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Paul de Chomedey Maisonneuve Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.pauldechomedeymaisonneuve/ - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Juan Jose Escalona Y Calatayud Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.juanjoseescalonaycalatayud/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Lorenzo Hervas y PANDUR0 Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons lorenzohervasypandur0/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Anne Joseph Hyppolite Malartie Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons annejosephhyppolitemalartie/ - 18k - Cached - Similar pages Mother Marie de L'incarnation Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.mothermariedelincarnation/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages Atahualpa, Or Atabalipa (ah'-ta-oo-al'-pa) Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.atahualpaoratabalipa/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Dred Scott Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.dredscott/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages John Joachim Zubli Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons johnjoachimzubli/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Elzear Alexandre Taschereau Virtualologywelcomes editing and additions to the biographies. ... Edited Appletons elzearalexandretaschereau/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages John Joseph Kain Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.johnjosephkain/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Felix De (ath'-a-ra) Azara Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.felixdeazara/ - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Felipe Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons felipe/ - 24k - Cached - Similar pages Santa Rosa OF Lima Virtualologywelcomes editing and additions to the biographies. ... Edited Appletons www.santarosaoflima/ - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Francisco De (cor'-do-vah) Cordova Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons franciscodecordova/ - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Frederic Auguste Bartholdi Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.fredericaugustebartholdi/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages Bernardo Diaz Del Castillo Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons bernardodiazdelcastillo/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Malta Capac Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.maltacapac/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Miguel Grau Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.miguelgrau/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages Francisco Orellana Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.franciscoorellana/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages John Nepomucene Neumann Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.johnnepomuceneneumann/ - 26k - Cached - Similar pages Alvar Nufiez (kah-bay'-thah-de-vah'-ka) Cabeza De Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors .... Edited Appletons alvarnufiezcabezadeyaca/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages Apostolos Valerianos Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.apostolosvalerianos/ - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdez Virtualologywarns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors ... Edited Appletons www.gonzalofernandezdeoviedoyvaldez/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages --71.42.169.223 (talk) 21:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Prods

Please remember to give a reason when you enter the Prod. It makes it very hard to work with them otherwise.DGG (talk) 14:27, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi DGG,

A huge number (6000) of articles are listed at User:Eagle_101/potential_crap_3/4. These articles were prodded because they were listed there. I'm not about to put that in the edit summary, however. I don't want anyone to feel insulted that their articles were proposed for deletion because they are "potential crap". Firsfron of Ronchester 18:21, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

It just says "potential" . It isnt actually his view--you should read the notes--he says "This list contains all articles as of around October 17 that have no wikilinks and at least one external link....Some of these will need to be deleted. " It's just an algorithm for articles worth a look at that may, as he says, have been "items that were missed by RC patrol"

It is not a hit list for deletion, just for re-examination. You must use your own personal judgement. if you prod an article, you take responsibility for having read it and evaluated it. And you must then give a reason--your reason. DGG (talk) 18:32, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I've read the notes. I chose a small number of articles, and prodded most of them. These are "potential crap", and you can deprod them if you like, but then you must take responsibility for them. Firsfron of Ronchester 18:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I corrected that mistake right away, you know. Firsfron of Ronchester 01:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

yes, in correcting the prod of Robert Silverberg, the SF writer, winner of 2 Hugos and 6 Nebulas--and so asserted in the lede paragraph--you gave the edit summary "fix bot edit" ; looking at the timing, you were prodding them at the rate or 8 a minute, so you must indeed have been relying on a bot: a bot, deleting based upon a selection prepared by an automated screen.

Not only I, but two other editors have been deprodding the ones you have been placing, and commenting. But let's look at some of them, from myself and the other editors:

David Crichton a world champion freestyle skier

[David Ligare], a painter with works in MOMA, the Uffizi, and Thyssen-Bornemisza;

David Miln Smith on cover of Sports Illustrated as first man to swin from Africa to Europe across Straits of Gibraltar

David Edwards (ArtScientist) a professor of Biomedical Engineering at Harvard University & a novelist

According to WP:PROD,"Proposed deletion is the way to suggest that an article is uncontroversially a deletion candidate" DGG (talk) 01:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I am generally an inclusionist, David, but many of the articles I tagged are in terrible shape, and have been for months. If some are salvageable, salvage them. If some are tagged incorrectly, it can be fixed: they weren't speedied. I sincerely don't know why you brought up an article I correctly de-tagged myself. I suppose I could dredge through your edits and find something you'd mistagged and corrected immediately, and then bring it up on your talk page, making no mention of the fact that you had corrected it yourself right away. Firsfron of Ronchester 01:34, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if I am one of the "two other editors" mentioned, but I did de-prod an article in the group. Regardless I'd like to look past what seems to be a one-off failure to fully vet the prods, and look at a larger issue this action addressed, one which all of us are concerned about: solving the cleanup backlog and the many dubious articles associated with it.

At a steady 27K cleanup tag group count going on for months, despite efforts of many to clear tags (including myself at a few a week), it is clear that current cleanup efforts are barely holding steady. What does tagging an article mean if it is one in tens of thousands and the tag backlog is two years? The cleanup tag group fails to be meaningful and the information it provides to flag a problematic article is lost in a sea of other tags, old and new. We have effectively lost the use of a powerful tool to fix problems with Wikipedia. Too often now the tags are used as a flag for "I don't know what the hell to do about this mess, but I can't quite speedy it, so I'll stick a notability or wikify or general cleanup tag here and maybe another editor can figure it out." Probably have done that myself a few times.

The one-at-a-time effort is not working; an appealing solution is a semi-automated or bulk-processing approach to clearing out or cleaning up bad articles. I cannot fault Firsfron for trying this out on a small scale. I do have concerns with the actual implementation and side with DGG on the basic issues of over-prodding, but I certainly sympathize—no, more than sympathize—I support the basic concept of mass clearing, be it as tag removal or deletion of "crappy articles" when notability is neither asserted nor apparent.

Bottom line is that while I understand why this particular prod session is problematic, and why DGG and others are not particularly happy with the results, there are excellent reasons for experimenting with new solutions to the cleanup/bad article problem, if basic groundrules to avoid notability conflicts can be established and scrupulously followed. Any ideas? -- Michael Devore 02:24, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, Michael. I hope DGG won't mind if I respond to your comments here. I do apologize to all involved for stepping on toes here. My attempt was to help clear the backlog by prodding a few articles, not upset anyone by prodding notable subjects or potentially salvageable articles; I figured it was just a prod tag, easily removable by anyone if they felt it was justified to keep them. I'm not protesting any of the removed tags, but I see a danger in just doing this or this. Just slapping an unreferenced tag on an article won't help when it's been tagged for clean-up since March. These articles aren't improving, and no amount of adding maintenance tags will help them. The bot identified 6,000 of them (probably there are many more), so the 36 I prodded are a drop in the bucket. As I stated earlier, I'm generally an inclusionist: if something can be salvaged, it should be. But for the most part, these aren't being salvaged. They're just sitting there, collecting maintenance tags. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

If I might chip in here. One of the examples Firsfron gave of my 'unhelpful' edits was to deprod DataEase and tag it as unreferenced. Before Firsfron prodded this article, it didn't have any tags on it to indicate that it needed to be improved. DataEase is a highly notable piece of database software, and the article simply needs tidying up and references adding. I sympathise with Firsfron's frustration with the backlog of articles, but to prod an article with an edit history going back to June 2006, with dozens of contributing editors, and without any tags to prompt other editors into improving the article, is extremely poor. Irrespective of how frustrated you are or how big the backlog is, prod is only for uncontroversial deletion candidates. Another example is Darren Fleary, an international rugby league player. The article is clearly about a notable subject. It was a small stubby article, which had external links that could have been converted into references, and again it had no tags to indicate that the article needed improving before it was prodded by Firsfron. If editors are prodding articles that have been tagged as unreferenced or with unclear notability for some time, that's fine by me, but at least give other editors a chance to improve them first. Being on an editor's own list of "potential crap" isn't going to help anybody else to improve these articles.--Michig 09:09, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I've noted DGG's comments below, and appreciate them, both as advice and as editing motivation. I do want to state, though, that there's more to clean-up than adding an unreferenced tag: that article has no fewer than seventeen screenshots, all claimed to be in the public domain. The same user who uploaded all of these removed the clean-up tag originally on the article, and replaced it with this comment, which stayed in the article for over a month. This article needs serious attention. At best, it needs clean-up and referencing. At worst, it contains 17 copyright violations. Firsfron of Ronchester 11:08, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

It's on my list to go and try to clean this article up, but if you want to have a go yourself before I get the chance, please feel free to do so.--Michig 11:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

yes, looking at this one, I too see some problems. Unless it's really important software the detail seems possibly excessive--even if not copvio. But the images are claimed as PD, and this does not seem to have ever been challenged. If there's possible copyvio, challenging that is a good first step, as it can be unambiguous--and it does get attention. Looks like the article would hold without them, however. This exactly illustrates what I said about the need to go one article at a time. Michg's ,yours, and my comments on this particular article should be copied to the article talk page as a start of an appropriate discussion--an obviously better place to discuss the merits of it . 11:28, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

• If I knew an easy way to improve the project, I would have have let people know before this. But there is no easy way, and there will never be one. Information systems don't work that way; they need constant upkeep, and the larger they get, the harder the upkeep is. Upgrading an information system to a higher level of accuracy is even more difficult. Yet we need to do so. The initial standards were too low, and the reliance upon community input too naive. The reliance of others on WP is greater by far than could have been imagined, and we must accept the responsibility to live up to the demands now being made on us
• I have spent my career working with even more complex information systems than WP, involving many times more than two million article sets of information, maintained in a cooperative way by widely dispersed and loosely coordinated organisations. They have needed to deal with a wider variety and amount of information and users than they were ever designed for, and it has been very difficult to get them to work at the necessary level. Yet they have keep going, and improved enough to at least minimally meet the needs. It has taken the patient dedicated work of thousands of people with many different skills, all recognizing that most of what they did would be only temporary, and would only just serve to get by, and would not fully solve the problem. But they have kept the provision of formal information to society from collapsing. I consider this is a wonderful thing to have collective accomplished, and I can think of no more rewarding career than to have supported in this way the world's other professions--even for a single generation.
• Let's apply this here. We are dealing with a new paradigm for the construction of a major information resource. Those who invented the powerful architecture did recognize the intellectual possibilities; no one could have fully imagined the social implications. some of it, like AI, has gone very slowly compared to what was predicted, some, like remote social networking, very much more quickly. I ascribe the strength to the existence of parallel systems: the 2.0 world consists of much more than Wikipedia, and different people will find their own homes within it. Let's look at our strengths--the strength is number and diversity of amateurs, and the retention of some respect for intellectual authority together with cooperative working. The pillars--comprehensiveness, NPOV, Verifiability, freedom from censorship, mutual respect. To work this way requires modesty. the responsibility for improving WP rests on all of uys, but is dependent on any individual one of us.
• I came here, and tried to rescue every important article, to upgrade everything I knew enough about, to add everything important in my subject, to supply every needed reference, to help everyone who needed it. I've learned my limits. But i've been also a teacher, and that is how to multiple one's efforts. We ourselves cannot do very much personally, confronted with the size of the problem. But we can maintain our own standards, and teach them to others. they in their turn will teach and recruit others. Like all organisations hoping to have a wide influence, we must grow or collapse.
• In a practical sense, there are strata of articles.

Many of us choose to spend some time at least keeping the very worst and most destructive new ones out of WP in the first place. I don't do much of this, but i do delete a dozen or so a day. Looking at New pages, i think we are keeping up here. I was a skeptic about patrolled versions,but it seems to help.

The next part is of improving the totally inadequate articles, keeping in mind that stubs are acceptable, per WP:STUB--if notability appears likely, they do not even need references. The first step in this is to at least get them tagged so they do not escape attention. The second step is to get them worked on--the tag is sufficient that they will not be ignored indefinitely, for there are various clean up projects, such as wikiproject notability. the idea is to clean up the oldest first-but to do it with an eye to improving and keeping every article that can get improved enough to be worth keeping. Deletion policy is clear that deletion is the last resort for the hopeless articles. I do a little work with that project,and a bit with some others.

A later step is adding suitable references, not just to those without any but to those where they are really inadequate. This will be a long and slow procedure--it can take hours to do it properly for a single article. I try for one a week.

Then there is getting articles up to GA status. I honour those who to do it, but i find other priorities.

My actual priority, as people probably realise, is rescuing articles that would otherwise be deleted. i cant help them all, but I certainly try to help all those where I think it might make a difference. If people would only delete articles that they really thought hopeless, I wouldn't have to spend as much time on this. so i try to urge people to fix, rather than nominate for deletion, unless clearly unfixable.

Then I would have time for what i really want to do,which is improve the overall quality by adding articles on important things in areas I am most prepared to work on and most personally interested, where we do not yet have any. For example, we are still missing about 1/3 the members of the national academy of sciences.

• so in summary, I do have some straightforward advice--although I will not say it is exactly easy--try to improve articles patiently, one at a time, and encourage others to do so, one at a time. We ought not abandon the work, but neither can we expect to finish it. This was said of the whole world; it applies to our part of it. DGG (talk) 10:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree totally with what you've said. One of the problems, I feel, is that when articles are proposed for deletion, they are immediately visible to a large number of editors who monitor PROD's and AFD's (including myself), who will often take the opportunity to address the concerns raised by the nominator. Articles tagged as needing references, cleanup, etc., are generally less 'visible' - I know we can find these by the categories that come with the tags, but I find this less easy than reviewing the day's AFD's and PRODs. If I'm missing an easier way of finding articles that need work, please feel free to point it out. I quite enjoy taking deficient articles and improving them, but at the moment I'm unlikely to notice articles needing work that are not on my 1000+ article watchlist. I would imagine that there are far more editors regularly reviewing proposed deletions than routinely reviewing articles tagged as needing work, which is something that perhaps needs to be addressed in WP. --Michig 11:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Possibly the best reference for cleanup is found at the page Category:Cleanup_by_month, which encompasses all articles tagged with some form of cleanup notice. I refer to the page regularly. I further note, unhappily, that the heretofore reasonably steady 27K+ or 1.33% of all articles has just recently crept up to well over 28K, or 1.36%. Michael Devore 11:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Advice requested

DGG, there is an edit war going on at Joseph Schlessinger‎. It started with two editors (Truther thruther and Letsnotlie), but now a third name pops up, likely a sockpuppet (Hillhealth). I have put 3RR warnings on the talk pages of these editors, but they just ignore and keep reverting each other with sometimes dozens of edits an hour. The contentious material concerns allegations about sexual harassment. I reported this BLP issue at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard, but nothing seems to happen. Is there another place where I should report this activity? Thanks, Wim --Crusio 22:23, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Coren protected it for 7 days a little while ago. That gives people a little while to resolve it. Ask him to lift the block when things settle down. 23:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC) I hope my subsequent comments there did not confuse the issue further. DGG (talk) 00:23, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

DGG, feel free to restore the commented out section if you feel it necessary, but I think that given its contents being the cause of the edit war, waiting for some sort of consensus to emerge is safer. Those are just my two currency subunits, however, and I won't wheel war over you for this. — Coren ^(talk) 00:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Coren, I too want to wait for additional comments. I gave my view on the talk page, and now lets see what other think. If more sources appear, that may settle it. I feel no need to rush--I already made one mistake there by going too quickly. And it's clear from the article that in this instance the sex may not even be the most bitterly fought part of it.DGG (talk) 01:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Rfc at Regent University

Pardon me for being obtuse, but I am unclear what your position is. Monica Goodling is listed vis-a-vis her involvement in the Attorneygate controversy -- she is listed in the alumni section. The issue here is whether, in addition to that mention, a discussion involving her resignation and involvement in the scandal deserves a place in the Reputation section concerning the school. Thanks! ∴ Therefore | talk 07:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I see no such discussion in the present version. I recognize it is alluded to in some of the references. I do not see that as problematic. What exactly am I missing? DGG (talk) 01:10, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for being unclear. There is no other mention -- that is the issue at hand. Should there be? The pros and cons were discussed here but the RfC nicely summarizes the two positions. With your additional comments on the talk page, I now understand your take on it. Thanks! ∴ Therefore | talk 01:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Andrew Henkelman

Was there a reason that you changed a perfect Speedy tag on this page into a ProD with "proper tag" as only explanation? It seems a bit bizarre, since the article made absolutely no claims to notability, there is no other evidence that the person has any notability, and the tag that was on the article was perfectly "proper"... Oh, and perhaps you could archive your talk page, it takes quite a while to load (almost 300K!) Fram 10:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

"Unencyclopedic school essay" was the reason given, and that is not a reason for speedy, though it is for prod. The article may have been titled Andrew Henkelman, who apparently wrote it, but the article content was not about him but an essay of his about a poem by Longfellow. You chose to delete it as if it were actually on Henkelman, giving a reason of CSD A7 non-notable--this is a reasonable interpretation, and I did consider changing the tag to A7 myself, but the tag that was actually on the article was not a reason for speedy, and I wanted to send the message to the ed. who tagged it. If I had changed the tag, by the way, i would have let someone else delete the article. Except for obvious vandalism and nonsense and G10, I do not delete articles that I tag. It is permitted to do so, but I think it should not be. I would certainly not have done it after a fellow admin had removed the tag, for whatever reason. If you disagreed with what I did, you should have asked me, not just reverted. But since the article did need to get removed one way or another, no harm has been done from any standpoint, and I'm not complaining. . DGG (talk) 17:41, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks (for archiving as well, by the way). I don't see what you mean, actually. Mentifisto only added a db-bio tag, without comments[20], so "unencylopedic school essay" was not the reason given (it was the reason given by you to prod it, but not by the original tagger). If you see it as an essay, you should have either deleted it as A1 (no context to understand the title of the article), or have moved the page. Anyway, it's not that important, I just couldn't understand why one would decline this quite obvious speedy. For your other points: I often delete articles without tags, but this was a case where it was already tagged by someone else... As for reverting another admin: on serious non urgent issues (debatable block lengths or so), I discuss first. For rather unimportant things (the method of deleting, since we both wanted it deleted anyway), I don't see the harm. I wouldn't redelete it if you undeleted it, for example, since then I would start a pretty pointless revert war. Fram (talk) 08:40, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

according to current consensus at WP:CSD, school essays-- or anything -- can only be deleted as nocontext when there is so little is impossible to tell what the article is about & cannot be used for non-encyclopedic stuff of this sort. I do not intend to undelete, since it would in any case be removed sooner or later. DGG (talk) 13:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Joseph Schlessinger

DDG: when you get a chance, could you please take a look at talk page again on Joseph Schlessinger? I'd be interested in hearing your honest thoughts on the sexual harassment section (content item #3)? It's all from legitimate news sources and publications, including Yale University publications. You made some commentary before, so I thought I'd invite you back. letsnotlie is sort of throwing a fit about it,.... Thanks for your time!Truther truther 17:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

commented there. I assume you have also asked Coren for further comments.But do not attempt to determine or post the name of a WP ed. who uses a pseudonym. DGG (talk) 18:49, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Joseph Schlessinger Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Edits

DDG: I though I'd run this past you before posting to the joseph schlessinger page. Per your request, I've posted the courant article to his talk page and edited the section to read as follows. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. ThanksTruther truther (talk) 21:33, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The complaint was initiated by Joseph Schlessinger's former secretary, (Mary Beth Garceau v. Yale University) alleged Joseph Schlessinger initiated numerous conversations with her about sex, showed her hard-core pornography websites and nude photographs, bragged to her about the number of women he had slept with, mentioned incidents of sexual infidelity during his business travels, told jokes about penis size, and commented on the size of her breasts and style of her underwear.

Further and more specific detail of the sexual harassment lawsuit taken from the testimony of Mary Beth Garceau regarding sexual infidelity, the number of women Joseph Schlessinger claims to have slept with and the nude photography that was shown, are not suitable for Wikipedia, but may be found by clicking on the following links for articles on websites for The Yale Daily News as well as CBS News

Garceau claims that Yale University did nothing to stop the sexual harassment despite her frequent complaints, forcing her to resign because of the situation. A spokesperson for Yale University initially told the Yale Daily News in an interview that "they'll fight the suit in court." Several months later on however, the case was settled out of court and the terms of the settlement were not disclosed to the public.

glad you asked

I've rewritten it below. The objection raised on the talk page to putting the details of the harassment in the WP article was perfectly correct--this is not appropriate content as it is ultimately sourced only by her allegation--BLP would not permit it where the actual content was not a matter of public confession or guilty verdict or widespread reporting for a much more public figure. If anyone wants to know, it's in the references. Some of the references were duplicates; I removed them, keeping the better of the citations--the CBS for example is documented directly and it is not appropriate to give the indirect ref in globaldialysis. I do not think the EPS source is usable--its merely a news service run by a firm of employment attorneys. DGG (talk) 21:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The complaint was initiated by Joseph Schlessinger's former secretary, (Mary Beth Garceau v. Yale University) alleged Joseph Schlessinger engaged in sexually-based harassment.,,,

Garceau claims that Yale University did nothing to stop the sexual harassment despite her frequent complaints, forcing her to resign because of the situation. A spokesperson for Yale University initially told the Yale Daily News in an interview that "they'll fight the suit in court." Several months later on however, the case was settled out of court; the terms of the settlement were not disclosed to the public.

Schlessinger Harassment

Really? That's the only thing that can be mentioned by wikipedia standards?? It really doesn't tell anything while the rest of the page goes into great detail about so many other things. I was under the impression that information could be summarized; I though Wikipedia was the place for that! Would the liberal use of the words "alleged" and "accused" make any difference?

True, it is only an allegation, but it is also a sworn deposition and a formal lawsuit. ultimately it will be your decision because I am new at this. Thanks. Truther truther (talk) 02:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC) It's quite enough for an encyclopedia:it's the appropriate summary. Remember, we still link to the sources. Anything else I think is a violation of BLP. If Coren or others disagree, I can reconsider.DGG (talk)

Comment I made

Well I am sorry if you took offense to it, but I mean to speak just as a wikipedian, and about that I am deathly serious. Your arguments seem to indicate you do not understand the notability policy with regards to fiction, and there is nothing wrong with that per se, as it is a very difficult policy to get at first. Some of my early experiences on wikipedia involved writing in-universe unnotable articles on my favorite fictional topics, but eventually I realized what the threshold for inclusion was, and eventually I had to transfer some of those articles to fan wikis and delete them from here. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 01:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

If you want to convince me I am ignorant, yes, this is the place, not AfD. I don't mind in the least, because I intend to do something similar--not that you're ignorant though, just that you're wrong. As far as I can see from the talk page, all aspects of N:Fiction continue to be disputed. Many of the things it relates to on, such as the distinction between primary and secondary sources, seem to be disappearing, and almost everything in WP:NOT is also challenged from all directions. I expect ongoing discussion at AfD will be the way to modify them all to what they ought to be--the flexible practice that will be the consensus once wpedians in general understand the implications, and accept the need of accommodating the 21st century.

Our directions at WP seems opposite. When I first came, I was somewhat startled by what seemed the absurd detail of the SF and game and video articles. I then realized that they were in fact the core of Wikipedia, and that detail properly organized aids understanding. I want good full plot and character and background summaries--not for the benefit of the fans, who will use the specialised wikis, but for those who want to find out about these things without prior immersion in them. If anything, most WP articles were not really adequate, and the problem was not detail but quality and lack of skill in the writing--especially the incomprehensible blow-by-blow plot summaries. Nor do I do not defend long articles about clearly minor individual characters; I prefer summary style and lists for the really minor topics. What I want in WP is better quality, not narrower coverage.

In-universe I interpret as meaning the sort of fan articles which pretend that it isn't really a game, but the real world, and goes on variations from there. I think plot and characters and background in fiction can & should be sourced from the fiction itself, and notability determined from even the most non-conventional sources. So I advocate what within our core principles I think ought to be the consensus. You've been here a few months more than I have, but I think I've been doing enough work at AfD to know the different opinions--and certainly been here long enough to see them change, sometimes for the better. AfD, for all its faults, is free from OWN. I like to deal with many subjects, so I don't join all the discussions--how could anyone, at least anyone who thinks it wrong to use a copy and paste argument -- only those where I think I might make a difference or have something particular to add, or where I am particularly bothered by a string of indiscriminate deletions or overconfident arguments. I sometimes regret taking time from my true interests to defend articles on subjects I don't really personally care about, but I know that what I do really care about is regarded by many as of very minor importance, and the way to get comprehensive coverage is to accommodate all interests. DGG (talk) 03:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

User:Striver

Hi, I read your comments on the talk page of my dear friend,Striver. Thanks for your friendly advices , although he abandoned WP. I knew many former active members who aren't active at present. This may because of changing the situation which needs high quality standards or some other reasons. I hope there would be a process to recover wikipedians who are affected by Wikistress.

Thanks for your good faith ad attempts to save depressed wikipedians. God bless you.--Seyyed(t-c) 18:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I know what you mean, but I think we need something more. We need a guideline for Hadith taskforce. You see, there is a branch of Islamic knowledge which discuss about authenticity of Hadith. I didn't mean that Striver's articles were good. I just wanted to thank you due to your attention to him while most of us were unaware. --Seyyed(t-c) 19:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Hate to jump into a thread, but I encountered User:Striver a year ago, around the time that my own WikiStress led me to abandon my active username and simply lurk as an anon-IP ... took me a while to find the account where we crossed swords, but the Good Thing about being anal-retentive is that I always leave a good paper trail. :-) Happy Editing! —72.75.89.38 (talk · contribs) 01:05, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

JITP

You prod' Journal of Information Technology & Politics however, the article describes that this is the renamed Journal of E-Government, which has been published and is probably notable [21]. Would it be worth renaming it to the Journal fo E-Government until the name Journal of Information Technology & Politics takes on as the main usage? Mbisanz (talk) 19:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, certainly add the history of the journal! Start by adding the information to this new page, under the new title. But see the various factors affecting journal notability at Wikiproject Academic Journals. [22] In particular, where is it indexed, who is the editor, what are the most notable papers it has published, what is its rank in Journal citation Reports. I'll take a look and remove the prod if I think its ok, or comment further on its talk page. . DGG (talk) 20:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I was unaware of previous history ([23]); if there is one, I'd suggest keeping it. PS. Not a good sign. The prod, added to this, seems to have been the proverbial insult to the injury :( -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:18, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

It is not in WOS, but is in Scopus. Only 3 years have been published altogether. Of the 30 or so articles, only 2 have been cited, and that only once, & by their respective authors. But it's early times for that, in the social sciences. At the moment only 19 libraries in WorldCat. I'd classify it as trying to become notable. Borderline. I've commented on the COI noticeboard.DGG (talk) 23:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Dr. Lewis Rigg

Hello again, DGG ... you did some cleanup of my PROD on Dr. Lewis Rigg (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) where I had left the language from a copy&paste of the CSD template in the 3rd Step of my brand new Warn-fiction protocol ... I just felt that

Article lacks sufficient Attribution for Verifiability of the WP:FICT notability criteria.

was a Little Too generic ... I fixed the other two PRODs that I did on the same day, and corrected the date/time on this prod to the original values before your cleanup ... yeah, My Bad, but in general, do you approve of my "kinder, gentler" approach to deletions? (i.e., PROD as an alternative to CSD?) ... BTW, this editor's track record for NN articles is none too good, and I helped zap a bunch of bios for soap opera actors from A Land Down Under, so now I'm going after the cruftier stubs of fictional characters, like Martin Bartlett, who hasn't even appeared on-camera yet ... Happy Editing! —72.75.89.38 (talk · contribs) 01:34, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

keep at it! for non-notable fictional characters, Prod is a great way to go, as CSD is isn't permitted and AFDing them all is an absurd amount of work for everyone. If they are popular enough, someone will fix them while they are on prod. It also permits re-creation if the character later becomes notable as the series progresses--prods are always undeleted if someone requests it. But you might also want to consider something even simpler: changing to a redirect, with an edit summary like "changed to a redirect to avoid deletion". i find people rarely argue that one, and if they do, there is still Afd. By all means feel free to improve & expand my wording whenever you can do so. I will be very glad for anything you can do to help us see an end to the disputes over these articles.DGG (talk) 04:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Computer Gaming World list of the best games of all time

How am I wrong? It's a copyright violation of the magazine's intellectual property. Corvus cornix_talk 17:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The list, in and of itself, is copyrighted. Corvus cornix_talk 17:23, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

and a/ can be reported on, just the the academy awards can be reported on. and b/ It's fair use, 1% of the total. It meets all 4 fair use test: factual prose, non-profit use, minute fraction oft he original, no influence on sales--since its free on the web. But lets not argue it privately--what vopyright discussion page do you think would be best? DGG (talk) 17:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Opinion

You participated in this AfD, so I thought you might be interested in the close Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of planets in Futurama. Rather a surprising result I'd say. Though a fair few of the Keeps were somewhat dubious and unsigned. RMHED (talk) 20:06, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

yes, combination articles like this would seem the rational way to go. And the close was, counting the bold ones only, , at a rough count 28 to 8. That would seem a good case for deletion review-- I think it would be better if someone other than me brought it. I see you did not participate in this one. But I think you do not accept my argument that combination articles are the reasonable compromise, so i respect your fairness in this note. DGG (talk) 02:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Virtualology

You've put a lot of work into figuring this site's issues out. Please feel free to chip in at this discussion:

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Virtualology and Stanley L. Klos -- boon to our historical articles or just a bain of spam?

--A. B. ^(talk) 18:34, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Wow, much obliged.[24] Durova^Charge! 22:32, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

A little help on TES

Just about all the TES articles, including the ones that were good and sourced, just got wiped out by admins. See problem is, hardly a consensus was reached, most articles tied keep v delete and everybody seems to blindly following the mantra that it isn't notable because it isn't on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. These articles should be reopened and the discussion should continue, I thought progress on a compromise was being made until they were deleted. They seemed to jump to deletion instead trying to improve or establish notability, in fact not one of them even tried to find something that suggested notability, I did but no one cared. Please A little help would be great. Articles deleted so far, Black Marsh, Morrowind (province), Cyrodiil.TostitosAreGross (talk) 00:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC) The best strategy here will be to concentrate on saving the ones not yet deleted. Try to save a few. Deletion review can be undertaken if there ever is consensus; at the moment it will just open up too many fronts. Please see the talk page for WP Fiction for the current almost total lack of agreement. I'm not at this point sure there is any common idea at all on what the policy is or ought to be. I also suggest joining in the discussion there--my current position you will see, but it amounts to an admission that we have no agreement. But the people who like the currently one-sided wording are trying to deny it there is even conflict, and are finding themselves fighting to say that there isnt any. DGG (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I get what you are saying, I'm fighting the deletions tooth and nail, but I don't care that much about some the remaining ones. Cyrodiil was one best articles and it got deleted despite heavy resistance, it was 6 vs 6 in keep/delete. I don't know if there is anything I can do, I keep saying that we can work together to improve the articles to be like argonian but they don't seem confident it can be done.TostitosAreGross (talk) 02:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

My advice is that the best chances for deletion review are the combination articles on minor characters, etc. If you think Cryodil is sourceable further, good, but I must tell you i havent the least idea of where video games are written about, though Im trying to learn. I do know there is no point whatever going to DR without a very strong case. 6-6 in something like this is not alone sufficient to say it should be nonconsensus unless you can prove the ones discarded as not according to policy were according to policy. You might want to enable your email or use mine, by the way. I cannot handle adequately more than a few concurrent discussions. DGG (talk) 02:27, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Randell Mills and Plagiarism

Incidentally, Mike, you'll need to find a better source for the plagiarism accusation. Not that i disbelieve it necessarily, but it still needs a real source. DGG (talk) 19:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Citing Bob Park is not sufficient? The accusation itself is quoted in the controversy section of the article. Note that matters of belief don't enter here - despite Stolper's original research, which I distrust. All we can do is to note that the accusation was made, which we have done. Michaelbusch (talk) 19:47, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

a person's web page is not a source for accusations about another person, direct or indirect, per WP:BLP. A wise policy, IMO, since they are self-published sources, and one can put anything there. If Park actually published it somewhere, in a third party RS, then that could be used. DGG (talk) 19:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography 1887-89.

Currently a user is deleting all references to Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, a contemporaneous source of information for 19th c. Americans much as Giorgio Vasari's encyclopedia is for 16th c. Italian artists. That is to say, it's not just some random website. Talking to the user produces this kind of response to others, so I've just left a brief note. I hope I may be spared any personal contact with this user. The damage being done is not minor. I'm struggling to insert the following footnote in the few little articles I watch: "Dates and other biographical information in this article are drawn from Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography 1887-89." The website with on-line text is spam-blocked here (no one need explain that to me, please). I am posting here because the user's boilerplate edit summary is "clean up, & remove link see WP:AN using AWB" ——but I see nothing here that would justify wholesale, unconsidered deletions; tomorrow another such a one will no doubt slap demands for references and citations on the same articles. At any rate I leave this in your capable hands. No need to involve me further, please. --Wetman (talk) 18:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Appleton's is not considered a reliable source; articles sourced to it are being gradually cleaned up and more reliable sources sought. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:44, 10 December 2007 (UTC) absolutely so--notorious for inclusion of false biographies of non-existent people, see the article on it. This has been discussed here at some length. We are indeed removing all references to it, and all articles depending only on it for documentation will need to be carefully checked, and the facts in all articles using it as a source in any way re-verified elsewhere. DGG (talk) 18:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

We did our homework, despite some editors above maintaining the contrary. Without giving away too much, There are 202 known fictitious biographies such as Pierre de Vogué (http://famousamericans./jeanpierredevogue/) and Vicente y Bennazar (http://famousamericans./andresvicenteybennazar/ ) from the research Virtualology has done on the Encyclopedia. It was traced to one employee who was paid by the article and thus his work has been thorough researched over the years turning up the 202.

Most importantly, the BULK (approximately 180 of the false sketches) found are written on obscure European scientists who supposedly travelled to the America’s to study natural history. Examples of sketches include, the biography of Charles Henry Huon de Penanster, (famousamericans./ charleshenryhuondepenanster/) identified as a French botanist, whose bio parallels Nicolas Thiery de Menonville (whose genuine biography also appears in Appleton's). Nicolas Henrion's, (famousamericans./NicolasHenrion/) a French scientist listing reports that he arrived in South America in 1783, when Asiatic cholera was in full bloom. The epidemic first broke out in South America only in 1835. Miguel da Fonseca e Silva Herrera, (famousamericans./ migueldafonsecaesilvaherrera/) supposedly was a gold medal Brazilian historian, from the historical institute of Rio de Janeiro in 1820 but the society was not founded until 1838. Some good references on the topic are:

Barnhart, John H. "Some Fictitious Botanists." Journal of the New York Botanical Garden 20 (September 1919): 171-81. Dobson, John B.. "The Spurious Articles in Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography—Some New Discoveries and Considerations." Biography 16(4) 1993: 388-408. O'Brien, Frank M. "The Wayward Encyclopedias", New Yorker, XII (May 2, 1936), pp. 71-74. Schindlir, Margaret Castle. "Fictitious Biography." American Historical Review 42 (1937), pp. 680-90.

The rest of the boigraphies are IMPORTANT historical accounts of exceptional men and women whose deeds in the Americas were notable at the very least. These are a exceptional additions to the Wikipedia Project. It is wrong to blacklist these sites PS YOU HAVE TO ADD THE NET TO THE LINKS AS THEY ARE BLACKLISTED --97.97.197.9 (talk) 03:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I shall do some further checking, but my understanding as confirmed by my limited research work with it is that the biographies are based to a considerable extent on unedited personal information from relatives and similar unreliable sources. in the one or two articles cross-checked in Wikipedia, details are wrong. What is needed here are some expert opinions--i think I am in a position to obtain them, and i will do so in the next day or two. i would have no objection to a moratorium on article deletions in the meantime. Nonetheless, for the references added to articles, even if we decide they are reliable, they must cite appletons, with possibly a convenient link to the online version. DGG (talk) 06:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, Wikisource is now collecting biographical entries in this work. s:Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography. IMO it is silly to blacklist this important work; editors may not have vetted every entry as well as they should have, but that doesnt mean every entry is bogus. By putting this work on Wikisource, critical analysis can occur on the talk page, and annotations can occur inline. John Vandenberg (talk) 12:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

other sources

DGG, It might be useful to mention in the discussion which are the reliable big US biographical dictionaries, that can be used as better sources - no doubt you know. Johnbod (talk) 06:47, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

There are two. The older one is Dictionary of American Biography 1928-1937, and supplements through 1985. Most college libraries and large public libraries will have it in print, locations at. [25]--not all libraries will have all the supplements. I do not know if it is online.

the newer one, greatly preferred if available, is American National Biography Oxford Univ press, Print and online. Print in about 1800 libraries--essentially every college library and many large public--a listing can be found at [26]. (if you enter your zip code it will show nearby libraries) Online in at least 200 libraries and library systems--partial listing at [27]. They have a personal subscription at $25/month.

They each have about 20,000 entries, but not all the older ones were carried over into the new edition. Obviously, the new one is the more accurate for the ones it covers, and will have an up to date bibliography, listing both primary sources and selected secondary sources. I would regard anyone with a full article in each as unquestionably notable. My impression is that it is less scholarly that ODNB, but full up to the demands of WP.

there is a convenient free online bioof the day at [28]. Todays listing is Fiorello H. La Guardia. There is also, free availability to the biographies in every monthly update during the current month, at [29] The lastest is october 2007, and contains 43 articles--most but not all are in WP, but some are without good references. Between them, that's 800 articles a year available free. This would be a convenient way to help build the encyclopedia.DGG (talk) 07:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I got your message

You wrote on my talk page,

Saying someone is a full professor at a major university may or may not be notable , but it is unquestionably enough of an assertion of notability to pass speedy. if you question whether there is enough notability, use prod or afd. (btw, at afd, 99% of full professors turn out to be notable).DGG (talk) 04:39, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I just want to point out that between the time I nominated the article on Svetlana Leontief Alpers and the time you declined the deletion, the article has been edited, and, in its current version, I would not have voted for deletion in an AfD discussion. Her achievements and status were not mentioned in the version I originally saw.

I was recently involved in an AfD discussion about an article on an academic which resulted in deletion, with me being a dissenter per WP:PROF. The article had COI issues, but those turned out to not have an effect on the final decision to delete. --Blanchardb-^{MeMyEarsMyMouth}-timed 10:01, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

apologies, since I apparently was not clear. There are two levels. One is the notability required by WP:N as explained by WP:PROF, to have an article in Wikipedia, which requires a substantial reputation recognized by third parties and normally shown by multiple heavily-cited articles in peer reviewed journals in science, or by a number of books published by established scholarly presses in the humanities. The other, applying to all articles, is an assertion or indication of some sort of notability, which is all that is required to pass speedy. Almost anything is acceptable here, even though it will clearly not pass WP:N. Saying someone has published a book, saying someone is a professor, saying someone has an award, any of these all by itself is an assertion of notability. It doesn't have to be proven--it just has to be something that a reasonable person would think might possibly qualify for an article. The idea is to exclude bios saying, for example, John is the coolest guy in my school, or those saying Peter Smith worked as an accountant for 20 years and then retired. We get dozens of each of these types a day, and of course we want to get rid of them as quickly as possible. But anything that might possibly be developed into an article is not speedy. If it asserts something that seems clearly inadequate, the best course is PROD; if the prod is challenged, which usually does not happen if a good explanation is written for the author, then AfD. If the article is undeveloped, then an tag for "expand", or "notability" or "unreferenced" together with an explanation to the author--possibly followed up in a month or two--is the best way.

Clearly, you very well understand the first part about actual notability. As for the second, if you have any doubts about what i am saying, by all means recheck WP:CSD or ask at its talk page. The article initially met only the minimal pass for speedy. Later, as you say, it showed actual notability. DGG (talk) 15:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

re:CSD

I've been helping out with vandalism patrol for quite a while. Now I'm trying to help out with New pages patrol. I have read policy but some things are a judgment call, which takes time to develop. As a relative newcomer to this job I will make mistakes and try to learn from them. So to help me learn could you please answer two questions: 1) Do you agree that A7 includes a "group of people" or an "organization" not just a company, and therefore my nomination of Quintana Roo Speleological Survey was appropriate? 2) Where in WP:CSD does it say that an editor should not restore a CSD request that has been mistakenly removed?

My thinking based on your edit summary was that you removed my CSD simply because it was not a company. I knew it wasn't a company, thought that it qualified as an organization, so thought that your removal was incorrect. Now I think the article is about something the organization created rather than an organization. If your edit summary had pointed out that the subject was not a group of people, company, or organization then I would have understood your objection and not renominated for deletion.

Please realize that regarding New pages patrol I am a relative newcomer and I suggest that WP:BITE should apply. The tone of your note to me implied that I knew I was doing wrong. But I did not know that it was wrong to restore a CSD that I thought had been mistakenly removed. E.g. if the creator had removed it or a vandal had removed it I would have been correct to restore it. I still do not see anything in WP:CSD or in the CSD template to say that an editor should not restore a CSD that he thinks was mistakenly removed. So I did not think that what I was doing was wrong. I've learned better and won't do this in the future.

I suggest that your tone toward me could have been milder. Look I'm just trying to help out - to improve the encyclopedia. Before I added the {{db-bio}}, I made minor edits to that article to improve it in case it was judged worth keeping. I know you're pretty busy as an admin but a minute extra time writing a gentle note to a user who is trying to be helpful might avoid driving away a helpful editor. Frankly, I just don't need the hassle that Wikipedia sometimes produces. Sbowers3 (talk) 17:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

LCC

The LCC subpages have been imported into Wikisource, where they can be expanded without the restraints of Wikipedia. I have asked for comment regarding the sub-pages at Talk:Library of Congress Classification#sub_pages. John Vandenberg (talk) 12:15, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

joseph Schlessinger discussion

We were hoping to get your input on the sexual harassment section for Joseph Schlessinger. hillhealth and I agree on which sources are appropriate to use and are *pretty close* to reaching consensus on what the wording should be. We have decided to default to the administrator's decision making abilities for the final wording. Both versions may be found at the very bottom of the discussion of the joseph schlessinger page. Whatever you decide, please lock your version into place to prevent vandalism. We're asking Coren for his input too. Thanks! Truther truther (talk) 15:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC) -- I've commented, now awaiting Coren--I sincerely thank you both for your cooperative spirit.DGG (talk) 16:39, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

User talk:DonnPulley

Thanks for the response. Don't blame Keeper for coming across wrong. As the two involved eitors, I asked him to respond, since I know I come across a little harsh to newbies. If anything I think h was erring on the side trying to explain as many other reasons than non-notability. Interesting idea about looking in non-digital resources. I wonder though what the odds are of there being much material specific to this individual's life. Do we have an article on Bill Clinton's primary photographer? and that was in a modern era when the press plays a larger role in reporting on itself. I see the argument of the "first photographer" as interesting, but that was 50 years ago, there have been NO published stories with him as the primary subject. I'm not notable in any manner and even I can dig up at least one regional newspaper story about myself. Mbisanz (talk) 03:17, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

all we need is about his career, not his personal life. As for the sort of material there might be, see [30] and [31] and [32] And there are thousands of books on FDR & Truman. I wish I had time for this one. Looking at non digital resources is basic to adequate work for anything except studies on the internet itself, though I have to remind even myself frequently. :) DGG (talk) 03:38, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your post there DGG, I've added an addendum to my comments from yesterday. Your sentiments are heard loud and clear, I appreciate your input into the matter. I also wish I had the time and resources to save this one (even though I've leaned towards deletionism lately) and as such, have (obviously) opined towards deletion of this one as well. Really, the main problem is sourcing, (and BLP sourcing at that) but there is quite evidently a strong, admitted COI issue, which makes a POV issue, which makes an OWN issue, but you know all that. Reliable, verifiable sources would fix all that and I wish I could find some. As it stands, because of the imminent problems that would arise if it was in fact kept as is, with a "needs sources tag" (and we both know the backlog there), I think it should go redlinked into that good night... Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for your second opinion on what I wrote. Much appreciated. Keeper | 76 17:39, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

She claims to have sources, since we can't suspend the AfD, can I just withdraw it without prejudice to refile? Mbisanz (talk) 18:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC).

Yes, you can, and it would be much appreciated. Just say so at the AfD. There is always the possibility of refiling-but it is considerate to wait about a month, better two. In the meantime i will also help edit the article to make it look like less of a memorial. the problem with COI is that even the articles about notable people generally say either too much, too little, or the wrong things altogether--the problems are real, and they must be fixed. I agree with you about this. DGG (talk) 21:47, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Don Page / Betacommand

I saw your comment on Betacommand's userpage. He is not an administrator anymore since May, so he can't restore the page. I looked at the deleted page, it was tagged as A7 (biography not asserting notability). You may want to go to deletion review, do you have any reliable sources about this person? —Random832 16:47, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

joseph Schlessinger discussion

DGG: I don't know about Coren's comments, but I am somewhat in agreements with your comments. This did receive national coverage. "salaicious conversations with her about sex, and spoke about and showed her pornography" is really the bare minimum one can say to describe the incident.

The key part of this will be to 1. make the changes you feel are appropriate and 2.lock it into place to prevent vandalism. Unfortunately, there have been incidents of name changing from hillhealth/letsnotlie and I just want to make sure it isn't deleted as per multiple times before.

I do appreciate your time and attention to this section

PS: I noticed that you deleted part of the trial section. what was wrong with quoting a federal judge the way I did? thanksTruther truther (talk) 19:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

because that section quoted him multiple times, all saying much of the same thing. Once is enough. More is excessive weight on negative material, especially when only the negative phrases are excerpted. I kept the one which was a connected sentence. No one will be in doubt about it. I point out the intellectual property lawsuit was not about one of his major projects. Don't let dislike for the man affect the way the article was written--it has more effect on others reading it if it is strictly objective.

We do not have the ability to lock down articles. I can semi-protect against vandalism from ip addresses, but that is not the problem. I can protect against changes altogether, in order to stop vandalism, or a divisive editing dispute, but only for a short period. Articles are not permanently protected. And I can not do it pre-emptively. It will stay on my watchlist, & if people mess it up I will notice & intervene. DGG (talk) 21:41, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Relevance Question

Since you've said your a librarian, and from your user page I gather you work for a university or public library, could you take a look at this diff and make sure I'm presenting this academic-related issue in a relevant and even manner [33] ? I tried very hard on this one to source every assertion and be evenhanded to both sides. Mbisanz (talk) 09:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

SD

Replied at my talk page. Could you also archive your talk page, it's insanely long, with a load time that rivals the Soviet Union article. Not to mention the slow typing. Thanks KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 22:57, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Did you even investigate half of the "questionable" deletions I made? you are telling me that is not spam? Maybe you should review this page. Happy editing. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 17:48, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

still working on it. I want to consider carefully and do full justice to your arguments. Be aware of the distinction between SPAM and the criterion for Speedy, which is "Blatant advertising. Pages which exclusively promote some entity and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic" If they are fixable, not speedy. DGG (talk) 19:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Joseph Schlessinger conclusion (hopefully soon!)

Thanks for your reply. Well, there is *plenty* of positive on his page, but I understand where you are coming from.

Its been a while since we have heard from coren. Might be away for the holidays;maybe give another day or two for a reply? Is there another admins' opinion you or I may ask instead? (actually, coren and yourself are the only ones I have ever exchanged dialog with...!) Cheers,Truther truther (talk) 23:15, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll remind Coren. He seems to be around. DGG (talk) 02:08, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Coren's comments are in, but are in (slight) disagreement to yours and mine. Do we need a thrid admin. to be a "tie breaker?" Hopefully we're in the home stretch here. Thanks, once again!. Truther truther (talk) 20:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I accepted Coren's preferred version. The respect to BLP considerations was better than mine. I copied it into the article and will ask for protection if necessary. DGG (talk) 18:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

My motivations

Thanks for your note. I'd like to explain my motivation here, which I think has been misunderstood due to my admittedly high level of persistence -- there's been a lot of rhetoric directed at me that I think is wholly off base ([34] [35] [36] [37]). My interest in this was sparked when I found little coverage of these topics outside the movement itself, which led to the "independent sources" question.

My persistence is partly caused by my frustration with the discussion: most of the comments advocating "keep" seem to me to misunderstand the issue (yours excluded, as I'll get to). The central question, as I see it, is whether the fact that a religion is notable automatically means that its deities are notable. One aspect of this question is whether publishing houses associated with the religion are sufficiently "independent" for WP:N purposes to establish notability. I see that as an open question of Wikipedia policy, and few people in these talks have addressed it. You did respond to it, and I appreciate your having taken my position seriously enough to reply. I disagree with your response, because I have a harsher understanding of the policy behind WP:N: I think that if a subject is notable, it would have been written about in sources completely independent of the subject (as most of the Catholic saints have been). But I feel that the ability to discuss interpretations of WP:N at that particular AfD has been shut down by off-topic speeches and accusatory rhetoric.

So please, don't interpret my persistence as a view about the validity of minority religions. I think they are interesting and should be explained on Wikipedia. My concern is about policy interpretation. Fireplace (talk) 03:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Since you seem to like my attention to Ken Wilber, I see this question as analogous to the question of whether the notability of Ken Wilber establishes the notability of Ken Wilber's jargon, like AQAL, which was turned into a redirect for similar reasons. Fireplace (talk) 04:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't have written if I did not take your work seriously--and I am aware of some of the absurdity in the defenses of those articles. I understand you want the topics to be covered appropriately. Where we disagree is what that entails; I think a religion being notable does mean its deities (and quasi-deities) are notable, in reasonable proportion to their significance. I'm not sure how far to carry it. Every canonized RC saint is I think notable, as well as those traditionally honored. Every Sufi saint would therefore be notable, and every Hindu or Buddhist incarnation if there is literature discussing them enough to write an article and people here to do it. For smaller religions, there might be some limit needed if there were a great many figures involved, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. In general, whomever the believers think most important are important.

I certainly do accept in-religion sources for articles on the religion--if there are outside views, so much the better. As you want to discuss it further, fine--I consider the RS noticeboard a good way of handling these questions. To my knowledge, only a few Catholic saints and other holy figures have much non-Catholic commentary, because nobody else bothers--except anti-Catholics with their own POV. It will be interesting to actually look on this one. However, I am surprised people can't find our Theosophist deities discussed in books about or attacking Theosophism, or at least other tertiary sources. But I personally haven't looked. There is consistency in my attitude here, for I also am rather broad-minded about sources for articles on fiction--and i think the consensus attitude is loosening generally about primary sources.

Anyway, especially on topics such as these, I think it very wise to compromise if possible, and I think there are a small enough number of articles to accept. I think you might want to consider that. There are worse problems here.

As for Wilbur, I see less need to compromise--this is more objective. the degree to which someone's academic or pseudo-academic jargon is worth considering depends on the academic consensus. You may want to see my comments on the various Generations pages, or ex-pages. DGG (talk) 04:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

fringe theories noticeboard

Hello, and thanks for your on-the-mark comment at the fringe theories noticeboard. I don't know if you intended to only date and not sign your comment, but as it showed up, your signature did not appear.

Regarding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Master Hilarion, in case you haven't seen it yet, there is a related AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Great White Brotherhood, also resulting from the same noticeboard discussion "Gardens of woo".

There is an additional section also, at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Golden Dawn where it appears some more religion articles may soon be targeted.

I'm not a follower of any of those beliefs and am not an editor of those articles (though I might do a few edits incidential to these AfDs). But I feel concerned about the use of the fringe theories noticeboard to patrol religion and philosophy articles. WP:FRINGE seems intended for science, history, politics, etc,... not religion, unless religion gets into a science article or something like that. I have also been surprised and disappointed to see derogatory words like "woo" used on that noticeboard to describe the religious beliefs of others and the work of well-intentioned editors. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 04:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

when I accidentally leave off my sig, its because I get enthusiastic and type 5 ~ marks instead of 4. If you see it, feel free to just add the DGG. I agree with you on the language used; it's an a priori sign of prejudice. FRINGE doesn't apply to religion, but to a certain extent proportionate weight does--the number and extent of articles does depend on the importance in terms of available literature and world-wide cultural knowledge. How to deal objectively with appropriateness content is a weak point in WP. I'm keeping in touch with the discussion there. DGG (talk) 04:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Ram Chet Chaudhary

Hi DGG, You removed the prod from this article noting that there were enough publications to establish notability. However, these are cited only very rarely accortding to WoS of Google Scholer (the most is 17 citations, and I am not even sure that this concerns the same authos as it is on virusses and insects). Do you think it should be taken to AfD instead? Best, --Crusio (talk) 11:18, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I thought hard about this. One of the publications--the 3rd-- was a textbook published by OUP India, and it may have been a major one in the country. There are also publications from FAO Rome, & he's also enough of an expert to have worked on problems in many countries, so he can claim international recognition. I've run a lot of Indian scientists thru WoS, long before coming here, & the problem is that most of the journals that would cite them are not in WoS; most of them are not in GS either, though an increasing number will be with the growth of open access publishing. So if they work on regional topics, as he did, it is very hard to determine a true citation record. If they work on major scientific topics of world interest, then one can say the uncovered Indian work is not important, but one can't if they work on regional problems--regional Indian or problems are as important as regional US ones. And almost everything he publishes is technical reports or the like--but he works in technology, not basic science. I have checked, and there is no really good index covering Indian journals in any subject & certainly no citation index. One of the few things Princeton does not have is indexes covering world agriculture--I would have to ask elsewhere--but again, there is no citation index at all in the subject. I checked in Scopus, which covers the third world a little better--but still not well enough--& found one more publication. I can't even check on book holdings well, as there in no union catalog for India. And at this point I dont even know the University.

The author would be the best source of info if he is around, which he does not seem to be--presumably that's why you did not notify him. But to be sure I at least notified him now. The article should have been caught soon after submission, when there was more of a chance. Give him at least a chance to reply, and there are one or two more things to try. I want to see in the GS hits give any clue. And I will ask the agriculture and India workgroups at the least, & see if I can identify from the articles someone here who works on Indian agriculture. The situation is one of the limitations on our ability to work with some subjects and areas, but it doesn't mean the people there are unimportant. One could argue that our standards should compensate, or alternatively that we shouldn't try to cover them. I don;t really have an answer. Why do I spend time on this? it does seem inefficient. But I try to at least make some effort at world wide coverage, and mainly to encourage others. DGG (talk) 12:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I must have forgotten to notify the original author, I always do that, even if they don't seem to be around any more. Sorry about that. I agree that world wide coverage is something to strive for. So for the moment, let's wait and see if something comes up. Unfortunately, CNRS has no access to major agricultural databases, so there's not much I can do either. Thanks for your efforts. --Crusio (talk) 12:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: Compustat

Hey DGG, i dont know if you saw my last message regarding the compustat page. are you still planning on removing the spam? Bpossolo (talk) 20:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Yep, thanks for reminding me. did so last night. Still needs some citations, and then there are positive things to say that they didnt bother with. wouldn't have bothered if they were not in truth the very major resource they say they are. 18:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

being careful with prods

DGG, just a word to say hi, and let you know that I'm not being cavalier with these prod tags, in my estimation. We simply have differing opinions about the notability of some of these figures and this process is working as it should. Let me know if you feel differently. Cheers! --Lockley (talk) 09:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I do indeed feel differently and i have indeed told you why on your talk page. I don't challenge this way when I just disagree on the notability. I point out there that you have also been not notifying the authors of articles, and giving unhelpfully nonspecific deletion rationales. DGG (talk) 09:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Citation counts

I noticed your recent post on SA's talk page. How does one do a citation count? Thanks. Anthon01 (talk) 16:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Ideally you have access to Web of Science, the standard source covering the natural sciences and "hard" social sciences. Then you search for the author using the author finder feature, display the articles, sort by citations. Ignore any by other people that got left in there. Gets citations from the major English language Euroamerican journals. Scopus is an alternative, if the record doesnt go back before 1996; it's also more complete for social science in European journals. Google Scholar is tricky, you can't just use their numbers, you have to actually look yourself at each one to see what citations listed are from regular journals, because it includes a lot of other material. It is weak before 2000, & doesnt include everything. But it's the only available source for humanities, or where books are involved. In physics you can use arXiv, in computer science Citebase, in economics RePEc, in Biomedicine PubMed, but they are all incomplete. The number you get there will be a minimum. Use the free ones if you dont have WoS or Scopus, though--much better than nothing--if it's critical to notability I'll run it for you in WoS. And feel free to ask for more help if its anything tricky. DGG (talk) 03:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Baumgardner

Yeah, it was one of the more peculiar cases I've come across. What I wanted to know is if community consensus would be that a scientist could be notable expressly because he is a creationist. I don't think that Baumgardner would have been notable had he not been a creationist, but it seems that the community thinks that having an odd-ball opinion (even if it is only obliquely referenced) is enough to confer notability on a subject. Interesting! ScienceApologist (talk) 17:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

thinking further about it, the fact that those very respectable journals take his papers implies something more--peer-reviewing in most subjects like geology is usually blind, not double blind--the reviewers would have been aware of whom he is, and they would be expected to hold the general opinion of essentialy all scientists about creationist geology. It's not like some of the aberrant physics and cold fusion people, whose papers are published by journals that have a habit of publishing really dubious papers. All of his are in mainstream journals of high quality. As I said at the AfD, I think he'd rank as an associate professor, which is borderline. If he hadn't had a conversion & diverted his energies with nonsense, he would probably have done yet better. Much more commonly seen are people from a fundamentalist religious background who nonetheless become scientists and do good work--this to me is much more understandable. DGG (talk) 18:37, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Re: False stories...

Maybe. Let's discuss that on the article's talk page. Armando.O^{talk · Ev · 3K}...Another thing, clean this talk page xD...you may get 6 archives at least.... 02:47, 18 December 2007 (UTC) --done bothDGG (talk) 16:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

joseph Schlessinger

Oh come on! How is naming the references of the awards an issue? He's the one who writes his own website (more or less a university blog) and he's the one who says he received the awards, and its not mentioned anywhere else for the most part. There is no issue with saying "according to his CV and website?"

Because first, some of them have third party sites, just as you say, & such refs for the others can no doubt be found--if you want to make a positive contribution, do so. And second, it's explicit in the references below and does not need to be repeated. Even were a reference not given, then it is still unnecessary, because such is the assumption with all bios in WP--this is one of the exceptions to the use of such sources. Please do not be naive about it: For example, to say "X received a degree in 1980" normally means it's according to his own website; to say, "according to his website, X received a degree in 1980" implies that it is not supported otherwise and is in some doubt. That's why your preferred wording is derogatory. DGG (talk) 16:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

In need of advice

Hey, I've this problem and I could use the opinion of an administrator. I thought of you since you've helped me before.

The problem is the following: At the Seasick Steve page, someone anonymous (claiming to be the manager of the musician in question, and I'm pretty sure it's the truth) keeps leaving a message asking to stop adding names of artists Seasick Steve played with in the past, because Seasick Steve himself doesn't like namedropping. I've explained it extensively on talk:Seasick Steve in the hope I could reach the anonymous person, you can check that out for more detail. The thing is, the person has a different ip each time, but I'm sure it's the same guy because the message he leaves is the same. Contacting him didn't work because when I leave a message at the ip talk page, the person in question has probably got another ip already. He doesn't seem that fully grasp how Wikipedia works either.

My question for you: do you know a strategy or something, to contact the editor or handle the situation? I could report it as vandalism, but I'm not completely sure it qualifies (even after reading the vandalism criteria). Key to the city (talk) 14:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

commented on the article talk page: refer him to OTRS; on the article, just revert, nothing else to do anyway with an ip. DGG (talk) 16:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Key to the city (talk) 16:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thought I'd ask first

Hi DGG, I was reading your userpage (yes, I do that often. Er, not just yours, other editors as well). I noticed a handful of grammatical and spelling errors (nothing major) that I'd like to fix if you wouldn't mind. If they were intentional, I'll leave them alone. Just thought I'd ask first. :-)Keeper | 76 15:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

well, I say right there I have never been able to spell-- no spelling checker made seems to fully cope with it--and that anyone should just go ahead and fix it--I will be grateful. (some errors may have been made by others, but please fix them just the same.) For grammar, I'd rather not unless it's missing a quotation mark or such--I am sometime deliberately eccentric. DGG (talk) 16:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Cheers, DGG. Didn't see that paragraph about "go ahead and fix it" until I was in the edit page. :-). Didn't change the meaning of anything, or any grammar for that matter. Happy editing, Keeper | 76 17:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Looking for an article

Hello, I am looking for a Wikipedian who could access and send me this academic article. I was suprised to learn that my university doesn't have access to it, and I could very much use it in the series of articles I am currently working on at Wikipedia (Suwalki Agreement, Zeligowski's Mutiny and others). I noticed you are part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange, and I would like to ask if you have access to this article? Thanks, --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

So far your reply is the only one I got. I prefer to ask several people, get the article and than strike out my request instead of asking one person, waiting few days for no reply, and repeating this until I get the article several weeks later :> Yes, it's a bit selfish, but it's not like sending an email attachment is difficult and time consuming, now, is it? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for looking for it! I think I have found a person with access to it now :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Notability and BLP questions

On an article like this All Saints RC Secondary would there be any issues from the teachers of the house being lifted? And would the subjects or houses listings be appropriate for an article. These are some gray areas that I'm trying to figure out in deciding to nominate for deletion or just edit out. Watching here Mbisanz (talk) 04:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There is little real consensus about including heads of houses. There are other articles with it--but this is apparently a day school? Are the houses as significant to school life as in the typical English boarding public school? I can't see it involves BLP in the least--wouldn't they be on the school website, & you give no personal information about them. As for subjects taught, i think that should go, (and you say it twice) unless the point is that is is strikingly different from other schools--there have been a few such instances, but that doesnt seem the case here except possibly for Cisco--and I do not know how widespread it is nowadays. There might be precedent for listing the "advanced higher" if they correspond to the US Advanced Placement subjects, which are sometimes listed--since there does not seem to be an article for this level, you might try to write one if you can find good sources--a librarian should be able to help about finding this is the professional literature for educators.) I have some doubts about the list of classroom and facilities--try to reduce it to a paragraph about what is really distinctive. Every school has art and music classrooms. Is an "oratory" a chapel? it might be worth a description. What's the difference between a games hall and a gymnasium? And you need to describe the basics: where in glasgow is it? How many students? How many teachers? Who have been the previous headmasters? Are there any notable alumni--do they call them old boys in Scotland? remember that what people outside of the UK know about UK schools is mostly with relation to Hogwarts. DGG (talk) 04:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

As an FYI, I didn't write that article (I've lived in NY my entire life), I was just wondering how I could hone my skills on editing it. But your advice still applies. Mbisanz (talk) 04:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

oops. i should have recognized your sig. Sorry. DGG (talk) 05:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations!

Every once and a while (usually only a couple times per month), I find a quote from a talkpage, AfD, userpage, or otherwise, that absolutely cracks me up. When I do, I save them on my subpage for their humor, and for posterity. Congratulations, DGG. You've made me laugh out loud! I hope you consider this a great honor, and by clicking here, you can see your quote forever preserved for generations of Wikipedians to follow. Cheers, and happy editing, Keeper | 76 17:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC) I am always pleased when I am trying to be clever, and someone recognizes it. DGG (talk) 07:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

re: schools

I replied on my talk. JERRY ^talk _contribs 23:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Occultist perspective

Hi DGG. If you have time, I would love to get a clarification on this comment you made at the Fringe theories noticeboard regarding What the Bleep: "it is perfectly reasonable for most of the article to adopt an occultist perspective." I'm unsure of what you mean by this, probably just because I have a hard time distinguishing "occultist perspective" from "occultist point of view." Could you let me know what you mean? Regards, Antelan ^talk 02:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Jonathan Gruber

Hello DGG. Someone has put Speedy deletion tag on the biography of Jonathan Gruber. Gruber is a professor at MIT and one of the raising economist in the World. He has published over 100 research articles and also received the American Society of Health Economists Inaugural Medal for the best health economist in the nation aged 40 and under. He completed his Ph.D. in 1992. So it will take time for him to be more notable. Can you please see the article? Regards, Masterpiece2000 (talk) 03:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The speedy tag was correctly removed by Moonriddengirl. Almost all admins recognize that an article such as it was at the time [38] is not conceivably a speedy. I will add the citation count from Web of Science, and the rest of the key information from his official bio. It turns out he is a member of the Institute of Medicine, which is part of the US National Academies and therefore he is unquestionably notable. Incidentally, if someone is a full professor it helps to say so explicitly. I've reminded the tagger about what assertion of notability means. DGG (talk) 04:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, DGG. Regards, Masterpiece2000 (talk) 09:21, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Pulley Again

So she got us a reference for Gerald P. Pulley‎. I've incorporated it into the article, but I'd like a less involved set of eyes to ell me if its enough to keep it from deletion in 60 days? Mbisanz (talk) 09:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a good start. Needs some formatting. This is the sort of ref. i hoped there would be. DGG (talk) 19:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Improved Reverse marketing page

I have improved the page a bit. added some references and external links too. when shall it be worthy of removing the deletion tag ?