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

Topical Archives: Deletion reform, Journals, Speedies, IPC & Fiction, Notability ,WP:Academic things & people,
General Archives: Sept-Dec06, Jan-Feb07, Mar-Apr07, May07, Jun07, Jul 7, Aug07, Sep07, Oct 07; Nov 07, Dec07, Jan08, Feb08, Mar08, Apr08, May08, Jun08, Jul08, Aug08, Sep08, Oct08,

(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

---

If your article is in danger of deletion, possibly some of the following messages may be of help to you:

• If you can fix the article, I'd advise you to do so very quickly, before it gets nominated for regular deletion
• We're an encyclopedia, not a social networking site. You have to become famous first, then someone will write an article about you. In the meantime, there's lots of things to do here -- so welcome.
• An article must have 3rd party independent reliable published sources, print or online (but not blogs or press releases)
• To use material from your web site, you must release the content under a GFDL license, which permits reuse and modification of the material by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and is not revokable.
• For articles about a commercial or non-commercial organization, see our Business FAQ (a wonderful page written by Durova, from whom I learned a lot of my approach to people writing articles with COI.

---

The notability problem in a nutshell

Though it remains in the policy, there are now many exceptions to: If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. - quoted from WP:V (There are a number of areas where this is true, but primary among the one that concerns us here is fiction.) There are several ambiguities: the first is the meaning of the plural of sources, for it is accepted and elswhere stated that ones sufficiently reliable third party source is sufficient. Second, there are many cases where it is clear that first party sources such as official documents from government sources are sufficient to show the notability of the agencies concerned. Third, we routinely accept the probability that there will be such sources. Fourth, the sources for writing an article are not in the least limited to third party sources, for the primary source of the work itself is accepted as sufficient and in fact usually the best source for content. Fifth, and crucial here, is the distinction between "topic" and "article"-- a key argument above is whether a spin offarticle on a character is to be judged as a separate article. The sixth is the lack of a requirement that the third party source be substantial. DGG (talk)

Kings of Clonmel

I must say. Administrators are not making it easier to find information, the reason Wikipedia was created, but harder to. I hate self-loving, delete happy, idiotic adminastrators. No need to respond.

Wait a minute. Under copyright laws, if I give credit of the work to the original creator, like I did, it would be perfectly legal. Once again, no need to respond.

I'm keeping this one at the top. Tributes to my willingness to delete are always appreciated. Thanks. DGG (talk) 20:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

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) (dp)

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.

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

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)

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)

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) (dp)

sampling deletions

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

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.[1][2].

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 [3], written by Tara C. Smith, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in Iowa
• scienceblogs, a provider of science blogs includes many interesting and useful blogs [4]. Note that they are selective in who gets to blog, in fact.
• Nature itself hosts assorted science-related blogs [5]

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) (dp)

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)

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)

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)

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

[6] 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

[7] KP Botany 18:43, 3 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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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" (dp) DGG (talk)

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)

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)

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.[8] Durova^Charge! 22:32, 8 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)

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. [9]--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 [10]. (if you enter your zip code it will show nearby libraries) Online in at least 200 libraries and library systems--partial listing at [11]. 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 bio of the day at [12]. Todays listing is Fiorello H. La Guardia. There is also, free availability to the biographies in every monthly update during the current month, at [13] 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)

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)

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 [14] and [15] and [16] 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)

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 [17] ? 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)

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 ([18] [19] [20] [21]). 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)

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)

Deletion of Daniel Malakov

Relying primarily on scanty delete opinions posted by User:DGG, User:Coredesat acting as a proxy for User:DGG has, I have concluded, improperly deleted Daniel Malakov, stating that he or she was (in doing so) disregarding multiple Keep arguments by the same editor. I am that editor. No attempt was made to conceal the authorship of my arguments to keep, as every one of my arguments in response to other comments posted on the discussion, i.e., subsequent to my first remarks there, was enclosed in parentheses as (Keep) and properly signed.< It seems to me that prima facie, User:DGG acting through the hatchet wielded by User:Coredesat is violating Wikipedia policy: Deletion should not occur on the basis of a popularity contest.
Further, I was not the only one who argued for Keep.
The merits of the argument were never considered. The quantity of Wikipedia pages deleted by User:DGG and User:Coredesat in a short time (see deletion logs under entries for both Administrators) makes clear that neither could not possibly have evaluated deletes on merits. If this is what Wikipedia administrators mean by consensus, they are simply wrong and Wikipedia is nothing more than an amateurish tabloid (the one word Adminstrators eschew above all others) version of Encyclopedia Brittanica. Further, the basis for deletion was notability, a criterion on which there is no objective guideline. I point out, and it must be said, that many Administrators self-identify as fresh out of school with limited life experience, other than experience on Wikipedia. This does not bode well for the future of Wikipedia as a genuine resource rather than merely an internet phenomenon.
Adminstrators such as User:DGG may enjoy their skill at the Wikipedia consensus process, but aren't they really little more than bullies without portfolio? Trygvielie (talk) 17:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm flattered that you think I'm young enough to be fresh out of school. Nobody has said that for decades. If my colleague acted as my proxy, that would be about the first time; when he closes AfDs in which I participate, it tends to be opposite to my opinion. I delete about 5 to 10 very obvious speedies a day as I happen to come across them them--especially if they look like attack pages; my log shows the timing. But it's great to be called a deletionist--it will help maintain some balance, considering what most people think--especially on articles about crimes, which I often support, even as a small minority. As i said at the AfD, if there's additional sources over time, and you can write a balanced article, try it -- on your talk page. But perhaps someone else might do better at keeping it in proportion. DGG (talk) 18:44, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

He's blocked now due to his username, but if he comes back under a new name, I'll instruct him to go to DRV. Thanks. --Coredesat 22:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Block of User talk:Ceoil

Hi DGG, What do you think of this block. There is a considerable irony in being blocked for incivility to betacommand! All the best for the holidays. Johnbod (talk) 12:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - great to see the system working! Hoping to see the Master of the Playing Cards development in 2008! I don't forget. Johnbod (talk) 16:02, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I just realised I forgot to thank you for your level head and balance during this. I took on board what you said, and I appreciated that you took the time. Ceoil (talk) 02:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Done Thanks! Johnbod (talk) 12:51, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

publications, literature, documents, etc.

Hi DGG, In voyaging outside of the academic domains I've had a bit of frustration dealing with the numerous overlapping categories relating to various methods of publication. I was thinking of a potential category tree to try to rein in some of the chaos, and thought I would float it by you (another librarian with a particular interest in publications) to see what you thought. My thinking is (will be in a few minutes) at Category talk:Publications. If there are discussions or projects you're aware of that are looking at this topic, please let me know -- I've looked but haven't found any. --Lquilter (talk) 18:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

BC Comments

I've been following the debate on AN about the whole blocking of an experienced user over a bot threat. I noticed you and Sandy have both suggested either re-assigning BCB from BC or creating a more process-oriented way of dealing with bot reports. I'm not knowledgeable enough to get involved, but several months ago I did have a similar convo with BC and the response was that he was not releasing his code that runs BCB, so as long as the knowledge of the methodology of his Bot remains opaque, I don't see how it could be re-assigned or how other users could go about counseling people. Mbisanz (talk) 05:21, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there nobody at WP capable of writing a replacement? Then we can retire this one. DGG (talk) 05:36, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Persoanlly, I have no idea how to write a bot, but we have enough experienced users that we could probably put in a request to Wikipedia:Bot requests. I like the idea of moving the NFCC process server side or making it a transparent bot, but that would need to be made at Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard and I'm fairly certain an admin or a member of the BAG would be the only person who could command respect in that kind of process. Mbisanz (talk) 05:41, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, with respect to bots, someone more knowledegable than myself. But don't start thinking being an admin gets you any particular respect around here. :) All it seem to do for me is generate long user talk pages. :):) But let's see who notices. Meanwhile, I'm thinking about to whom I should make the suggestion. DGG (talk) 05:48, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Always Do Well To Stop A Citizen's Arrest?

Hey, I absolutely refuse to edit articles. I've left that duty to my betters. Why don't you try to fix the problems that hamper good reading out of Wikipedia? I come here often to learn something new. I don't like being jerked around by anybody, whether those guilty of breaking all the rules, or you who wants to ignore it and shove a boot up my ass for complaining! 24.255.11.149 (talk) 14:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC).

Complain here if you like, I am quite used to it, but dont make personal attacks. You may even be right on the matter at issue, but the way you are discussing it at the article will not help. DGG (talk) 15:02, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, you were extremely concise and better at it than I. Perhaps I wont even do the objections anymore. I am not so gifted in terse tact. I do though, mean to protect other editors by exposing the meanspirited nature of these malcontents as to the welfare of the article. One is trying to shift the focus onto me, as though I am Korismo/ICarrier. I did read most of his posts, but he's actually a newcomer to the article and I am not. I will not explain myself further, just know that a checkuser is useless. Go ahead anyways and break these twinks' hearts. 24.255.11.149 (talk) 15:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

In view of some edits you just made there, I thought it necessary to semi-protect the talk page.Personally,I'm not going to deal with the category question till after the holiday. DGG (talk) 15:19, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Request you look at User:Abd/AfD: formula for conflict

I've written an essay on the AfD problem in an attempt to delineate the issues and possibly to address them. I'd very much appreciate any comment you have time to give. Others who notice this are also welcome to comment and/or edit the essay. --Abd (talk) 03:57, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:AN post about you

Sorry on behalf of all involved for not notifying you, that was a terrible oversight on all of our parts. If it helps, the conversation, as you likely read, focused not on you but rather on Zscout's block of the editor(vandal?) who complained about you. Good luck with your vandals...--CastAStone/^/(talk) 17:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I missed this [22] as I was out of town and off line. Bearian (talk) 20:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Context is everything

Hi. No problem with the warning and stuff, I realise it's a part of the job. The SandyGeorgia thing had been in my past (pre-Admin even) but the circumstances were a little fraught at the time. Ceoil is annoying me a bit at the mo with his "how dare you unblock" if only because I unblocked him less than a week ago - I don't demand gratitude, but... Anyhow, the good admins sail their own course by whatever they believe is for the best for the encyclopedia. Always act for the right reasons and consensus follows. Mostly. :~) Cheers. LessHeard vanU (talk) 03:11, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Almost forgot... I didn't write legal memo's - I used to instruct solicitors, barristers, QC's... and, no, I don't believe I ever said "fuck" outside of quotation marks. LessHeard vanU (talk) 03:15, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

If I misunderstood, I apologize; I did not trace the matter all the way back. But the immediate matter seemed clear to me, and still does. But that's why I would not act without support. I am not among those who want to sail my own course in taking administrative actions. I hope that even with more experience, i will retain the same attitude towards using them. DGG (talk) 03:33, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

adding verification

Hi there

I hope I have put this in the right place - feel free to delete if not!! Can you let me know if the verification I am adding is the type people are likely to be expecting? Thanks!Lynn Huggins - Cooper (talk) 19:40, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Ha

Ever been accused of being a deletionist before?--Kubigula (talk) 06:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

See [23]. And once or twice before. Makes my day each time, as the saying goes. DGG (talk) 06:17, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

"Hive mentality"? That's a good one. I'll have to remember that. 0:) Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

That is priceless. Both the accusation and the phrase. You must be doing something right, David. Thanks Kubigula, that made my day also. — Becksguy (talk) 01:57, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

List of 100 greatest hockey players by The Hockey News

Isn't the mere fact that the list says that it was copied from a copyrighted source an indisputable indication of a copyvio? If not, my apologies for using the speedy tag innapropriately.--CastAStone/^/(talk) 13:58, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The list is taken from a newspaper feature article (and since then, published as a book), but it is the articles about each player that would be the most contentious material, and none of that is included in this article. The list itself is basically just the table of contents, and I think that constitutes fair use. If not, we should include at least the top 10, and include an analysis of the full list (e.g. # of players by country, # of players by position, etc.). − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 14:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

First, as for item one, no. Obviously the person using it thought it was fair use. It doesnt even proved it was actually copied, rather than merely based on. For that matter, there have been times when someone inserting material thought it was under copyright, and it has turned out not to be at all, as when, people have uploaded material from a copyright source (but for which they had fair use) but had been copied by that source from a government source--not that this applies here).

Twas Now is mostly correct--the 4 tests for fair use in the US are purpose of use, nature of material, amount taken, and commercial effect. (it need only meet them overall, not necessarily all 4 ). And this does meet all four: its for non-profit education purposes, is descriptive prose rather than fiction, is a small element of the original, and would have no imaginable effect on sales. But it has been held that if it did not meet fair use requirements, taking only say the top 90% of a list would not necessarily make it usable-- but I think ii would if we reported just the top tenth. But the entire list is fair use. 19:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Molecular biology ---> library

Hi DGG,

I've been aware of your presence on Wikipedia for some time, but I just now took the time to read your userpage. I find it remarkable that you transitioned from being a molecular biologist to being a librarian. Have you already documented this change of heart somewhere on-wiki? If not, do you think you could? (Even in talkspace, of course.) This doesn't really merit a reply unless you have free time, but I would love to know more.

Thanks, Antelan ^talk 07:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC) Just send me an email or enable yours. DGG (talk) 17:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Your upcoming presentation to fellow librarians

Please keep us updated on this. And, if there's a digital component, you can place a copy online at meta:Presentations/en. Thanks.--Pharos (talk) 01:10, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

See User:DGG/LG. This is of course just a sketch. When I gave it, and as I will give it, there's no formal online component--it's a live demo based on the current pages in Wikipedia. DGG (talk) 03:10, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Amateur computer club invite

Here is where I read about it. Maybe Mark remembers more. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Citation question

DGG, I'm looking to create a new article that I found some references for at the library. I have all the info needed for the source, but I'm not sure how to cite the author/editor. It's a "local history" book that appears to be a compilation of different chapters, which each chapter having (a) different author(s). I'm only using information from one specific chapter. Do I cite the author of that chapter, or the editor of the book? I feel like I should do both. The editor's name is on the cover of the book, and each author is only listed on their respective chapter(s). I couldn't find this addressed at WP:CITE or WP:CIT. Maybe Harvard Referencing has some way that I didn't see. Thoughts? Jauerback (talk) 22:00, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Use the 2nd form under CIT encyclopedia. The logic of CIT is that you when you use "citation" instead of "cite book" etc., you can combine any elements you need from the various versions; the fullest list is at Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles

{{Citation
  | last1 = Kramer
  | first1 = Martin
  | last2 = Ludwig
  | first2 = Peter
  | author-link = Martin Kramer
  | contribution = Chapter on XYZ
  | editor1-last = Boyd
  | editor1-first = Kelley
  | editor2-last = Jones
  | editor2-first = Peter
  | title = Collected essays on the subject of ABC
  | volume = 1
  | pages = 719–729
  | publisher = Fitzroy Dearborn
  | place = London
  | year = 2009
  | isbn = 0-9999-1850-8
  | url =  http://www.book.htm
  | contribution-url = http://www.book#chapter.html   
  | accessdate = 2009-06-29  )
}}
 

which should come out as
Kramer, Martin; Ludwig, Peter (2009), "Chapter on XYZ", in Boyd, Kelley; Jones, Peter (eds.), Collected essays on the subject of ABC, vol. 1, London: Fitzroy Dearborn, pp. 719–729, ISBN 0-9999-1850-8, retrieved 2009-06-29
using url and contribution-url only if it's online. If there is more than one author, use the last1 first1 technique from citation for conferences for them. I included the code for multiple authors and editors if needed; I think I will add this to the CIT page. DGG (talk) 00:33, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

question

After waiting a while, I just would like to ask you, wether you have seen my question there. Regards, —αἰτίας •discussion• 19:05, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

commented there. DGG (talk) 19:23, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Re: question

I don't think it's a bad idea - although I'm sure it'll be gamed by people seeking to exercise superiority over other admins. As with all things, the ethos in question applies only with a good dash of reason; I sure wouldn't want people overturning BLP or OTRS deletions on me without consulting me first. :-) east.718 at 21:08, January 22, 2008

I think a cat might be a good idea, to complement "administrators willing to make difficult blocks" and all the others - but can't think of anything succint enough at the moment. "Administrators willing to be reverted" sends the wrong message to me - got any ideas? east.718 at 19:48, January 23, 2008

I just saw "This admin encourages other admins to be bold in reverting his admin actions." at User_talk:BovlbDGG (talk) 22:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Cal Nichols, & Barnes Reports

I removed the reports because I could find no mention or quote in any independent news organization or other website other than self-added directories--no membership in related associations, identification of authors, presentations or papers, networking--for 100+ reports that are sold via payloadz. Is this a distributor or some sort of a compiler? Flowanda | Talk 06:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

They are I think a well-established market research organization,--but in any I may remember wrong, and will check on both parts of it tomorrow. DGG (talk) 06:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Amadou Cisse (student)

As far as murders go, Cisse was more notable than average. But the deleted article cited a full-length article in the New York Times—for a Chicago murder. I doubt this new source would convince any who favored deletition.

Moreover, I'm also a bit of a deletionist myself, and I primarily created the page because of apparent user demand for it. I would support a DRV though. Cool Hand Luke 23:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I shall do as I usually do, wait for someone else to open it and then support overturn & relist. I don't like feeling isolated more than the inevitable. Your comments in the AfD already made clear that you had a neutral attitude, just as I would have expected. DGG (talk) 23:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I just don't see the urgency in deleting non-BLP, non-promotional articles which are on the cusp of notability. The event is certainly noteworthy enough to get coverage somewhere on Wikipedia; deleting it and saying "no merge target exists" is a recipe for wasted efforts that clashes with my eventualist outlook. If I revive it, I'll let you know. Cool Hand Luke 23:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, good people of all tendencies can usually agree on practical action and the merits of compromise positions. DGG (talk) 23:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for your compliments on my posts at expert withdrawal! They are very much appreciated! LinaMishima (talk) 03:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Jacen Solo

Partially as a result of your vote to keep the article, the AfD resulted in "no consensus". Since you are convinced that Wikipedia should have an article on Jacen Solo, please stand by that and help get this article to the bare minimum encyclopedic standards. This includes a complete rewrite from a non-in-universe perspective, accompanied by reliable, third-party secondary sources.

If however the article has not been brought up to this bare minimum within the next 4 weeks, I will consider resubmitting it for deletion.

Regards, User:Dorftrottel 02:41, January 30, 2008

thanks for the warning. My guess in that in 4 weeks the consensus will recognize that this sort of article is acceptable,with notability as part of the notability for the series. Not that it shouldn't be improved, by those who are interested in the subject. I see that the next-to-last so called !vote at the Afd was a delete by an anon who said "he doesn't actually exist. Therefore, all traces must be erased from Wikipedia, before we run out of space." No closer is going to listen to that sort of argument. DGG (talk) 04:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Well said

		The Wiki Wiffle Bat
		For the most clear-headed statement I've read on Wikipedia in a long time, I award you a wifflebat in thanks. Nealparr (talk to me) 06:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Regarding [24], well said. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 06:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Silent Generation

Hey there, just giving you a heads up, I reverted your last edit on Silent Generation, because, as you will see, I was sourcing it at that moment (as well as some expansion). As far as all those lists of names go, though, not sure what to do about those. I think it important to have them there, but not sure how to source them...if you clink on the links, you see that they are from that era. Not sure if all are notable enough, though. If you have any thoughts, I'd appreciate it. Cheers,Cbradshaw (talk) 06:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Just wanted to add, I just saw your comment on the List of Generations page, so I didn't want you to think I was ignoring your comments, esp, re: List of celebs. Incidentally, I didn't add the names, only tried to give them cultural context. As I said above, I am not familiar with all the names. Actually, now that I have researched the topic a bit more, I think the list is even more important, as they are "stars" of a generally quiet generation. When your talking in such a broad topic as a Generation, I don't know how a person can strictly fulfill every characteristic ascribed to it. Look forward to hearing from you. Cbradshaw (talk) 06:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

There has long been consensus on the various pages for the S&H generations, that there is no basis for putting these people into the generational categories there because it is not a specific characteristic to be born in a particular 20 year period, and that if he mentions them in his book this is not sufficient, since that would be excessively detailed content. In fact, the pages for generations given only in his book were deleted, by consensus at AfD and elsewhere.

In contrast, if you intend to put them in as characteristic of the generation in its more general applicability, you will have to show that they have been generally considered characteristic of the generation specifically in reliable sources, other than his book, which is considered not to be generally accepted by historians. I call to your attention that blogs and the like are not acceptable sources for this either. There would still be no basis for such a list-0-they should be mentioned in the text, individually sourced for each characteristic person. DGG (talk) 13:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Msg for you on WP:FLAG-PROF talk page

Hello again, {{BASEPAGENAME}} ... please see [[User_talk:The_Bipolar_Anon-IP_Gnome/Flag-prof#example_of_using_FLAG-BIO_..._message_for_User:DGG|this message I left for you]] on another talk page regarding my [[User:The Bipolar Anon-IP Gnome/Flag-bio|WP:FLAG-BIO]] protocol, as well as [[User_talk:The_Bipolar_Anon-IP_Gnome/Flag-prof#difficulties|my replies to your comments]] ... Happy Editing! — 72.75.72.63 (talk · contribs) _{22:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)}

Winifred Freedman

Hello again, {{BASEPAGENAME}} ... what do you think of my [[User talk:72.75.72.63/Oldprodfull|Template:Oldprodfull]]? I've dummied an example on [[Talk:Winifred Freedman|the talk page]] for that article ... I still need to write something to go in [[Template:Flag-templates|WP:Flag-templates]] and the others that reflects the new "inclusionists welcomed!" paradigm shift. :-) Happy Editing! — 72.75.72.63 (talk) _{17:39, 9 February 2008 (UTC)}

I like it--it provides useful information not in the standard prod template and doesnt duplicate the instructions on what to do with the article. But why call it oldprod ? it doesnt become an old prod until after the 5 days--isnt the notice intended to be used when the prod is placed?DGG (talk) 17:50, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I have modified the 3rd Step of WP:FLAG-BIO to include adding and updating the {{Oldprodfull}} template on the article's talk page if you decide to PROD, 2nd a PROD, or decline a PROD ... see Talk:Winifred Freedman for an example.

Yeah, I guess Oldprodfull might be misleading for the name, but the functionality is for the "full" range of options (PROD and/or PROD-2 and/or DECLINE) ... besides, I simply cloned Oldafdfull and was Just Too Lazy to think of another name at the time. :-)

As designed, you can either stick it on a talk page with no arguments, or else use the "empty" boilerplate on the Template Usage page to get the ball rolling. — 72.75.72.63 (talk · contribs) _{02:54, 11 February 2008 (UTC)}

User:DGG/LG

In December I gave a presentation to librarians in Pittsburgh area. Would you like me to send you my presentation slides? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

After a day of fighting with my email and then Wikimedia, I finally gave up and uploaded a file to rapidshare. At least it works :) Download. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

New mailing list

There has been a mailing list created for Wikipedians in the New York metropolitan area (list: Wikimedia NYC). Please consider joining it! Cbrown1023 talk 20:56, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Spam

Thanks. As I've said it wasn't the first removal that's the problem, it's the ongoing attitude after I try and discuss it with him. For example look at Oliver Hazard Perry Morton, nobody could possibly say that isn't a tremendous addition to the article. Links to university held document archives aren't really spam in any sense of the word providing the link is relevant to the article, they aren't promoting anything and don't fail any part of WP:EL from what I can see. The Indiana archive only has a small set of archives from what I can see, so it's not like there would ever have been hundreds of links. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 20:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)_

Last Judgement

DGG, What on earth is the point of this stub - with rubbish removed and renamed it is now just one line? I wish you would let some of these efforts go quietly. It does NOT help the encyclopedia to have them cluttering the place up. Johnbod (talk) 11:52, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

There is probably literature on that specific item.

From Grove Online, it turns out that it is his only signed work, the one on the basis of which the other sculptures there and elsewhere are attributed to him. From its article on the cathedral (Autun, §2(ii): Cathedral sculpture), "This is perhaps the most expressive representation of the Last Judgement in 12th-century sculpture " I'll fill it in. & add the necessary links elsewhere. I haven't even checked for the periodical literature yet. How much do you want at 7 AM on Sunday? DGG (talk) 12:26, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

• Of course there is literature on it! It is a highly important work. Don't worry, I know where to find it, and stuff on all the 200 other important cathedral tympani. But what use is what, when the crap is removed, is only a one-line stub? We have more and better at Autun Cathedral, where in fact it should be redirected. If and when a proper article on the subject is written, it would only take 10 seconds to get to this level. Oddly enough, twenty minutes after I prodded it, Wetman raised that very tympanum at User_talk:Wetman#Category:Ivory_works_of_art - 3 years is about right I think. Categorising, renaming and removing actual inaccuracy from these crappy teen-stubs is a significant drain on editorial resources. As they are they reduce the value of the project. Prodding is often the best answer. Johnbod (talk) 13:58, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

• • I think we agree that ultimately, the level of aggregation for works of art should be that each major work has an article. (Just as for major books and works of music the works have an article each.) From the comment you refer to, you intend working in a long time frame, going first with the periods, then the monuments, and eventually the woks, but for now staying with the more general articles.
    

I disagree. In addition to that strategy, we should rewrite, expand, and use them as they appear (It was never my intention to leave it as it was). Why wait three years until some unknown future person gets to it? While you & the other scholars are in a properly didactic way, the amateurs will none the less have articles on most of them ready for you to improve. Go do it your professional way, but I will continue to do it mine. You apparently dont want this because you feel obliged to fix them and it takes more time to do it unsystematically. A reasonable argument. But to me it's like not making articles on individual 19th century senators or MPs until we can do them all. WP is an amateur production at heart. We want to raise the standards, but this has to be by encouraging the amateurs, and helping them do so. But even if you want to do it your way, the way to avoid the elementary student articles is to make the redirects for the works now, ahead of time, systematically, as Wikipedia:Redirects with possibilities--at least that will get the names right. I agree there was so little in this that it might not have been worth the trouble--but now you';re discouraging me from taking the trouble. DGG (talk) 07:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: "what do we do about it"

I replied at my talk page. Funny timing! I will likely not be on WP again until this evening; I was just here for a few minutes during my lunch at work. So I will review and respond to further replies only at that time. Thanks, Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 17:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Useful resource

David,

Peter Sheahan is a recognised expert on Generation Y. He consults globally to organizations including News Corporation and Google. His Generation Y DVD series on managing and retaining Generation Y is an extremely useful tool for organizations struggling to attract and retain the best Generation Y talent. How can a useful resource be classified as spam? My understanding is that most patrons of Wikipedia use it only as a reference for further research.

Please reply on to my talk page Samuel Michael Carter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Samuel Michael Carter (talk • contribs) 05:56, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

replied there; the work is self-published. DGG (talk) 16:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

magazines...

...and creative works in general cannot be deleted under speedy A7, per WP:CSD In any case, I think Railfan and Railroad might be one of the two leading magazines in its subject. did you check that? Please do not use speedy when not strictly within the specifications.'

Magazines are businesses, not creative works, and therefore fall squarely under {{db-corp}} guidelines -- which also explicitly refer to articles which make no assertion of notability, which this article doesn't. Your vague recollection doesn't qualify either as an assertion of notability nor a reliable source. Please do not wikilawyer about obvious failures of speedy standards and specifications. --Calton | Talk 16:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree it will quite possibly be deleted at afd, unless I or someone finds more material. Relative rank is capable of objective determination via Ulrich's. But as for speedy, WP:CSD: "A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. " if you want to change the rules, discuss it there. I think you will find the consensus is clear about magazines. A book publisher is a company. A book is not. A record distributor is a company. A recording is not. A series of recordings is not. A boxed set of recordings is not. A magazine publisher is a company. A magazine is not. Speedy is not stretchable. What you call wikilawering I call following the rules. " There is no consensus to speedily delete articles of types not specifically listed in A7 under that criterion." DGG (talk) 16:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Noticeboards, noticeboards, noticeboards!

I think I remember you chiming in when the No Original Research noticeboard was created as it being just an extra page to watch. We've now got the Fringe Theories, Fiction, NOR, and NPOV. I'm wondering if we're not spreading ourselves too thin over too many boards. Any ideas? MBisanz ^talk 03:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

We also have COI, and BLP, and RS, and the duplicative pair (ANB and AN/I), and BONB, and a number of similarly functioning pages, such as WT:SPAM, CP and its family, the various VPs and RfCs, WQA if it survives, the widely ignored RM and PM, and those I dont even know about). And the XfDs, the Ref Desks and the Help Desks, and AIV, 3RR and their relatives. And the talk pages for every policy and guideline prominent and obscure. And user talk pages where interesting stuff tends to be found. I organize what I do with bookmarks: I've got a group I call WPck (wikipedia check), and how far I get down the list of 30 or so 51, now that I've actually counted-- each day is variable--but I've never gotten to the bottom. Some in my opinion in practice tend to serve for POV pushing, such as BLP and FRINGE. (At some I agree more with the trend--like RS, so I don't call it POV pushing)

I forgot the talklists and IRC. I prefer to forget about IRC, and I wish I could really forget about the talklists.

But look at it in a positive way--it's forum shopping which keeps there from being any one WP:LOC.DGG (talk) 04:43, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Def going on my best of list. MBisanz ^talk 17:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Namecheck

Don't know if you've already been alerted to this? Go and search the text for DGG. Kudos! Kim Dent-Brown ^(Talk) 17:52, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion reform study group

Moved to User talk:DGG/Deletion reform -- please continue there. DGG (talk) 05:51, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

You are famous

(Kim Dent-Brown mentioned this above, a little cryptically, on 29 February 2008)
See here, if you have not seen it already.--Filll (talk) 23:56, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice ! --Hu12 (talk) 00:35, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

No fair! I want my own newspaper article mention. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 00:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Just vandalize the Signpost.--Father Goose (talk) 10:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations

You were mentioned in a book review here Congratulations on it and id like to give you a barnstar but i belive you are the first editor to recive the honor of being in a book review. so id like you to make one........ get back to work now Rankun (talk) 22:34, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I hope you don't let all this fame go to your head DGG :) --Pixelface (talk) 08:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Fame

seen your NY Book Review usernamecheck? Near the bottom. Johnbod (talk) 18:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Old news I see! Why are they online a three weerks before the publication date, i wonder? Better than another barnstar anyway. I'm incredibly patient too, & hope to see something on the Master of the Playing Cards one day! Johnbod (talk) 20:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: User:Jbmurray/Madness

(Copied over from my talk page:) DGG, many thanks for your comment. I'm glad that my text may be useful for the NYC meet. I'd be pleased to have any feedback or reactions that come out of that. And I do now indeed intend to publish a version of the essay somewhere. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 00:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

A3 to Prod ?

Do you really think it is necessary to {{Prod}} for process? Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 17:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I think it necessary to follow the speedy criteria as written. Anything else leads to chaos Some people will delete appropriately, others not. The purpose of process is to prevent misuse, at the cost of going slightly slower. Of all WP process, I think PROD is the cleverest compromise. DGG (talk) 18:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Ransom Center ?Spam?

Hi DGG, I recently noticed a situation that I thought might be of interest to you. On my watchlist in several places this evening I noticed a user adding links to special manuscript collections that are at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. The editor Sashafresh did this pretty widely and was given a link spam warning User talk:Sashafresh#link additions. I assume the editor in question is a librarian or researcher at the Center, hence why I thought to mention the situation to you. On the one hand, I can see how it could be a very useful resource if more librarians helped connect Wikipedians with their resources; on the other hand, I see the potential for abuse. In the cases I looked at, the Ransom Center does have some remarkable manuscripts and such that would be of definite interest to the serious researcher. Anyways, I don't really plan on intervening in the situation, but thought I'd flag it for you. --JayHenry (talk) 00:44, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

As you say, these will have to be examined individually. There's been previous discussion on this question, with respect to him and others, and the bar for adding such resources is very high. There are justified examples. There's a better solution, of course: to get copyright release for the first page of a manuscript, put a GFDL tag on a web illustration, and add it to commons. The legends will then show the institution. Adding these otherwise requires prior consensus on the article talk page, which might be obtainable for some of them. Let me try to get into contact off-wiki. DGG (talk) 02:36, 28 March 2008 (UTC) (dp)

Church of Google

Hi David - Please look at this AfD close Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Church of Google (3rd nomination) and some other conversation links User talk:The Placebo Effect#The Church of Google and User talk:Becksguy#Re:Church of Google, and offer some advise, if you would. Do you agree that the closing did not follow consensus as established in the AfD, or not. And do you advise a DRV or not. I think that every item in the nomination and all the delete arguments were successfully answered and refuted. The closer did not take my complied list within the AfD into account, a list that was in far better shape than the article references and that had been pruned and shaped based on input during the deletion discussion. — Becksguy (talk) 01:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I second Becksguy's concerns. Wikipedia may not be a democracy, but that one was clearly a no consensus at worst. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 01:12, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I thought, LGRdC. No consensus at worst. — Becksguy (talk) 01:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

A very surprising closing. A good admin, who merely made a mistake. Can't figure out why he simply didn't choose to correct it.DGG (talk) 02:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, what are you all saying? He just applied wikipedia's notability rules, after all wikipedia is not a WP:DEMOCRACY. Vote counting and claiming consensus are not substitutes for following policies that have had huge amount of community consensus thrown at them for a long period of time until they adquired their current shape.

Also, notice the very first paragraph from Wikipedia:Deletion_policy consists of a single sentence: "The Wikipedia deletion policy describes how pages which do not meet the relevant content criteria are identified and removed from Wikipedia.". On the deletion discussion section, this gets hammered upon "Here, (on the nomination debates) editors who wish to participate can give their opinion on what should be done with the page. These processes are not decided through a head count, so participants are encouraged to explain their opinion and refer to policy.". A bit later, it talks about consensus, but then it links to Wikipedia:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators#Rough_consensus where it says "Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but by looking at strength of argument, and underlying policy (if any). Arguments that contradict policy, are based on opinion rather than fact, or are logically fallacious, are frequently discounted" (the word "not" is emphasized on the policy page, I didn't add any emphasis).

I'm afraid that the consensus on a nomination for deletion is about how the article complies with deletion criteria or not, and not about wether many people thought that it would be OK to keep the page. In this case, the article failed notability criteria, so it was a clear delete, and the admin acted correctly. Going to deletion review without providing additional sources would be gaming the system by faking victimism: "the bad admin deleted my page against consensus". No, he deleted the page following wikipedia policies, and he would have acted wrongly if he had done otherwise, and he would have failed his duty as admin.

Finally, if you think that these policies are wrong and that there are better ways to decide deletion, then you should go to the policies talk pages and suggest improvements. --Enric Naval (talk) 03:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The whole "democracy" versus "consensus" thing is actually somewhat contradictory. You cannot have consensus without some kind of majority of support. Thus, if a majority of editors want to keep an article on a website billed as the one that anyone can edit and the sum total of human knowledge, we should not appeal to some minority or narrow viewpoint of the project. That is just illogical and inconsistent with what "consensus" actually means. More editors believe the article merits inclusion. Thus, the consensus of the community is that the article be kept. Those advocating inclusion tend to actually work on improving the article. Those voting to delete did what to help the article? Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 03:42, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Deletion decisions don't use "consensus" in the sense you seem to give to the term, they use rough consensus, which I quoted on my comment, and which says clearly that some arguments, the ones going against policies among others, "are frequently discounted". Please see my quotes and read the linked page before trying to say again that "consensus" is on your side on a deletion debate, since wikipedia policies say that it's not, and admins know it. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

• Enric, I think you misunderstand the proper, limited, role of administrators. We do not judge articles, just evaluate the results of a discussions. We do not decide if an article meets notability criteria, we decide if the consensus at the article thinks it did. Our discretion is just to disregard irrelevant arguments, such as I like it. When I became an admin, I was asked to promise I would not close on the basis of what I personally thought notable; it had not occurred to be that I would ever want to do so, for I would surely be reversed at Deletion Review. Let's continue this there. DGG (talk) 04:14, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

(Damn, I'm technically away, but I couldn't resist answering here) Yeah, that's what I meant, but I disagree on how the consensus is interpreted. He just judged the weight of the arguments behind the votes and decided not to take many of the votes into account because they were not valid keep reasons according to deletion policies, or based on false assumptions about the last nomination debate. He also decided the consensus by looking at the strenght of the remaining arguments, and not at the head count, just like the policies say. Let's make this clear (time to abuse the bolding again) Wikipedia:Deletion_guidelines_for_administrators#Rough_consensus says that Wikipedia policy, (which requires WP:V, WP:OR, WP:COPYVIO, WP:NPOV) is not negotiable. The admin claimed that the article was in breach of the notability policy, and arguments from editors didn't convince him that this was not true, so he had to decide a delete. That's why I say that he appears to have acted correctly. Head count can not superseed policy. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Holy crap. The "non-negotiable" mutation is spreading. Well, thank goodness Wikipedia:consensus is policy, and Wikipeida:non negotiable does not even have a page. Said paragraph has been taken out and shot. --Kim Bruning (talk) 11:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

lol, Kim, please don't take this that I am going to tell you as an insult. How about if I tell you that you haven't actually read WP:CONSENSUS, because the you would have noticed that in the exceptions section it says exactly what I have been saying here. I quote "Consensus decisions in specific cases are not expected to override consensus on a wider scale very quickly - for instance, a local debate on a WikiProject does not override the larger consensus behind a policy or guideline".

As you see, a small consensus on a deletion nomination is just not going to override a policy or a guideline just like that. Saying that a certain idea has the consensus necessary to override a policy is an obvious fallacy, since if you actually had all that consensus then you could just go to the policy page and request that the policy be changed to acommodate the consensus.

If you look at WP:PILLARS you will also see that consensus is part of the "code of conduct" pillar, while verifiability is part of the "encyclopedia". As a rule of thumb, I consider that any user saying that a part of one pillar can override a part of another pillar is probably wrong. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

perhaps this discussion would be more productive elsewhere. its not as if we were likely to settle it between us. I'll end this thread by summarizing my general views on the most general issues: The difficult questions at Wikipedia are where policies appear to conflict. Though these conflicts could be regarded as productive of discord, I see them more as leading to flexibility. It is multiple discussions on detail that change consensus. Policy is explanatory of what we agree to do at WP, not forced on us from above. DGG (talk) 02:07, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, you are right, I got carried away trying to "win" the argument. Thanks for reacting so well and fairly. I guess we can go over these issues sometime on the future on some DRV, and they I'll watch my words more and try to be more respectful --Enric Naval (talk) 12:05, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

SPOV Question

Hi there DGG - I asked a question in response to yours, and I'm afraid that it's gotten lost in the hubbub on the talk:NPOV page. I'm reposting it here because, rather than the question being a rhetorical argument, I'm looking to get your practical input. I can't answer this question, myself, right now, and I'm looking to your experience for some guidance. Here is the question, in part: I think that what you are saying largely works - but there are specific instances where I think there would still be trouble. For example, I'd be interested to get your thoughts regarding some fringe-science articles where no SPOV material has been published on the subject. What would be a fair presentation of SPOV for such a subject, keeping in mind WP:NOR? In other words, there is new stuff coming from the fringe every day (and by fringe, I mean to include both the stuff that is "garbage" and the stuff that, after community examination, ultimately becomes folded into the mainstream). I'm not sure how to present material like this without either (a) giving it undue weight by presenting it in a vacuum of other ideas, or (b) performing original research and comparing it in some way to the mainstream. This may not be the best formulation of the problem as I see it, but it gets across my basic concern. Thanks, Antelan^talk 21:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I replied to this yesterday at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view; I see your comments there, and I will continue there in more detail. But to summarize, this is a recurrent and difficult question. Basically, there is almost always some SPOV material available. It's OK if it takes 5 paragraphs to present an absurd idea so it makes as much sense as it's going to make, with one paragraph at the end to give the information that shows to any reasonable person that it's nonsense (along with having this also in the lede paragraph) Balance doesnt have to be measured in words. It doesn't after all take much science to clarify most of this stuff. If the SPOV is the valid one and well presented, anyone not committed to the idea will understand after even a short presentation. In fact, strategically it's even better.

So the problem shows up mainly where there's no science at all Most of the time, either t here is not enough pseudoscience to make it notable as such, in which case we don't need an article on it at all, or it is so ridiculous that just explaining it makes it clear what the status is. Nobody thinks wee endorse the ideas in our articles.DGG (talk) 22:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Oliver Twist character article

Hi saw that you removed the prod from the above article and plan to maybe expand it. With regard to any future possible prodding of the article, I do believe it is important that there are two articles to distinguish Oliver Twist the character from Oliver Twist the book, as seems to be quite standard in other similar articles (Hamlet for instance). As you have seen the article about the character clearly needs some work doing on it. I will also try to add to it maybe once you have had chance to add content? Thanks. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 22:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Other instances like this have been challenged in the past, and I hope to get to it before the deletionists start attacking it. But don't wait for me--add what you can find now. I think a section on cultural references mighty be relevant--most popular culture use of it is about the character, not the book. DGG (talk) 00:40, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi David, in case you're interested, Tangerines has moved Oliver Twist (character) on a long way now. Well worth keeping! - Fayenatic (talk) 13:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Communist Propaganda AfD

I do think you have missed the point a bit on this one. Did you read my entire !vote? "not a notable scholarly subject, because nothing (or vanishingly little) has been written about what is common to propaganda from various communist countries, parties and communist organisations." I happen to be fairly certain that such sources do not exist - except, maybe, in long-discredited John Birch Society pamphlets. More to the point, none have been produced.

As I said, "Propaganda in the Soviet Union"/"by the Soviet Union" are perfectly acceptable articles, and not under discussion. Please note that the Western propaganda redirect sends us to the Chomsky theory of propaganda in advanced capitalist societies, which makes precisely the above sort of argument - that there is a common thread to the propaganda output in these societies. Note also that it is presented there as a theory, as well. Were any similar theories to be found in reliable sources about propaganda from societies and parties as diverse as Cuba, the Soviet Union, North Korea, the Communist Party of South Africa, the Shining Path, and the Socialist Unity Centre of India, or even any sources that claimed to make that connection, as the Chomsky theory does for other equally diverse societies and organisations, the situation would be different. Otherwise we are left with people using "communist propaganda" as shorthand for particular, different, communist parties. Jumbling them together would be unacceptable synthesis, and get anyone who did so a failing grade in most undergraduate courses.

I was particularly disappointed and dismayed. because if one of our most experienced commenters on deletion debates does not see the danger of "articles titled with weakly-defined referents, which are then used as soapboxes for whatever form of original research people with a bunch of different POVs turn up with a single Google search on the title phrase", then we are indeed in trouble, and it explains the losing battle some of us are fighting trying to keep advocacy swill of various flavours out of the mainspace.

Could you perhaps revisit your vote? --Relata refero (disp.) 08:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

replied on the AfD page: the subjects overlap.

I'm now going to be heretical--I think the best way to deal with some issues is a policy change to permit ideological forking in articles. I think we do it implicitly in some cases already, and that we might as well do it explicitly. Otherwise we end up with uncomfortable attempts at synthesis which if they ever reach a compromise, do it by reducing an article to meaninglessness. Instead of subheadings "criticism" we should have "X views on" and "Y views on." But I'm certainly not arguing the afd on that basis, for such is not the current policy. DGG (talk) 14:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

As I spelled out there, I still think you're wrong :)

Anyway, I'm actually thinking very hard about what you just threw out up there. If we can't keep our mainspace free, perhaps we can keep certain articles free. Hmmm. --Relata refero (disp.) 15:34, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Polyglycoplex

It first appeared in the Calgary paper, which isn't some small-town outfit with a circulation 200; it serves a city of around 500K. If they thought it was notable enough, & if a second paper, the local here (the Star-Phoenix) picked it up (for a city pop 200K), thought it was, I would have thought that would do it. Me? I thought a new way of reducing obesity without evident health hazard was of sufficient interest people might just want to know. And given the number of pages about obscure stuff that have slim chance of even making a major newspaper, I'd say it passes. Of course, I am a bit biased, having created the page, but I'd never have bothered if I didn't think there were people like me who might find it interesting, or valuable. Trekphiler (talk) 03:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Beyond the book mentioned on the page, I'm completely at sea. I'd never heard of it before, & I'm completely unqualified to comment. A quick google comes up 15300, led by CTV, which is probably just a reprint, & a bunch of hits for Slim Styles "diet food". Trekphiler (talk) 03:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

You've been invoked

In the New York Review of Books, no less: Nicholson Baker mentions you as a "patient librarian". Cheers! Her Pegship (tis herself) 03:48, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Funny that among librarians I am considered to have a noticeable lack of patience -- guess it depends on the surrounding environment. (smile) DGG (talk) 03:54, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

St. Patrick's Purgatory

Thanks for looking at this. I just chanced on the article.

I found the article unclear as to what "St. Patrick's Purgatory" IS. Is it the name of the pilgrimage? Is it the final destination of the pilgrimage? It is the area where the pilgrimage takes place? (I suppose it could be all three.)

It was when I got to the part about pilgrims being allowed only black tea or coffee and dry toast that I thought maybe it was an April First article.

The bit about an account of the pilgrimage being contained in McCarthy's Bar was what pushed me to ask for another opinion. (That and some other hoax edits I found yesterday.)

Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 13:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

The name is used primarily for the actual area, not just the pilgrimage. The article does have some elements that are either jocular or derived from a tourist brochure. I'll check on them. DGG (talk) 14:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

"Webisodes" and the like

Nice to see we can occasionally agree on something! --Orange Mike | Talk 17:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Questionable_journals.

Could I invite you to this discussion related to further tweaks to the Scholarship section of WP:RS. I want to try and get this right. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Sixth International Congress on Tuberculosis

Challenge Award - fame at last?

Have you seen the mention you got in Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Science/Newsletter/May 2008? :-) Carcharoth (talk) 23:49, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I was just about to mention this. Thanks for starting Gunther Stent!--ragesoss (talk) 00:00, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Since he was my advisor, I sort of felt guilt not having done it.DGG (talk) 00:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Vattikutti Question

Hey, quick question on this AfD, which I don't feel out of place discussing because you've already !voted. I could substantially re-write the article but when the nom is an admin arguing loudly for deletion, is there any chance it will be kept? Honestly, I don't want to waste time re-writing more than I did which just addressed the main advert issues if it's only going to be deleted. Thanks _Cari ^{Fellow Travellers} 03:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

to the extent that my own keeps on sometimes dubious articles are sometimes accepted, its because I am known to be willing to work on improving them--the time to do it is immediately at afd, not just promises for the future. Do it now, and call attention to it at the afd. If by any chance the article is rejected, your better one can be used either for deletion review, or for further improvement and then insertion. Ironically, I just this minute came here and saw this after going back to that article and elaborating my earlier opinion. Loud self-assured talking does not always have much to do with the results of an afd, and one particular admin's view of the effect of COI is not necessarily the consensus. DGG (talk) 03:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. FWIW, I've never found you to be as adamant in your POV to be arguing with keeps/deletes, as it may be. I just wasn't sure when admin overruled consensus. I'll go work on it a little more per your suggestion. I already noted in a comment to one of Hu12's that I'd done some clean-up to demonstrate notability from external sources. Talk to-Cari^{the Busy Bee} 03:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

the proof that admin views as opposed to valid policy arguments does not overinfluence afd decisions is that admins are usually to be found on the opposite sides of anything interesting. In fact, one gets to be an admin in considerable part because people respect one's views as expressed at AfD and similar discussions. DGG (talk) 03:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I don't think there's a single admin who I haven't thought "HUH?" about one of their decisions/comments but I usually at least understand where it's coming from/based in, even if I don't agree. I did a re-write and left a note, we'll see what happens. I'm not so passionate about this article that I'm going to spend hours on it, but it does appear notable. I think I'll request it to be userfied if it's deleted and I can work on it then Talk to_Cari^{the Busy Bee} 04:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

WW in America

I disagree; WW in America is the one I was in. They had no QC, no documentation requirements, nothing. I wouldn't depend on them for anything more substantial than a mailing address. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

If they included you, they probably had a reason. I think it was perhaps the appearance at the Dem Convention. (I havent checked for dates or the like) There is the quality control of not wanting to appear in public in a prominent & permanent place like a jackass. I suppose its time to look for another academic study on them, because libraries do use and recommend them. DGG (talk) 20:40, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

IIRC, my invitation to be in WWiA was before my stint as a DNC delegate (I may be wrong); when I failed to order a copy of the volume, I was quietly dropped from the next edition. My concern is that I could have lied through my teeth about academic background, employment history, offices held, etc., and apparently they would have taken my word for it. In this era of padded resumes, this is a matter of grave concern for all users of reference materials. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Will take a look at it again, & ask some colleaguesDGG (talk) 19:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Time and fate deities in popular culture

from the AfD: Do you really think that all IPC articles are inherently unencylopedic? The kind that usually wind up at AfD tend to be a terrible mess, but there are a few good ones out there. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 02:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

passing by. I think that almost all of them are in fact encyclopedic as summaries and reorganisations of material elsewhere. DGG (talk) 03:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

.......... (copied here by Stifle)

Yes, I do, but primarily because I am a deletionist. Stifle (talk) 10:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

As a deletionist then, what do you want deleted? all articles on all topics? or what do you think in particular applies here to all of them? ? (I note that I am in general an inclusionist, but only in general--I almost never say all of anything should be kept -- or deleted. And the balance varies by topic--for example, i think most primary school articles contain only dictionary information & should be deleted or merged or redirected--but that's most, not all. For the topic here, IPC, I said almost all. Definitely not all--some of them are incurably overspecific or overbroad or inadequate. DGG (talk) 13:22, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi. I would like to thank you for your comments in these AfDs. It seems that if we discuss we can really clean fictional characters articles and create some good ones. It seems we are in the middle of an edit war between deletionists and inclucionists and many actions lack of common sense. Friendly, Magioladitis (talk) 21:24, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

since Arb Com did not take the responsibility to give a little more guidance, people are trying to see how much they can get away with, in the hope of setting policy by wearing out the other side. (The deletionists in fact almost managed this a while back, with popular culture.) Every proposal on the policy pages for compromise has been sabotaged by someone refusing to bend, so I am beginning to feel reluctant to make moderate proposals lest they be considered a sign of weakness. At one current AfD, in fact, someone said they refused to be bound by a workgroup's policy, when it was one of the few policies which had reached a state of compromise. DGG (talk) 22:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Plot summaries

I feel that the work at Wikipedia:Plot summaries is a proposal for a guideline and should be tagged as such, which I did the other day. Tagging it has it causes it to appear in the list at Category:Wikipedia proposals. It seems to me that some people are trying to work around the processes by removing the tag. However, I have ultimate faith in your good judgement. Do you share my concern? Thanks! --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree it should really be tagged with something, but let's not argue about it as well--we have enough actual problems & debates over tagging are what really get away from the point. Is it a guideline separate from WP:FICT? or is it a special part of MOS:FICT. Logically, its a special part of MOS. But on the other hand, that sort of hides it in the general MOS morass. Perhaps it is better to keep it as a peripheral discussion, but I'm open to suggestions. More important, -this subject is now essentially being discussed in at least 4 places. It will be hard enough to get agreement at one, let alone 4 simultaneously. I can't follow them all myself, not unless I want to do nothing else here at all. And there seems to be no agreement whether to work from WP:PLOT down, or from MOS up. Even more important, can you think of any method to reach compromise, except for one side trying to wear out the other? DGG (talk) 14:47, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

(1) I feel better that you are aware of the tagging issue and I'll stay out of it. (2) Having the discussion in 4 places is inefficient , but I don't know of a solution. (3) I don't think that a solution for controlling content can be "legislated" since there is no real method for enforcement, short of the methods used for enforcing BLP, which is itself problematic. Theoretically, guidelines only document actual practices at WP, but since there is no consistency in practice, it follows that there could be no consistent guideline written. I think that it needs to be left to the editors at the individual pages to determine the content of plot summaries. Good luck, and I'm happy to chat about this more if you'd like. --Kevin Murray (talk) 15:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:PROF revision suggestion

I am trying to "test the waters" to see if there is enough interest in revising WP:PROF to better reflect the arguments that are actually used in practice in academic-related AfDs. I've put a note about it at Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics) with a somewhat more detailed explanation. There is also a link there to a possible draft of a revised version of WP:PROF, which is located in my sandbox, User:Nsk92/Sandbox3. Since you regularly participate in academic-related AfDs, I'd like to hear your input about this idea, both in general and in terms of specifics. If you have some comments, please post them at Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics). You are also welcome to edit User:Nsk92/Sandbox3 in the meantime. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 20:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I made a start at commenting, and also at adding & subtracting some things to the guidelines. You beat me too it. I don't want to move too fast though, because many of the people who will want to comment are busy at this time of year.  :) DGG (talk) 21:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Re: question

Yes, it's intended to cover all areas, not just homeopathy. Kirill ^(prof) 02:18, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I had asked Kirill, speaking of the board proposed at ArbCom in the decision on Homeopathy:

--is the expert board in the Homeopathy case meant to deal only with homeopathy? I'm a little puzzled how you can find a board of experts capable of making decisions on all subjects. But at least the decision should say one way or the other.DGG (talk) 01:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

(this refers to:

The [Arbitration] Committee shall convene a Sourcing Adjudication Board, consisting of credentialed subject-matter experts insofar as is reasonable, which shall be tasked with examining complaints regarding the inappropriate use of sources on Wikipedia. The Board shall issue findings, directly to the Committee, regarding all questions of source usage, including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Whether an editor has engaged in misrepresentation of sources or their content.
2. Whether an editor has used unreliable or inappropriate sources.
3. Whether an editor has otherwise substantially violated any portion of the sourcing policies and guidelines.

The Board's findings shall not be subject to appeal except to the Board itself. The precise manner in which the Board will be selected and conduct its operations will be determined, with appropriate community participation, no later than one month after the closure of this case.

I have startled and alarmed at the reply, and have answered him briefly:

you say it is intended to cover all subjects--I think that's a total perversion of the spirit of wikipedia, and I sincerely hope the community is persuaded to reverse you and take back the power. What you are essentially proposing to do is establish a small board of censors with a veto power over the contents of all articles. For it does affect all the content--the sourcing is in practice what determines what content is included. You are in one moment totally reversing the basic power structure here--after years of saying that arb com will not involve itself with content, and that this remains something that needs consensus, you are adopting for the demands of a single case the total opposite, calling for the selection of a small body to do the same, and with the most drastic penalties over anyone who departs from it, and no power of appeal from it. Well, I hope we will consider ourselves left with at least the power to abolish it. Before doing something like this, you need a general discussion with the community. I'm surprised at you.

I can not see how any small group can possibly take such responsibilities and prepare to discharge them honestly. There's nowhere where a small commission has that sort of universal power across all subjects--there are always a large number of editors, divided into subject committees. The only role of the ultimate editor-in-chief or board exercising this function, is to appoint them, and to decide the differences between the different groups.

Even in the organization of Citizendium, this power id delegated to what, even in their small organization, is over a hundred experts, grouped into several dozen disciplinary committees, and a fairly large board to resolve difficulties between them.

I am preparing a longer rebuttal. I am truly surprised at you--I can not believe you have thought out the implications. DGG (talk) 03:10, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you're quite correct here; it's perfectly normal, in my experience, for charges of academic dishonesty to be heard before (or appealed to) a single, cross-disciplinary group. The proposed SAB is essentially intended to be a Wikipedia parallel to such proceedings (minus the imposition of sanctions, which will continue to be done by the Committee based on the recommendations of the SAB); it's not meant to be a body for deciding content, in other words, but a body for ruling on whether some editor has been intellectually dishonest in their use of sources. Kirill ^(prof) 04:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

If its intended with that narrow a purpose, you might want to reword it accordingly, for that's not how it reads to me. Authority to examine "complaints regarding the use of sources in Wikipedia" is alarmingly broad. And the 3 numbered circumstances in where it is proposed to be used are quite expansive. They cover a great deal more than dishonesty. At the very least the phrase should be added "when they arise in matters that are before the Arb Com."-- you may think that's implied, but if something can be misinterpreted, so it will be. Anyway, do you think that in the academic world charges of dishonesty are handled all that well in general? The questions that arise in the homeopathy article need a knowledge of how the medical literature work, and others will deal with other questions. To the extent I understand them its not a question of being dishonest, but a question of whether something is being used in somewhat beyond what the source indicates--essentially a matter of proper weight. DGG (talk) 04:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, perhaps. But, as the remedy says, "The precise manner in which the Board will... conduct its operations will be determined with appropriate community participation". The remedy is a general statement of intent, not an exhaustive policy regarding how the SAB will operate in practice; that's still to be developed. Kirill ^(prof) 13:15, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:FLAG-PROF and WP:FLAG-BIO

Hello again, DGG ...

I have trimmed WP:FLAG-PROF, and pointed to WP:FLAG-BIO as the "One True Copy" of the verbosity ... I plan to prune the others (WP:FLAG-FICT, WP:FLAG-INC, etc.), but thought I'd get some feedback first ... WP:FLAG-BIO also has the {{Articleissues}} boilerplate and a few others (like CATs), and I really don't want to duplicate all of that ... I'm trying to make the WP:FLAG-xyz protocols the "bare bones" copy&paste stencils, with the "elaborations" restricted to WP:FLAG-BIO as the "starting place" for most users ... feedback, please. :-)

Happy Editing! — 72.75.78.69 (talk · contribs) _{21:12, 25 May 2008 (UTC)}

P.S.: Krocodylus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has made me question the need for a WP:FLAG-MOVIES (see discussion page :-) —72.75.78.69 (talk) 21:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

feedback coming tomorrow. DGG (talk) 21:23, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Kewl! I've updated & rearranged Template:Flag-templates to show the "unimplemented" protocols in RED, indicating that they have not been created yet, and put WP:FLAG-BIO as the first one in the table, since it has the verbiage that I'm pruning from all the others ... I also added {{Prod}} to the table for the Guidelines that are not eligible for WP:CSD#A7. —72.75.78.69 (talk) 21:45, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I've started rewording the main one. But db-a7 cannot be used for schools, so remove that from the table--they need prod. You also need to separate out the three different possibilities of no assertion of notability, no references to prove notability, and spam. Additionally, the term vanity is very strongly depreciated---people find it insulting. DGG (talk) 16:15, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Fortunately, I entered IT in the 70s, and embraced "egoless programming" ... I'm pretty laid-back about changes, and have no illusions that I "own" these templates or protocols, so any changes to "soften" or bring them more in line with WP:CONSENSUS is fine by me ... I suggest that you use WP:PROF as the "master", and I'll replicate the changes. :-) Happy Editing! — 72.75.78.69 (talk · contribs) _{16:52, 27 May 2008 (UTC)}

I also learned programming that way--and I too use it as the model for here--it is the only practical way for large scale projects like this. DGG (talk) 17:01, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've modified {{Flag-templates}} to replace the {{db}} with N/A for the ineligible ones ... more pre-epiphany thinking, I guess. :-) — 72.75.78.69 (talk) 18:01, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Boston University Pub: Please don't delete!

DDG, I am so thankful that you stumbled across my submission... and thought it worthy of deletion! Please help me to improve my additions to Wiki, and to make that article a worthwhile piece. The Pub itself is an establishment beloved by many of the BU community's members. Wiki, and its free-share encyclopedia livelihood, is one of few places where the Pub's long history as an important university space can be recorded! Your suggestions are welcomed with open arms... just please be patient and don't delete! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Becs6452 (talk • contribs) 19:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

see your talk page for the best suggestion I can make; I'll give you a chance before I nominate it for deletion--and then it's not up to me. I have been wrong before about what gets kept after I've nominated for deletion, but I doubt if I'll be wrong this time. DGG (talk) 19:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

FYI, I've added an {{Oldprodfull}} tag to the discussion page for Boston University Pub (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) to document that the WP:PROD was contested ... this is one that I would have seconded, BTW ... Happy Editing! — 72.75.78.69 (talk · contribs) _{21:54, 27 May 2008 (UTC)}

CDS Global page update, 27 May 2008

The latest version of the CDS Global page includes information regarding "volume of business" and "market share," with external references. Please examine and provide comment. Thanks again for your input. Donny Scott (talk) 20:23, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Herndon article

Haha...yeah I was preparing to do that since yesterday anyway:-P. I'll go ahead and tag it for expert/other contributions. I just couldn't stand looking at that soapbox any longer...Always good to hear from you:-). Cquan ^{(after the beep...)} 19:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey...the soapbox is back at J. Marvin Herndon. I smell an edit war if I go and revert it now. Got a take on the subject? Thanks. Cquan ^{(after the beep...)} 03:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

J.M. Hayes

There was absolutely no assertion of notability. I'm an author; non-self-published. Do I get an article? No. Nothing in this article gives him any qualifications per WP:CREATIVE. - CobaltBlueTony™ _talk 17:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

My interpretation of WP:CSD#A7 is that there need only be a reasonable assertion of notability. I did not see that in the above article. - CobaltBlueTony™ _talk 17:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

that someone has published four books is cause to think that person might reasonably be notable. Speedy is not AfD. As the article would almost certainly fail afd, I'm not going to take it to deletion review, unless i find some references. But I am going to discuss this at WT:CSD. If you are misinterpreting the meaning this way, it is time to change the language. I've moved it to User:DGG/Hayes for the purpose of discussion. DGG (talk) 18:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

How is publishing four books cause to infer notability? Multiple publications is a direct assertion of notability? I really would like to see that opinion here on Wikipedia; if it's here, I'll change my interpretation of WP:CREATIVE. - CobaltBlueTony™ _talk 18:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Found two reviews for Plains Crazy mentioned at Amazon.com: one form Publishers Weekly and one from Booklist. - CobaltBlueTony™ _talk 18:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey, that makes him quite possibly actually notable, thanks. They are both selective. OK to restore to mainspace? Thanks for you cooperation. DGG (talk) 18:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

"Selective"? Yeah, go ahead; but we need to include an assertion of notability vis a vie reputable reviewed works" or something that makes another CSD tagging much less valid. - CobaltBlueTony™ _talk 18:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

of course I'll add an explanation, but I did start a discussion at WT:CSD--for this is a poster boy of an indication of why we need less restrictive language. Nothing should be speedied that might be keepable--at least that's what I think. I seriously do appreciate your help. DGG (talk) 18:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Google scholar

Jens Elmegård Rasmussen gets this on Google Scholar. I don't know how to weigh "scholar hits". In your opinion, how does this effect WP:PROF? --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 19:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

He is Associate Professor of Indo-European Studies at Copenhagen. Given the small number of publication with few cites, how do we evaluate him against other specialists in that particular subject? If we consider his speciality to be Tocharian, it's the sort of example that might seem to indicate he absurdity of the "importance in the filed" when pressed to the limit,. His most cited work in GS has 20 citations & we could compare it with other work in the subject. But we really need to do is to use the right database; since citations to an 1989 German book on this subject would not necessarily be expected in GS, GS is worthless here except for this very preliminary look--the most cited item there on Tocharian only has 20 citations to it, & its a dictionary. WoS & Scopus don't cover this subject adequately; we need Linguistics Abstracts Online, but it isn't working for me just now. He is editor in chief of a journal, which is his strongest claim to notability. We need to check whether it's the leading journal in the field. It is the only journal in worldcat on the subject of Tocharian. But it's in few libraries, and the subject might be covered better in somewhat more general journals. Personally, I'm prepared to deal with this like we do athletic teams: people with tenure in major universities are notable, in which case he is; or one could hold out for full professor, in which case he isn't. I am aware that people here are trying to enter all the linguists in Denmark, or so it seems--but perhaps the solution is to decide to be equally comprehensive everywhere else. It's like the disproportionate number of football players from Brazil--do we cut back on them, or expand the other countries and the other sports? DGG (talk) 01:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Most troubling about WP:PROF is that it looks like it requires a prof to decipher the applicability of its notability standard. The average Wikipedian contributing to afd's would have no idea how to frame a given profs speciality and then how to compare it to other scholars in that field. Although comparing it to athletes is a good idea, in reality it proves far more difficult. With most athletics you have a starting point - whether the person in a professional in the top league in any country. However, for profs, the average Wikipedian doesn't know where even to begin the analysis. Best, --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 03:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

go to a good library school & we'll teach you how to decipher citation analysis and all sorts of curious but useful things. My original motivation for it was exactly to figure out these sort of mysteries. But how to work with esoteric subjects in the humanities will be in the advanced part of the program. FWIW, I found this the most difficult & interesting question of the week so far. (smile) DGG (talk) 03:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

(different subject) I've had past experiences with nobility hoaxes, and I suspect another one is afoot. This new user, Dlkeller999 (talk · contribs), has just created a few nobility articles and they smell fishy. Would you be able to verify that the source provided by this editor backs up the article content?--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 05:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

there is support at least for the Clifford article. & possibly for the others. They probably are in fact sourced to the book indicated, but that does not necessarily prove that it is correct. It is a genealogical work, not a historical one, but widely held in libraries. The position of sheriff is notable, if there is actual historical evidence. De la See, to my surprise, does have a genuine reference, though not one with a very high degree of confidence. I may nominate one of them for lack of notability, but it would need to go to AfD. It sounds to me like uncritical amateurism, not fraud. But that's the state of most of the historical articles here. DGG (talk) 04:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Superiority Complex?

Instead of going around Wp tagging pages as "may be not notable" in some sort of superior way, why not put some effort in and improve the articles yourself? Albatross2147 (talk) 02:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

there are 2000 articles a day submitted to Wikipedia. About 1/2 are totally unacceptable. Of the other 1/2, probably about 200 need major improvements. I try to fix up one or two a day. "may not be notable" means that someone has some reason to doubt it. I will add such a tag if , for example, another editor has placed a tag for deletion as hopelessly non-notable, and I don't think its quite as bad as that. But what article or discussion are you referring to--we usually don't work in the same areas, so I'm a little puzzled? DGG (talk) 02:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Sales Catalog

If you permits I would like to ask you for a advice of other article: Internet in Moldova. There are a list of prices there, and the author in my talk page explains his behavior. I've composed a template: {{salecatalog}} for pages like this. What can you suggest on this topic? --serhio ^talk 12:42, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again for your contributions. --serhio ^talk 22:05, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

as for the template, I think it will be very useful. My only comment is that I think "sales catalog" would be a more usual wording.DGG (talk) 22:31, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

oops, unfortunately, I'm not an English man. Fixed ;) --serhio ^talk 22:51, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks plus some questions

Dear DGB, thanks for your advice added on my talk page.

For your information, I do precise that I am allowed to edit some articles. It's just what I did by adding some biliographical references to the Maryse Marpsat page that I have created a month ago. But I am not allowed to write the web-link leading to the OECD Wikigender site. This site is only an information sharing platform on gender equity which was officially launched by the OECD Development Centre on 7 March 2008 on the occasion of International Women's Day. If you are sufficiently curious, you can get its web-link in my contribution page (at the date of 11 march 2008), and if you follow it, you would observe that it is difficult to say that this information is a kind of SPAM.

It's one of the reasons justifying my protest. Now, I would like to know whether I'm "definitely blocked" or not. Mr or Mrs Hu12 don't give me any answer, neither to my protest nor to your comment. What can I do? How to get any answer? Wanda007 (talk) 17:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

replied on your talk page. You are not blocked. The link is blocked, I think quite wrongly, as an example of what I call "spam paranoia" DGG (talk) 21:57, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Does "spam paranoia" include abuse of Wikipedia's electronic messaging system? Additionaly French administrator (fr:Utilisateur:Like_tears_in_rain) even posted on her french talk page "Your additions of external links were not a good idea. While I understand that you want to publicize the site, the only place on a relevant page would suffice, making it five times gives the impression of spam.". --Hu12 (talk) 05:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

If you want to know, I emailed the ed. in question to ask point-blank what I do not like to ask openly on Wikipedia, whether the person had used other accounts. I consider this a highly appropriate question, and I always ask this before getting involved in helping someone in a situation like this--if they have in fact used other accounts deliberately, I am very reluctant to defend them. Questions regarding possible sock puppetry are often inquired about confidentially. For the record, it was denied (I do not think I am breaking confidentiality in saying this) and I am prepared to help the user further to edit within the rule and to put in links appropriately.

As for the links, I think they were added in good faith. I agree they were added over-enthusiastically. I have not examined that site in detail about appropriateness. Obviously there can be different opinions on that. I take the French admin's opinion seriously. You and I have disagreed about this sort of thing several times. The community has often supported me. If they think the links are wrong this time, then they will not be added. I have been wrong about various things before, and I have sometimes been in the situation where the community does not agree with what i continue to think the right view. In such cases I do what I have always done, which is follow the community in what I actually do. There are some rules I think wrong, that I enforce nonetheless, and there are some things I think should be prohibited that aren't, and I don't try to act against people doing them.

I agree with our linking policy, but I think the enforcement is sometimes over-harsh, both with respect to the links and the individuals. Too many usable links are on the spam blacklist and if one of them catches my attention, I sometimes try to do something about it if I think I will have support, though I do not have time to do as much of this as I would like. I spend more time removing them; about 200 of my watched pages are for possible spam, and yesterday I removed about a dozen links of that sort. I also blocked someone earlier this week for persistently adding unsuitable links, but that was after multiple warnings. DGG (talk) 16:42, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Flagged articles

Hello again ...

Would you please take a look at User talk:Matthewedwards#Category:Flagged articles, and then add your comments on the cats I have created to compliment the templates?

Happy Editing! — 151.200.237.53 (talk · contribs) _{07:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)}

Category:Flagged editors

Hello again ... {{Flag-editor}} now has an optional assist parameter that makes a friendly offer to help, for those thus inclined, instead of defaulting with making the offer. :-) — 151.200.237.53 (talk) 15:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

getting there! I'll check the details later. Next goal, perhaps: making it shorter while still making it friendly. and maybe copyvio should be different --if it's clear it should be db-copyvio, if not, suspected copyvio already has the template "copypaste". DGG (talk) 17:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I realized that, but the point is, "I don't have time to check right now, but it's suspicious, so I'll flag it with this generic tag" ... maybe Some Other Editor will check it out in the mean time, and decide that it's {{Db-copyvio}}-able. :-) — 151.200.237.53 (talk) 04:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

For example, Liliam Cuenca González (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) was part of a WP:COI/N and WP:COPYVIO that led to a site being blocked and removed by a bot as WP:LINKSPAM ... it's all the sins in one (unfortunately repeated) case, but it certainly can be improved if editors are aware of the situation ... hence Category:Flagged articles. — 151.200.237.53 (talk) 04:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

)

Current project

Your third suggestion: I like. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC) P.S. As this is out of the blue, I am referring to the section on your userpage. "A good faith request by any established editor is sufficient for any administrator, whether or not the deleting administrator, to undelete an article deleted under speedy, except for BLP and copyvio. This should be automatic, and need not involve Deletion Review. it is polite to ask the original administrator first, but not necessary, and, even if s/he refuses, any administrator can undelete it without it being considered wheel warring. The article would normally be immediately sent for AfD. By definition, if an established editor disagrees, it is not uncontroversial and needs community involvement. "

Yes, that's the one. I think it would actually save a lot of drama and free up some wasted time for creators, onlookers & DRV contributors. It might increase the load at AfD, but I'm inclined to think not that much. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 02:09, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

)

Canadian Young Scientist Journal

David, I am not sure about the notability criteria for journals (can you provide me with a link to a policy perhaps), but Canadian Young Scientist Journal may not meet it (yet). Only 1 issue published with 3 articles, although I very much sympathize with their goals, may not be enough to establish viability (and notability). Wim --Crusio (talk) 09:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It is difficult enough to show the notability of college undergraduate journals; this is a high school journal. However, it seems to be sponsored in some manner by National Research Council of Canada Press, which means a lot, and there is one media reference. I'm going to ask them about the details of the sponsorship. DGG (talk) 16:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:Lectures

Hiya David, I see you were scheduled to give a lecture on sourcing in mid-May...did you give the lecture, and is there a "transcript" somewhere, or perhaps you've done an essay on the topic? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 11:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I dont think it has been transcribed yet, but the outline is at User:DGG/LR DGG (talk) 14:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

H.O.P.E. speech

Hey, DGG. This is volt4ire from the NYC meetup. Pharos mentioned that you would be a good person to help (or at least steer me in the right direction) in doing a pro-inclusionist speech. Any suggestions for speakers, arguments, debating-points, etc.? Thanks! volt4ire 02:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

do you think they will want to hear about specific details at Wikipedia? rather, I would aim it at the general roles of web 2.0 information sources, then specialize it to encyclopedias, then us, then to specific problems if people want to hear about them. DGG (talk) 03:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I think volt4ire's original idea was for some sort of inclusionist vs. deletionist "debate", and I had recommended you an an inclusionist (I couldn't think of a New York-area deletionist at that moment). Which is an interesting idea, because of all the inside baseball at Wikipedia, the notability issue seems to attract the most outside interest (several articles in Slate, for example).

Which is not to say that this is necessarily what we should do. But I do imagine at a conference like H.O.P.E., we should avoid basic explanations of web 2.0, and focus somewhat more on the issues that are particular to us.--Pharos (talk) 01:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

BTW, see Wikipedia talk:Meetup/NYC#H.O.P.E. Conference panel (maybe we should shift this conversation there).--Pharos (talk) 01:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations Wikimedia NYC Board Member!

And now, for the hard part ;) Our process, as it goes forward from here, is laid out at Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC#Chapter formation. I've written a draft Wikimedia New York City Bylaws at meta, and I would invite you to please comment on it, and make suggestions (see also a couple of possible future Resolutions). This is a critical stage of our approval process, when we must achieve a consensus among ourselves over bylaws, and work with the Chapters Committee to have them accepted. Thanks for your help!--Pharos (talk) 02:43, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Deleted articles

Hi DGG, thanks for the note re those two deleted articles. If you want to restore them I have no objections. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:18, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

"Tenure committee"

Re Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alison Mawhinney: You know, I was thinking the same thing when looking at another article and considering whether the subject passed WP:PROF. I find myself sounding more and more like my old college profs — "You need more source material!" "That's not a reliable source!" I suppose that's what we should be doing if we're putting together an encyclopedia. - Realkyhick (Talk to me) 03:36, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I have added Mawhinney's publications to her article - would you care to re-review the page for reconsideration? Thanks. Rotund, but sweet (talk) 12:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, 3 articles total in 2 years does not make for significance in the academic world in any subject. Does not mean she may not eventually become notable. DGG (talk) 12:48, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

It is not the 3 papers; we need to see the number of citations (in books or research papers), websearch, invited papers, is it scholarly work etc.,. One work with 10 or more citations is enough if it is a basic type (theory). Application related may requre more citations 20 or more. Again about the books- scientific books might be easier to write comapred to the Liberal arts realted e.g writing a fiction might be difficult to do- - again who reads it is also important.

Writing one or 2 papers in pure mathematics or in theoratical physics is very difficult. Tennured is also important.

JRN08 (talk) 12:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Social Science Research Resources Network

Restored. Go to work on it. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:09, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Talk:List of conference companies

Hello again, DGG ...

Well, {{Oldprodfull}} seems to be working out well ... I patrol Category:Proposed deletion-endorsed and add the empty boilerplate, then fill it in ... this manual tedium may lead me to write my first Wiki-bot. :-)

On a related note, Some Other Editors appear to have embraced the Flag templates for deletion warnings as witness the size of Category:Flagged articles and Category:Flagged editors ... I manually examine them once a week and remove the Cat from articles that have shown improvement ... cleaning up the "editors" is a bit more labor intensive, though.

Happy Editing! — 151.200.237.53 (talk · contribs) _{17:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)}

I apologize for not having had the chance to follow up on this yet. DGG (talk) 17:23, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

<Sigh!> I guess adding it to Talk:CAMICO Mutual Insurance is something that a bot should do when a PROD is contested, but it's no big whoop to do it manually ... it's an outlet for my OCD. :-) — 151.200.237.53 (talk) 23:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I was going to mention this--The prod should not have been applied at the same time as the request for improvement. The tag says : I am considering listing for deletion..." not "I am asking for deletion." A prod should in my opinion only be used when there is actually reason to think that there are no sources available, such as at least a preliminary search, or something really unlikely. DGG (talk) 23:47, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Whoa! That wasn't tagged "at the same time" ... I flagged CAMICO Mutual Insurance (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) on 2008-06-15, then put the PROD on a week later (2008-06-22) ... that's the whole point of the "wait and see" protocol ... and a Google search of "CAMICO Mutual Insurance" shows their Wikipedia article as the #3 returned link, with most of the material having been created/added by the Single-purpose account named Danlcrouch (talk · contribs), and very little else that could be considered WP:RS coverage ... look at Danlcrouch's Talk page and you'll see that Some Other Editor tried to speedy delete it on 2008-06-13, so it's not just my opinion. — 151.200.237.53 (talk) 19:51, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the following considerations are relevant:

1. for a great many topics, Wikipedia will now be one of the first few links, and this should not be taken as an indication there are no other significant ones.
2. I do not really like nominating an article for deletion for lack of referenced notability by any process, unless there is evidence of a proper preliminary search for references--or unless it is unmistakably obvious that there won;t possibly be. Now this isn't of course required yet, though I think it certainly should be, but people do get very embarassed at afd when they omit this step, and proper references are quickly found by someone else. As it seems you had done one, it would have been well to say so--unless I missed that also. I would then know where to start.
   1. More generally, the obligation on everyone should be to fix articles if possible. Tagging without doing so is sometimes derogatively called "drive-by tagging", tho I do not use the term myself. It's proper to mark things for later attention, but better to fix articles or indicate exactly why you havent been able to do so. The excuse on the template "I haven't had time to look at it in detail" is a little inappropriate. You should be saying, I have looked in x Y and z, and have not found anything useful. I have not yet had time to look further.
3. COI is a problem, but most of our articles about people and company are probably written in part by people with COI. See Durova's excellent Business FAQ for a general discussion of this problem and how to avoid it. I just now recommended it to the author involved. I should have done so earlier.
4. I think intervals of one week are much too short--I did not think that was how you were planning to use the template. I'd advise a month between steps , at the least--remember how much easier it is to nominate for deletion than for fixing.
5. I think it likely they are the major niche company, but this can be difficult to prove. Finding sources for businesses such as these is quite difficult, especially for people like me (& most people here) who dont really know much about the world of commerce.

I go into this detail because I think this set of templates is a potentially very useful way to do things, but I regard them as still in the beta stage. I want to encourage you to continuing to experiment. I think it very important for templates not to encourage shortcuts with deletion. DGG (talk) 22:22, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

First of all, I want to thank you for all of the productive feedback that you have provided over the past year in developing these templates and protocols ... in this particular case, it looked like a WP:SPA was pushing an NN company, and I flgged & tagged the article after a WP:CSD by Some Other Editor had been contested, and there had been no improvements between the date of the flag and the date of the PROD tag (instead of another CSD, which gave them another 5 days to improve it) ... I'm the first to admit that I'm more likely to clean up ELs with {{Cite web}} or {{Cite news}} templates than I am to look for references, which I feel is the author's responsibility ... when an author never returns after creating an article, it makes me suspicious about their agenda ... that's why the templates mention several possible concerns, including WP:COI ... and as my edit history shows, I do remove articles from Category:Flagged articles if they show improvement ... if they're deleted, then they evaporate from the Category ... I'll try waiting longer (you say a month, I say a week), and since the Category is now my Watchlist, I'll just have to pay closer attention to an article's History instead of relying on the color of the link (my browser is set to expire after 7 days.) — 151.200.237.53 (talk) 23:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Editor2423

In response to your message dated 06-24-08: "Please stop. If you continue to add promotional material to Wikipedia, as you did to promotional links to various articles, you will be blocked from editing. DGG (talk) 17:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)"

David,

Yes, I have been updating relevant pages with new information from the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants World Refugee Survey 2008. Please note that these updates are entirely factual, and the World Refugee Survey is clearly marked as the source for each. The Survey is an official publication of USCRI, and has received international media coverage. It is the only publication that consistently evaluates individual countries on their treatment of refugees each year, and therefore, it is the best source for recent refugee statistics. All statistics published by the Survey are independently verifiable, and the publication clearly lists USCRI’s research partners. This is an appropriate source for Wikipedia, previous editions have been cited extensively, and there is nothing wrong with updating and enhancing many articles related to refugee issues in succession.

-Amy

Please read our Business FAQ, which, though it deals primarily with business, also applies to non-profit agencies, and explains our conflict of interest policy.If this material has been published by your agency, the accepted way to add it is to suggest it on the article talk pages. Then, editors not affiliated with the source will consider it. I think you may possibly be right that the material is useful,, and you may notice, I have not gone round removing the references, though they need to be added in such a way as not to highlight the name of the organisation. But this is not the way to do it. Others are more stringent than I about our WP:COI policy, and are quite likely to remove the references and the links, and for good measure blacklist your site, if you continue in this manner.

Surely you see that ain order to maintain the objectivity of the encyclopedia, we must guard against people affiliated with any organisation adding what they think important. We get 2000 new articles a day, and many times that number of new links and references. People look at them all, and with a considerable degree of skepticism, for about half of them are totally unjustified public relations, advertising, or personal puffery. Many people try to make a living attempting to add links to our articles, and the addition of many at once to publications of a single organisation, is very much of a red flag.

I try to keep good references in, but they need to be added also that they will stay in; I've helped others do it right. This is already being discussed at our WP:COIN Conflict of Interest, and [[WP:ANI] Incidents noticeboards. I think you will find I have warned you accurately of what is likely to happen. Please read and understand our policy before you respond there. DGG (talk) 19:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Your post to WT:USRD (no this is not a vandalism thing)

Well, I'm not sure its really the same. A normal road meetup would be mainly made up of a large people eating a big lunch and then getting to cars getting pictures of things with their camera - but if you can help sponsor it, it would be a big help. Also, I would probably host it if it were to happen. Thanks though.Mitch32 02:36, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Even in NYC, some people still drive. The NYC group has already held a photo session, though it was mainly by subway, and so have others.--see their page. And there are a number of people coming to our meetings from NJ. If you do hold it there be sure to announce it. DGG (talk) 02:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Well that would be cool - the group attracted to this mainly is that ones who take pictures of roads and signs. I'm sure we could squeeze in some sight-seeing pics as well. I'll look into the possibility.Mitch32 02:44, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, tommorrow (June 26), I will come up with some ideas for a future one. I have some sightseeing ideas and road things to see already in mind. If its also possible, could you bring this up to others in the chapters. By tommorrow, I should have some set ideas in mind.Mitch32 03:18, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Stale AfD tags, no action

Hello, again. You were involved in AfD discussions for New York City DOE Region 1 through New York City DOE Region 10 (ten articles) with three AfD nominations each, last debated in February of 2008, recommending Keep. The final consensus was declared Merge, but nothing occurred after that. For the last four months, nine of the ten articles have been unchanged, sporting a big ugly AfD tag. Given the lack of action on the merge, is it kosher to remove the AfD tags now? In support of this action, an administrator removed the tag for the Region 1 article after a week's delay, but no action was taken on the others. I'm thinking four months is a sufficient waiting period and it is legitimate to remove the AfD tags. There isn't any obvious article to merge/redirect the articles to; an article was to be created or updated with content to cover the merge and it did not appear to have happened. Alternatively, a simple redirect to New York City Department of Education appears as the best merge candidate, but I'm not comfortable it is the correct solution indicated by the AfD discussion, including your own remarks. -- Michael Devore (talk) 01:48, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Seems, we did to forget to finish the job. I think the intention or at least the obviously best course will be to merge into one article for the regions, New York City DOE Regions. The merge to NYC DOE is a merge to a very complicated article, for an already over complicated series of administrative change and will just make it more confusing. The administrative structure during an important historical time is notable enough. The content that will need to be added is the geographic boundaries and the list of schools. The templates will be a bit of a problem. I think the best course would be to remove them entirely, given that there will be only one article, & change them into a table. If you like, just do it, at this point it's a purely routine function after the closure. Start a new article on the regions, and merge them, keeping the redirects, which deals with GFDL problems. I'll check after you. You dont need an administrator, but if you rather I do it, I will. DGG (talk) 03:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Fringe

In Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee, you wrote but situations of a single person with a completely far fringe view are dealt with fairly well already. There are cases where a real-world minority- or fringe-view is overrepresented on Wikipedia. There are also cases where a majority- or wikipedia-majority-view silences a minority view or reduces their weight well below their real-world due weight. This can happen by one side outmaneuvering the other into a behavior violation or by simply driving them away from the project in frustration. I don't think there is a good solution, other than to have affected articles watched by people who are informed about the article's subject matter but with no emotional stake in the article. This tends to happen more on articles on political or social topics, where way too many editors have a personal agenda, and on articles about people, places, or groups, where fanboys may succeed in turning the article into a virtual press release. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:07, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

as I said there, I think that dueling by taunting each other into unacceptable actions is not a really rational approach. . Perhaps it survives because the people who have been here a while tend to know just how far they can safely go & some of them have gotten quite good at it. But perhaps also it works because the people who are for good or less good reasons committed to an agenda with a zeal and devotion and purpose which transcend rational argument tend to be rather easy to lose proportion and descend into unacceptable actions. There is nothing wrong with zealotry when one is right, but it has to be pursued elsewhere--those who care more about their cause than objective editing encyclopedia are a danger to the encyclopedia.

Unfortunately, the attempt to deal with it otherwise tend to amount to an appeal to authority, which does not do much better--one can find authorities for almost anything. And so one argues about the relative merits of the authorities. People both in the right and wrong of it (as if w could tell) are equally likely to what to prevent their opponents from making a fair case. What is necessary is a way to determine what objective editing is, and enforce it. My current thoughts are mandatory mediation with enforceable remedies--not by subject experts necessarily, but by people with common sense and proven impartiality.DGG (talk) 03:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

How's it feel to be a "resource"?

Just a note to say that Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Medicine suddenly has a long list of academic journals nominated under AfD. I always value your views on such things. 22:50, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Efforts at deletion rather than improvement for groups of incomplete articles are worth investigating. DGG (talk) 01:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Heheh, the poster beat me here. I went to leave you a note earlier when I listed the Australian physiotherapy one at the deletion sorting for academic journals but then got kicked offline and figured you'd find it. I think you get consulted on everything remotely scholarly or academic :) Then again, not too different to your off wiki life, is it? _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 02:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

well, it's even better here--I get all this interesting stuff on popular culture also. Much less limiting than my earlier career as a science librarian--WP provides a liberal education in many different senses. DGG (talk) 02:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Very true, I've gotten inolved with topics I had no idea I knew anything about. And then there are those that I still won't touch with a ten foot pole. Back to packing! _{TravellingCari}^{the Busy Bee} 03:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Response

I think that you misunderstand the concept of WP:N if you propose that all peer-reviewed publications are notable and whether bald statements like "XYZ exists" is a claim of notabiity worthy of an encyclopedic article - and as I note not all the journals nominated are peer-reviewed and few of the articles of those that are claimed so in their text. I could just as easily fashion an article on myself and point to my webpage as proof I exist - and now with your critiques, I'm peer-reviewed as well, so certainly worthy of note on Wikipedia, n'est pas. We just disagree: an article "He was born in a log cabin." makes you think Abe Lincoln and rush to save it; to me it's no assertion of notability because one of the many he's born in a log cabin is notable - worthy at least of opening a deletion debate. And besides, I thought that you much prefer afd route so that the community can say what's what, rather than prod which 2 pairs of eyes just act on behalf of the community. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 06:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I did not say that! I said that in opinion all peer-reviewed publications included in major indexes are notable, but I also mentioned that there were editors I respected who were prepared to extend this to all peer-reviewed publication, but that I was not convinced of that myself. In thisd, as in many othr matters of notability , I consider myself a moderate, not the extreme inclusionist some think me. For those of the publications nominated that are not peer--reviewed, but rather professional magazines, the standard are less clear, but my own view the major national publication of that sort in each field, if included in the major professional indexes, are certainly notable .It is possible that some of those nominated are not notable--I have not yet analyzed them all--I am looking individually, and say keep when i am satisfied about the individual title. The key standard of notability for a publication of any sort is it being used as a standard reference in its subject, and the indexes and circulation are the main factors--see my fuller explanations at my journal talk archive. Publications in fringe areas used as major publications by those in the fringe movement are included in this notability.

What I further think not a good idea is the challenging at afd (or prod or speedy) of newly created incomplete stubs of any sort at all unless seems by a quick search that no demonstration of suitability for Wikipedia is at all likely. Articles need a chance to develop. I agree that the person writing the article should have done a fuller job at first, and have said that also. I can fix only one or two of such articles a day, but i see others are helping also. Deletion is the last resort. Of course you needed to use afd if you challenge them-- someone would surely remove the prod. I suggest that for those where notability is being shown that you withdraw the nominations, and continue only with the more dubious. I have !voted delete for peer-reviewed journals before, and also for professional magazines, and if I am not satisfied for any of these I shall do that this time as well. DGG (talk) 08:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Notability

Hi DGG,

Why has it to be the only from major universities? What is a majore university?? Which is more important - the research publications or the books? Thanks. JRN08 (talk) 23:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

More precisely, full professors at major research universities are always notable researchers, because they are appointed by the judgment of their peers on that basis; this applies with particular force to holders of professorships in the UK universities, where there is only 1 full professor per subject, and to holders of named professorships in the US. At other universities, they might well be notable for their research as well; but not necessarily, for sometimes their main distinction will be in teaching . What counts as a major university can be disputed at the borderlines, but Cambridge University is unquestionably among them. For people in the humanities, research publications of importance are invariably books by major academic publishers; for people in the sciences, peer-reviewed articles in major academic journals; for people in the social sciences and applied fields, it varies. The academic world looks at not just quantity, but quality: quality is determined for books by the distinction of the publisher, the number of libraries holding it, and the reviews; for journal articles, by the quality of the journal, and the number of citations. The quantities in different academic fields varies, but for Graham N. Stanton, the holder of perhaps the most famous professorship of anything anywhere, the list, as would be expected, is remarkably impressive. He furthermore is editor of the most important journal is his subject, and the major academic encyclopedic bible commentary. One can dispute the middle, but this is the top. Wikipedia does not determine who is a notable scholar--the academic world determines it by their criteria, and shows it by their appointments and distinctions. We just record the fact. Just as we don't determine who gets signed by a major league baseball team--the true experts do, and we record it. DGG (talk) 01:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Recent AFD comments

I'm rather surprised to see you making keep arguments based upon I know nothing about this or the content but I'm guessing it's important. I'm especially surprised that an admin would do such a thing. Take this example here. You understanding of the subject is so limited that you seem to think that Khrone is a character, which he isn't. He's simply an explanation for an aspect of the gaming system that is used in warhammer 40k. So I just don't get it - why are you even voting in AFDs where you are explicitly stating that you are just making wild guesses (and guesses based on your misunderstanding of the material). --Allemandtando (talk) 16:11, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Please look more carefully--I am saying that if the main work is important, which I gather it is from the amount of material added and the many Wikipedia people interested, then the subarticles are justified. I leave open the possibility that the game itself may not be worth writing much about--not that I have actually seen anyone making that argument for Warhammer 40K. The reason I qualify this way is that I sometimes do give what I consider to be expert evaluations of things I do know a good deal about about where I think I understand and can explain in full detail the analysis that leads me to that conclusion--and people often say that they treat my analysis as such and !vote on that basis. . But in this case I write as an ordinary wikipedian with no special knowledge, and I want to make that clear. I give my opinion based on the evidence presented in the article and the discussion. It will be a sad day when we leave the game articles to the mercy of those who are fans of the game. Anyone can edit, and anyone can give an opinion, but in doing so, I find it preferable not to claim more than I know. Since the article lede says that "Khorne is one of the four major Chaos gods. Like his brother gods,.." I treat him as a character. I see from the rest of the article that in this game that gods can also be treated as more abstract forces, but in any fictional setting one normally refers to them as characters regardless of the actual nature of their fundamental existence. In discussing the Bible, we use "He" despite the Gospel wording that "God is a spirit." I'm not analyzing in depth, but not making wild guesses either. DGG (talk) 16:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello Sir, I talked on this issue to DGG earlier. I have changed the matter according to you. So what's the problem now, please inform me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manozksarms (talk • contribs) 14:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I have made some suggestions on your user talk page. although you are at the moment blocked (by another admin), you can answer my comments there. I'll keep an eye out. DGG (talk) 17:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Resonance is not a school, rather a private coaching institute. --KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 13:11, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

No original research/noticeboard

Japanese calligraphy by Satow. The kanji read (from right to left) "敬和" (Kei-Wa), literally "Respect and harmony".

Thank you for a deceptively simple offer of advice which struck a responsive chord.

Your user page offers yet another salutary observation which, for me, seems very much on-point: I do not attempt to convert my opponents--I aim at converting their audience. --Tenmei (talk) 15:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Dr's Curry

Hey, thanks for your comment. To be honest, I don't have any real knowledge of either Dr. Curry. I saw a deletion of a poorly named article that deserved to belong, so I did some research and got the oceanographer one up and running. The other one I moved to a geophysicist page, in order to assist in disabiguation. They do have similar backgrounds, although their degrees appear to be from different locations. Their focus is different to: ocean-saving as opposed to resource-utilization. I'll see what I can do to research the geophysicist (all searches I do regarding Dr. Curry and Exxon bring up a woman who is quite an environmentalist, and her name was all over the Exxon Valdez incident" BMW(drive) 11:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it may be in this case necessary to actually verify the degree. The possible presence of the three people is a little disturbing. Please let me know what you find. Do you have Dissertation Abstracts available? If not, I'll try to get to it later today.DGG (talk) 17:32, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Guardian

Per denied deletion of Guardian Life Insurance article. Per Wikipedia standards, companies cannot edit their own pages/articles. Please advise. The entry can be constituted as vadalism per site standards. 15:38, 15 July 2008 (comment added by i.p. User:63.72.235.4 ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.72.235.4 (talk)

They are not supposed to, but they are not prohibited from doing so, if they do it objectively. In fact, I'd guess that about 1/2 of the entries for businesses and other organisations are done by people connected with them. We ask them not to, because it's hard to do it properly, with respect both to what they say, and how they say it. But it can be done, and if it isn't done right, we can help them edit it. This is discussed in considerable detail by Durova's excellent page of advice on the subject, our Business FAQ.

I shall keep an eye on the article. It needs keeping an eye on, for it has a curious history. It was originally entered as a stub back in 2006, and expanded in what seems to be an unobjectionable fashion by an ip account that is reported by whois to be connected with the company. Additional material that would appear to be controversial, inappropriate, and inadequately sourced [25] was added soon after by an account, User:Policyholder, accompanied by the removal of reasonable descriptive and historical material about the company. The account was soon blocked indefinitely for adding such material to this and articles on other insurance companies. Additional inappropriate material was later added -- surprisingly, from an ip address also reported to be connected with the company. Quality was restored by a very reliable Wikipedia administrator [26]. Unfortunately, it was later compromised again. Now, you, using an account reported by whois to also be associated with the company, have requested removal of the article. What I have done instead is restored the most recent good version of the article. If it is vandalized again, I will protect it.

As I have said, you are welcome to add material to the article, but perhaps you would do well to register and declare any conflict of interest. DGG (talk) 21:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks DGG. We'll monitor the article also and take your advice re: editing 16:03, 16 July 2008

Two articles: List of Nursing Homes, Group Medical Practice

Hi, I just now realized that List_of_Nursing_Homes had already been created once, then deleted 22 June at AfD here. In my opinion both List_of_Nursing_Homes and Group Medical Practice, by the same editor and referencing the same commercial database provider, should be deleted because:

Content not useful or encyclopedic. No assertion of notability. Purpose seems to be to house commercial link to a database provider that can in turn be spammed across other medical-related articles via internal links.

I'm sensitive to spam, especially in geriatric-oriented articles. I would really appreciate your taking a second look at these. I'm not an admin so I don't know what needs to happen next. Thanks. --CliffC (talk) 14:59, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

They primarily provide information about the subjects covered. Whatever the reason for their introduction, they provide information and are thus not spam. Another administrator declined to delete them on that ground via speedy, and I also did via prod. However, List of Nursing homes has now been deleted as a copyright violation--I tend to personally think such lists not copyvio, but some others disagree. The appropriate course of action now would be for you to nominate the other article for AfD. DGG (talk) 18:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

For information --Allemandtando (talk) 19:03, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Can't really se why you took it there, instead of copyright problems, or AfD. DGG (talk) 21:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:PROF revision draft - revisited

I am trying to restart the process of revising WP:PROF and have posted further comments at Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)#WP:PROF revision draft - revisited. Please take another look there and see if you have further comments. Of course, you are welcome to edit the draft itself too:User:Nsk92/Sandbox3. Thanks a lot, Nsk92 (talk) 15:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Elaine Riddick Jessie

Hi, I noticed that you axed the prod and notability tags from this article. However, I still fail to see how this article asserts notability. My understanding of WP:BIO is that a person is not considered notable for being connected to a notable event, especially if their role in said event is no different from thousands of others. I admit, she has garnered some media attention in the wake of the public apology for the Eugenics Board's action, but that has been, from what I have seen, exclusively in the context of articles about the state's apology, and not articles about her and/or anything that she has done to bring about this action. In fact, I suspect that the only reason she is mentioned in these articles is because she is one of the few surviving victims, which I don't think is any reason for us to consider her notable. I would support a merge with the Eugenics Board of North Carolina article, but I think this article should be deleted. Steve Carlson^Talk 18:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The articles, published in the context of the apology, deal with her earlier experiences also. The fact that one of them was published 4 years after the revocation is a clear indication of continuing interest, which is usually accepted as satisfying NOT NEWS. But you are of course welcome to try AfD--who knows what will happen there. Personally, I think it would be more useful to look for material to provide fuller coverage of the whole set of events. DGG (talk) 18:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The fact that there was an article about this 4 years after the fact proves that there is still interest in the Eugenics Board (WP:NOTNEWS), yes, but does it mean there is interest in her? I did actually spend some time on Google trying to find other sources. However, most of the content about her seems to be lifted straight from wikipedia (really annoying, is that legal?), and the independent sources I did find were the same as the others - they primarily discuss the Eugenics Board and the apology, and have a very brief inline discussion of her experiences. It seems like she is the "poster child" for these stories, the face they attach to the story to make it more human, but none of these articles are actually about her in any significant way. Does that make her notable? Steve Carlson^Talk 02:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the clarification of what I agree to be is the basic question, not just here, but on many articles of similar nature, which is how to deal with the representative individuals used in newspaper feature writing--the Poster Children. My answer to that, is that we follow the media. If they use the particular individuals in this way, I consider that it does make them notable. Probably we need a general discussion. DGG (talk) 03:58, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take it to the WP:BIO talk page, although I think that WP:ONEEVENT may address this. Please chime in with your perspective! Steve Carlson^Talk 05:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Speedy req for Possessive Apostrophe redir

Hi,
The reason Possessive Apostrophe isn't needed is that the Possessive apostrophe redir exists as well. There are no articles that link to the former, and anyone typing "Possessive Apostrophe" into the search box will be automatically turned over to the latter by the software. So -- it's an unnecessary redir. Admittedly, it won't destroy the project if it isn't deleted, though.

(This is one of these bits of cruft removal that I figure aren't worth taking through an RfD, but it's at least worth asking for twice. About 95% of these that I ask about get speedied, and of the remaining 5%, about 90% of those are speedied on appeal...:-)

Thanks, NapoliRoma (talk) 00:57, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

good reason. I'll delete. Agreed RfD is overkill. Personally, i sometimes wonder if there's any point at all in deleting redirects unless they are actually confusing or wrong or deceptive. DGG (talk) 01:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I have to admit that my primary reason--"because the useless ones kind of bug me"--may not be unassailable. :-) But thanks for indulging me. Regards, NapoliRoma (talk) 01:13, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Unprod on Koreatown, Vancouver

You're not from Vancouver are you? You can't be. There's NO WAY the described area is known as Koreatown, nor is it a Korean neighbourhood more than any other kind of ethnic neighbourhood; it's incredibly mixed, incredibly dense. There is no official designation of Koreatown, no informal tourism designation, no marketing designation. IT DOES NOT EXIST. It is fictional, wished-for, make-believe, tell-a-lie-often-enough-to-make-it-true metareality. It should have been deleted; now I guess the avenue is an AFD as this article should not exist as it is about somewhere THAT DOES NOT EXIST (except in the wet dreams of its promomters).Skookum1 (talk) 14:39, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

You may very well be right, so take it to AfD. I think it needs a discussion. DGG (talk) 14:41, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

A discussion has been taking place on two venues- the article's own talk and Wikiproject Vancouver. Why do you think it should go to AfD when mechanisms for discussion have already been in place? I've undone your unprod. Dionix (talk) 17:30, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I think this is one case where your intervention was completely unnecessary, especially since another admin was involved. While your intentions may have been good, in future you should consider the due weight of local editors' comments. The action taken was entirely appropriate for the circumstances. Dionix (talk) 17:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Assume good faith

In the debate on whether to restore an article that I speedied, you commented: "Admins who invent their own reason for Speedy, are deliberately acting against policy." I trust that's not an accusation directed at me? In my opinion, a group does not cease to be a group just because it's also a list. You may disagree, but that's not a reason to suggest misconduct on my part. Deb (talk) 17:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I accept that that point is worth discussion, but the other reasons you gave in the discussion do not seem to have been plausible reasons for speedy (or even deletion), and it was of those I was thinking.17:22, 18 July 2008 (UTC) My apologies if I worded it too strongly. DGG (talk) 17:23, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't intend the other comments as reasons, they were just further points about the article's unsuitability. (Maybe I was having a bit of a rant.) Deb (talk) 18:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Vaughn

Hello DGG, just wanted to know what, if any, additional information you need to make the biography article on Mary Susan Vaughn meet your criteria. Thank you very much. M. Susan Vaughn 21:56, 18 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Msusanvaughn (talk • contribs)

replied on your talk page. DGG (talk) 23:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Legoland California

D'you reckon you could be a bit more careful with your CSD deletions? You deleted this per G11 (which is debatable that it fell under, as a quick run through with the backspace key would have fixed it), and yet a very quick look at the history shows this recent edit, which introduced the tonne of spam. Legoland California, being a huge, highly popular and very well known theme park, is inherantly notable, and therefore needs a page. It should never have been deleted without a careful look through the history (as of course is true of any article). I've restored the article and reverted to the last good version. Please take some more time over CSD noms. _TalkIslander 15:05, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

you are right, though I would have appreciated it had you asked me to undelete it first. And it still seems to need some rewordings of "you can " do this or that. Curious how many complaints go just the other way. Guess it shows that everyone makes very possible mistake once in a while. DGG (talk) 15:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh I agree that everyone makes mistakes, but then pointing out said mistakes helps to avoid them being made again :). Yes, it does still need some rewriting, and I'll probably do that at some point, but it's definitely no longer a CSD candidate. _TalkIslander 16:06, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Input at List of Paraphilias?

Hi, DGG.

You mentioned once that you had an interest in improving the sourcing at the List of Paraphilias page. There is an ironic discussion on its talk page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_paraphilias#Include_pedohebephilia_and_gynandromorphophilia.3F, in which some folk are objecting to the inclusion of some of the sourced entries. Your input would be appreciated.
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 17:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

PS: It was the note on your user page about your wishing you had used your real name that convinced me to start editing under my own rather than a pen-name while I'm still relatively new here.
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 17:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I left a comment there. DGG (talk) 04:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much.
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 17:19, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

West Parish Elementary School Science Park

Hi DGG, I'd appreciate it if you could look at the article again now that it has been improved. And if you still think the article isn't worth having here, that you explain what policy or guideline you are using (NOT#NEWS?). I think the letter of WP:N is met here. Hobit (talk) 20:31, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

as you can see, I looked again & I think it passes. DGG (talk) 04:01, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Hematide

Thank you very much for re-writing the article. « D. Trebbien (talk) 03:14, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

yes, thanks. I seeded it because I came across the substance when reading a Tour de France article somewhere else (in dutch). It seemed relevant as it is a new compound and at least one rider was tested positive for it. Beck (talk) 23:33, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Spread of printing ==> Spread of the printing press

Hi! Some months ago I moved Spread of printing to Spread of the printing press as per the discussion on the talk page (that you contributed to). But in this last week the user Gun Powder Ma has reverted this move twice. I've asked him to justify his move on the talk page, but so far no response. I wonder if you could give your opinion on the talk page before I undo his revert. Thanks lk (talk) 07:31, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I think spread of printing is the better title. The printing press is a machine. The operation of using it is printing. Are we concerned primarily with the existence of the machine, or its use? Your comments about Asian printing are however correct, so the title could better be changed to the spread of the european tradition of printing or some synonymous phrase. I will comment there at greater length. I have long been unhappy with the use of "Printing Press" as a convenient term for the system of producing printed books that developed in western europe. DGG (talk) 08:22, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your point. However, I think 'printing press' makes a nice shorthand for early western style printing and related technologies. Consider, one naturally speaks of the spread of gunpowder, not the spread of shooting guns; and the influence of television, not the influence of watching at home, pre-programmed studio shows transmitted through a radio network. I think 'spread of printing' is a misnomer, as it naturally calls up the earliest printed works from ancient China. regards lk (talk) 08:51, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Not promotional?

How is [[V

Re: that article

Alright, will keep that in mind down the line. Kwsn (Ni!) 03:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Ethnicity and Democratic Governance

Thanks for your message, and especially for your offer to help. I'm waiting to hear back from the project's manager on whether she is aware of any press coverage on the project itself rather than its activities but, as I said, this kind of project rarely gets that.

By the way, one of the reasons that I chose to list the symposium in the International Journal of Constitutional Law is that Choudhry's introduction provides the following information in the first footnote:

The papers appearing herein were originally presented at a workshop in Toronto in October 2006 under the auspices of the Ethnicity and Democratic Governance Major Collaborative Research Initiative (MCRI), a five-year interdisciplinary project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. A selection of the conference papers appears in this volume; all will appear in an edited volume, CONSTITUTIONAL DESIGN FOR DIVIDED SOCIETIES: INTEGRATION OR ACCOMMODATION? (Sujit Choudhry ed., Oxford Univ. Press 2008).

Given that this journal and Oxford University Press have both chosen to devote substantial resources to publishing the project's work as such, I thought this might be sufficient evidence of notability. Could you explain why it isn't? Thanks for your help. – SJL 03:53, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

That would seem to be the case for any published work. Journals often publish symposia. My own professional view as a librarian is that they tend to often do that when they have insufficient other content worth including, and those papers usually get more cursory peer review. And a symposium published in a journal and a book are in my experience one of the things we carefully avoid purchasing--and usually comment unfavorably to each other in professional lists about. There's little enough money to buy scholarly work once.) Please excuse that last comment which is not strictly related to notability of the research group, but dual publication is somethign I;'ve been fighting against all my career). More helpfully, I'll take another look at my comment at the AfD tomorrow. DGG (talk) 08:38, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I added a description of the newspaper story and some quotes to the article's talk page as requested. – SJL 21:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

and I've gone back and changed my position a little on the basis of what you said there and here. We will ned a general disscussion of how to handle these cases, for they are increasingly entered here, and some are really important and some much less do. You will undertand our reluctance to give an article to a group that intends to become important. Long established and well known groups make much easer cases, DGG (talk) 08:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I understand the reasons that it's up on the block (though I get the sense that the nominator is motivated by more than a concern about notability). To clarify, though, notability is not about importance, is it? I mean, there are a lot of truly unimportant things on Wikipedia. – SJL 18:09, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

In practice, Notability means suitability for Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia, not a list of all important things in the universe. What actually should be in it is a matter of continual discussion, as you can see below on this talk page and elsewhere. As for motivation, I see no reason to not assume good faith. DGG (talk) 23:53, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Robert G. Pielke

Could you please look at Robert G. Pielke? I removed a speedy tag since the author is notable, but I'm worried that some other editor might delete the article for resembling an advertisement. --Eastmain (talk) 05:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

already happened, but I removed it. I suggest it might help to edit out somr of the pr stuff rather fast. DGG (talk) 08:43, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

You earned one of these for sure.

		The Article Rescue Barnstar
		For declining speedies on articles i deemed beyond saving, and at the same time improving those articles so that they meet the guidelines, i award you this little shiny :) Excirial (Talk,Contribs) 17:09, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed that this article: State Duma of Tomsk Oblast is yet another fine save from your side on an article which i deemed hopeless. While other admins would have most likely just deleted the page, you did not only preserve it, but also edited it in such a way that it is a good stub. As far as i know this is truly an unique way when dealing with speedies, as most times they simply get slammed with a myrad of maintenance templates when a speedy is declined. Keep up the great work! :) Excirial ^{(Talk,Contribs)} 17:09, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

unfortunately, I can only do this occasionally. The one you mention was easy--just a cut of 9/10 of the material--and many other admins similarly stub copyvios, as they are supposed to if there's something to use and it seems worth the trouble. Most of the time when people tag in declining a speedy, considerably more rewriting is usually needed, and I almost always tag myself, not rewrite. I do try to rewrite one article a day that actually need substantial rewriting, concentrating on things I know and care about. But even a short one for that can take an hour. And it does not take an admin to do this. Anyone can rewrite and --if not the author-- remove a speedy tag. If every acrtive editor did just one a week, we'd save a lot of articles. DGG (talk) 17:17, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

pop culture-free wiki

In reply to your comment on ANI, just posting here so we don't go off-topic again:) "As for a separate wiki, the easy way is to set up one that will screen out articles from an inclusive one. Veropedia is something of that idea. If anyone wants to set up a non-pop culture version, and can think of an algorithm, the rest is easy enough." I actually like popular culture, I just am very keen on notability. And deleting articles can be dangerously addictive, it has to be said.:) The problem with Fred/Crufty was always how he went about it- rude edit summaries etc. Sticky Parkin 01:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

this would need to be a rather l o n g discussion. In fact, it already has been, and in many places. But you're right if you imply we have all to some extent been talking past each other--at least I hope so, for then there might be a solution. I recognize that many of the relatively deletionist people for these articles do in fact like the subject. So why? From what you say, I conclude that you are stuck upon thinking that the concept of notability in the Wikipedia sense comes first, and how we make an encyclopedia depends on having it as a principle--rather than the correct view --as I see it-- that the basic thing is what we want to make of an encyclopedia, and we should adjust the rules to what we want. The foundational principles are those which are necessary to make it an encyclopedia, andI doubt we'd have any quarrel there except upon detail. Now, does the notion of an encyclopedia imply some selectivity? A few people seem to think not, but I disagree with them--I agree with you that it does, that the nature that is expected of any such work of reference implies not being a 1:1 map of the world (in the sense of Swift and Borges) but a selection of what is to some degree worth knowing about--potentially at least, recognizing that nobody can or will want to know everything (unlike, say, Diderot). The question then, is what would a person in the world--any person who can read English--want to know, that they might reasonably look for in a work of reference called a universal encyclopedia. I follow the principle of what was in the end of the 18th century called a Conversation-dictionary, the German language's first encyclopedia in 1796, "Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon" -- the information a person will want in discussing any of the topics of interest in whatever part of the human world he might find himself: to discuss a sport with fans, a game with players, politics with those interested in public affairs of whatever country, medicine with those who want to talk about it, fiction with those who have read it. In each case amateurs: not the details of running that are of concern among actual runners only, or a game among those engaged in the middle of a round, or Brooklyn politics in a Brooklyn clubhouse, or medicine among doctors, or a book among those preparing a new edition. If a friend wants to discuss his latest medicine for arthritis, I should be able to find here the nature & status of the drug. If someone talks about a candidate for Congress, I should be able to find out something about him. If I speak to a schoolchild who wants to eagerly talk of the characters in his favorite serial, I should be able to come here and find at least the name and general role of any character he might mention. Not enough to be an expert, but enough to participate in a conversation. (And there is a limit--if the child wants to talk about his personal best friends, he's going to first have to tell me something about them--not even he will expect me to know them.) Until you realize and accept this, you will want only a selection of our true encyclopedia. Not Wikipedia, but the Really Important Part of Wikipedia. And you can attain it easily enough--let us all write what we each feel others might need, and you can then take what you want of it. DGG (talk) 02:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Sticky Parkin referred me to this discussion in a nice post on my Talk page. I've been saying for quite some time that the encyclopedic project is not one of inclusion/exclusion, but of categorization. The true "sum of all human knowledge" is larger than Wikpedia, but there is no rigid boundary between them. Currently, there exists knowledge, worthy of the name, that we exclude from Wikipedia. There are whole categories of knowledge, considered reliable enough for use in legal decisions, that we exclude rather artificially, simply because we haven't figured out how to decide if it's verifiable or not. (Sample, from common law: testimony is presumed true unless controverted. Read the Rules of Procedure for about any U.S. State.) What's "testimony?" Well, for starters, it can't be anonymous, because whether it is reliable or not (controvertible) depends partly on the history of the individual, and "controverted" may include impeachment of the source. But the presumption is that it is true. Apply this to Wikipedia and what would we see? Something quite different, I'd tell you! We'd need classes of editors, and real-world identity editors might have privileges that others don't, by default. Just as knowledge exists in hierarchies of notability and probity, so too should editors. I'm quite sure that many, seeing this, would imagine some monstrous bureaucracy, tracking the errors of all editors so as to adjust their probity quotient. There could be highly efficient ways of establishing hierarchies that are bottom-up, DGG, you've seen this before from me, but my goal, right now, isn't to make a specific proposal, only to note that we have painted ourselves into a corner. We need to start looking at the project from different perspectives, and the battle between inclusionists and deletionists is a sign that we haven't found the synthesis, a sign that we haven't looked deeply enough.

In order to start to look deeper, we must overcome, first of all, one major obstacle, the rampant incivility that prolonged conflict over some of these issues has engendered. I am now trying an experiment, in Routemaster, after an edit war which resulted in blocks for three editors. I'm sitting like a smiling gorilla there, absolutely intolerant of incivility, but absolutely welcoming to all editors, including some who might easily be considered trolls (and have been by other editors), at the same time as I tell the editors who are upset by the "trolling" or "POV pushing" that I can understand why. It is far too soon to tell, but the results of a few days have been better than I expected. Uncivil editors haven't changed their spots, and they will continue, perhaps, to need reminders, but I've made it very clear that when I'm warning, I'm not waving a big stick, I'm actually trying to help them get what they want, and, several times now, they have simply ceased the problem behavior. It's tricky, and I'm learning every step of the way, but, as an example, instead of dropping a warning on an editor's Talk page, the standard practice, I'm putting it in article talk, making it general where more than one editor is involved, and then, sometimes, deleting the warning, when it can be done, laving minimum trace. I'm hoping that the involved editors, seeing this, will realize that I'm not being a bully, for if I were a bully, I'd be placing red warnings on their Talk pages, going to AN/I, etc. Rather, I'm demanding -- firmly and civilly -- that editors cooperate and negotiate what they want, simply by not tolerating anything else, remaining as neutral as I can, and attempting to exemplify what's needed. Wish me luck.--Abd (talk) 19:26, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Phage meetings

Can all other groups have their own meeting pages on Wikipedia? Seriously, is this an allowed use for article space on Wikipedia? I can't imagine this qualifying as encyclopedic? But, you're more knowledgable here. The page includes a talk page invitation to continue using Wikipedia for announcements of meetings. I've never seen a group use Wikipedia like this. --Blechnic (talk) 18:42, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting question, I've wondered about it myself. (and in fact I too questioned the page when I first saw it) It's not really primarily a current list of programs in a promotional sense, but a list of past conferences, some but not all of which are in fact are famous (not merely notable) series of academic conferences that would quite possible merit individual articles for the series (but not the individual conferences). We accept bibliography articles, so perhaps a good case can be made for why we should accept these also.

As for the promotional part on the talk page, I will perhaps add a note explaining what can and cannot be included in Wikipedia , and what the purposes of the encyclopedia are. But we do include future sceduled events if they are notable enough, and some of them are. Of course everyone is not only welcome but encouraged to add appropriate material to Wikipedia articles, but the wording you mention is a little troubling. DGG (talk) 19:40, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Then these should be sourced as to their notability. There is nothing of the sort in this article. There are, however, like the yellow pages and the e-mails I get from my professioal associations, e-mail contacts so the group can continue to use Wikipedia as their private advertising space. --Blechnic (talk) 19:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

For individual series of phage meetings to get a separate page, that series has to be sourced enough to show notability. for t he concept of phage meetings in general to get a page, one just needs to show notability for the concept of phage meetings in general, which in fact is quite easy. One does not have to show notability for the individual items of content on a page, just relevance. If we list a bibliography of printed works on bacteriophage, we do not have to show notability for each of them, just that they are relevant content. If the author of that page had intended to give pages for each individual meeting, your statement would be correct.

You are thinking of a thing like List of notable phage meetings, which in general would be considered to require an article on each or the possibility of making one. Actually, it turns out that I can't find a formal guideline on this; I can find precedent for requiring it at AfD for lists of alumni, or people associated with a place, but not really for anything else. The criterion for inclusion of an item of content in an article according to WP:NOT, is just that it be "important", not defined further. Now, this article in question is intended just as the equivalent of a bibliography. The only evidence for that which would be necessary is a link to the meeting, or evidence of significantly held published proceedings, and some indication of professional sponsorship--which is all that is required for an item in a bibliography. But I will check it once more for language that indicates more than this, which I agree would not be appropriate. DGG (talk) 21:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Pierre Laffillé

Dear DGG,
Thank you vm for saving the arcticle. It is nice to find friends on enWP as I already have quite a few on frWP (you can obviously find all my accounts on my user page). This gives me a lot of motivation to translate asap the analysis section.
For your info, I posted a section on User_talk:Delicious_carbuncle#Barbara Gluck
I find this user very strange when I check his stats. Best regards, Jatayou (talk) 19:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

A JSTOR article

Can you provide some of the text of Hijacking, Freedom, and the "American Way", either on-wiki (if the needed portion is small enough) or by email? I'm specifically interested in the part where it talks about the hijacking mentioned at the talk page of 1972. I'm pretty sure it talks about this hijacking because of the snippets Google coughs up from the article. Ping me with Template:Talkback when you reply. Thanks, Graham87 14:46, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

• • Yes, its about the flight. Problem is its a very long PDF and I will have trouble sending it and JSTOR does not let me use any other format than the complete PDF. Most is irrelevant to your problem,, as it talks about the legal aspects--which, incidentally, are relevant to current US policy re Guantanamo. But let me try, I will need your email address, which you can send to me through WP email--I can not actually email this through WP, as it wont take attachments. Otherwise, tell me--do we have an article on the hijack? I could add information to that, with a good quotation. A convenient link for the text of the actual legal decision is [27]-- If you are interested in the flight, you will really want the book itself. DGG (talk) 03:48, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

• • • Thanks. I'm more interested in the flight, so I'll email you soon for the PDF. Would zipping the PDF up help with file size? I don't think we have an article about the hijacking on Wikipedia. In fact I couldn't find a mention of it anywhere besides the recently added tidbit at 1972. Graham87 04:02, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Mountains of the Alps

Check the page history. Author requests deletion is a valid reason for speedy. 152.3.25.133 (talk) 16:32, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

please see the comment by another edit at the MfD on it. [Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Mountains of the Alps]. I agree with him--if the author requests deletion it can be deleted, but I'd suggest not doing it. DGG (talk) 03:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

For your encouraging comments on my talk page Domminico (talk) 18:59, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

User:Ernestvoice and VoIP articles

Ernestvoice (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been tagging articles on several VoIP companies for speedy deletion or AfD. I have been able to rescue some by adding references, but I am worried that other articles for which references could probably be found have been speedily deleted. Could you please look at the deleted articles Parlino and Rebtel and either restore them or move them to my userspace? --Eastmain (talk) 19:30, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Parlino not really justified as speedy; Rebtel had been deleted at AfD [28]. I have userified them for you as [User:Eastmain/Parlino] and [User:Eastman/Rebtel] DGG (talk) 04:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Before I tag articles for deletion or speedy deletion. I asked myself, is this article written as a promotion? or is it a referencing a company that has contributed enough to gain notability. If I am sure that it is written as an advertisement, or used as a promotional tool, then I tag it as a speedy. If I am unsure, but need more opinions, then I tag it as AFD. If I am sure that it is not for advertising purposes, but it needs help, I tag it with the appropriate templates and in article tags. Could I ask why these articles, even though deletion agreed upon by either another administrator or a consensus of editors, were restored to some degree? Ernestvoice (talk) 13:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Message for colleague Goodman from Arno Tausch

Hello, generally, Í have gained a good impression about your serious work as a Wikipedia editor; perhaps my last entries at the much disputed Nova Science Publishers page will be useful to you:

Voila, I tried my best and did a thorough 19 indicator analysis of the publishers, who are very active in my own field of studies and who frequently publish the works of European authors.

To start with, my analysis now came out in exactly the same electronic journal as the article by Mr. Bade:

http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00014330/

On the World Market Trajectory of 21 Major Book Publishing Companies in Globalization and European Studies in 100+ Countries Tausch, Arno (2008) On the World Market Trajectory of 21 Major Book Publishing Companies in Globalization and European Studies in 100+ Countries. Report.

(ELIS - i.e. the same journal which also printed the Bade article, whom, I must emphasize, I greatly respect as a colleague - only I am against the use of the indiscriminate use of his article on the WIKI page as the SOLE evidence on Nova)

The article came out also at the editor-reviewed and internationally highly respected Social Science Research Network in New York, whose materials are also re-transmitted by Chicago U., Stanford U., Seoul University and the Corporate Governance Institute in Brussels:

On the World Market Trajectory of 21 Major Book Publishing Companies in Globalization and European Studies in 100 Countries - From 'Amsterdam University Press' via 'Palgrave' and 'Nova Science Publishers' to 'Transaction Publishers' by International, 19 Indicator Comparison

Social Science Research Network, New York

Suggested Citation

Tausch, Arno , "On the World Market Trajectory of 21 Major Book Publishing Companies in Globalization and European Studies in 100 Countries - From 'Amsterdam University Press' via 'Palgrave' and 'Nova Science Publishers' to 'Transaction Publishers' by International, 19 Indicator Comparison" (July 17, 2008). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1162241

The paper also appeared in a condensed version at the E-Book-series of the Revista Entelequia at Cadiz and Malaga Universities in Spain:

Autor/es: Tausch, Arno

Título: «On the global efficiency of 21 major social policy book publishing companies and their impact in 100+ countries»

(Sobre la eficiencia global de los 21 mayores editores sobre política social y su impacto en más de 100 países)

Revista Entelequia, Cadiz/Malaga Universitz, Spain

http://www.eumed.net/entelequia/es.lib.php?a=b007

and at the editor-reviewed Munich Personal Repec Archive of Munich University and the IDEAS/REPEC Network at the University of Connecticut.

http://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/9613.html

There will be also an electronic publication at the Centro de Estudios Internacionales in Buenos Aires.

To make a long story short, publishers like Monthly Review Press and Cornell lead the field, but Nova - especially its book publishing - deserves a more objective treatment.

Kind regards Arno Tausch —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.41.51.55 (talk) 13:27, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I see you are being realistic, that the company's strengths are in book publishing in the social sciences, not journals, and not the sciences. The article should reflect that. Just as the Wikipedia article will not be permitted to become either an advertisement or an attack on your company I am independently analysing some data, probably for publication or at least posting. I would like to check some information with you, if you care to email me through by user page email link--this is not the place for original research or discussing the company. DGG (talk) 23:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

would you comment

on the criteria for notability of accademic books? If you have time could you comment here Slrubenstein | Talk 11:09, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I very much appreciate the thoughtful and well-informed comment you provided. Perhaps you saw above I suggest a slight change to the policy, but there has been considerable discussion since then and now your detailed comment. Would you make any specific proposals for improving the section of the policy on academic books? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 16:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

will recvisit it soon and see where it stands. DGG (talk) 17:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Question

I have a question that I think you might be able to answer. I noticed that User:Kokugakusha has added two books by the same author to an article that I watch and, since I know the subject of the article well and didn't recognize the author's name, I decided to see what else this user has done. Looking at his contributions page, it seems that every edit he has made has been to add books by the same author to different articles, without edit summaries or talk-page postings to indicate the appropriateness of the sources. In at least one case the addition seems reasonable (though it should be listed under 'further reading' instead of 'rerfences', because it was not a contributing source for the text of the article), but in others it looks like it might be self-promotion that doesn't improve the article. What is the best way to address this? – SJL 16:27, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Looking in worldcat, I see Starr's books are held by many libraries,and have reviews in major academic journals. The odds are he is a notable author and/or academic, both under WP:PROF and the general rules for people. , and that an adequate article about him could be written. But adding references this way is a borderline case of spamming--I will give some appropriate advice. Don't assume it's the author, it might just as well be someone who knows about his importance. I agree the Kawabata one seems appropriate--yes,the References heading rally should be changed to Further Reading, so change it if you like, but I do not think it matters much. In the other cases, the reference may well be too narrow for the very general topic. As it is apparently your subject, you should use your judgment here rather than mine--remove it with a suitable edit summary, like "seems too narrow--please justify on the talk page" and discuss it if needed.DGG (talk) 20:23, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Great, thanks for your help. – SJL 03:44, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Cheaper by the Dozen

I have been doing a bit of improvement of the articles associated with Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes. I have found a lot of inconsistency among various sources about the authorship and the dates of publication etc. Some say Cheaper by the Dozen was published in 46, some 48, some 49 and some 50 (Washington Post article claiming 1948). Do your library databases provide better publication information? --Filll (talk | wpc) 02:09, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

• Worldcat had nothing before 1948, with publication by Crowell, OCLC 560904, and Grosset & Dunlap OCLC 3112971. LC has unambiguously 1948. what you want to find for exactness is the original book review or an actual discussion of th publication history.DGG (talk) 03:41, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Frank Joseph Haas

You said coverage was notable, but the coverage is for the same legal case. I'd say the case is notable, but Haas by himself is not (thus BLP1E). Can I be bold and redirect to a section in the GLWV article (or create it; I'm not sure it exists), or do I need to build consensus? I have a real problem because of JASpencer's POV; he makes no bones about his anti-Masonic stance, and his editing pattern shows that he only seems to add articles about Masons involved in things he can show as being unfavorable to the fraternity. MSJapan (talk) 22:52, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

The really valid question you raise is whether the identical material belongs here twice in two articles. I'm not sure which way the merge shoudld go. I would not apply BLP 1E here, since its a general issue, not one concerning him personally. As for the WV article, the best thing to do there is to see if you can first add content about other things than this--see the articles on the other state lodges for some possibilities. And then propose the merge, and it can be discussed. Burt tis not a mater of bargaining between us, but what the interested part of the community should think. DGG (talk) 00:32, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

For general article changes, I was asked to make some suggestions because I stepped in as a knowledgeable neutral party, but I don't have access to the right material to be able to add other content; I'm hoping someone else does. Also, the lawsuit isn't general, but rather concerns Haas personally - the goal is not to re-implement his reforms (value judgment aside, there was nothing irregular about the manner in which they were overturned), but to reverse his expulsion, because due process was violated. Because the suit is against GLWV as an entity, I'd rather see it in that article than duplicated in bio about thew plaintiff, all of which material is drawn from the lawsuit articles. I suppose a merge proposal won't kill anything, so I'll try it for now, and I'll add it to the Freemasonry project page to try to get it some exposure to get some sort of consensus. MSJapan (talk) 21:03, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center

I came across this situation in AN/I by accident, and I eventually saw that you had commented. This was an unfortunate situation, and it highlights, once more, the damage done by people readily assuming that IP edits are some kind of vandalism. While the IP editor was apparently a clueless volunteer, and simply did not perceive the problem -- and I'm going to guess, never saw the warnings, etc. -- I can understand why the IP was blocked, but -- it only took a little AGF and checking to figure out what was going on. All the edits were adding a note to articles where there is a major collection at the Center. One edit was in error, actually, the editor added it to the wrong article, different bio with the same name. I've created Category:Papers in Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center for a generic solution, and I've added the category to a few articles. But there is more. For the first two articles I checked, there was a more thorough biography, at least in some ways, hosted at the Center, than we have on Wikipedia. I'd consider those biographies as a relatively reliable source, in themselves, and they certainly seem better written than much of what we have! In any case, I don't see any attempt to treat these edits as good-faith edits. They were reverted, typically without comment. No discussion in Talk. This happened early on, not just later.

We could say, "All's well that ends well," and I think damage has been averted here, except that a lot of work was put into removing these harmless edits, and now there is the work to replace them, at least with the category. In some cases, the archive is significant enough, I think, to warrant actual mention in the article.

But how many times are IP edits removed without comment like that? I've been getting more involved with articles out in the wild and wooly, and I'm seeing it quite often. IP editors don't usually complain, except for the really pesky ones, who will simply edit war, and that can be a long-term nuisance. If we are going to continue to allow IP editors, we should treat them with respect, don't you think? It's looking to me like nobody bothered to check to see what the Center was, and whether or not the fact added was true. Too much trouble, I expect, for a mere IP edit. It wasn't a bot. Too slow. Simply a volunteer adding from a list of names he or she had from the Center. --Abd (talk) 23:05, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

you may be interested in keeping track of WT:SPAM and WT:RSPAM (and WP:COIN.)--and also Hu12's talk, if he returns. And see the earlier discussions at those places. But in patrolling spam, or COI articles, one does tend to see it everywhere--and that's in a sense excusable, because there is a remarkable amount. I've seen some really incorrect large groups from noncommercial people. Perhaps the only way is to continue an adversary approach--some people concentrating on keeping stuff out, and others in rescuing. The general issue of getting people to be considerate and polite especially to beginners may be a lost cause in online groups--at least till we get enough nontraditional participation. . DGG (talk) 00:11, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

We need nontraditional participation.... Wikipedia is fouling its nest, I'd say. How badly is hard to judge, for a long time, we could drive away several editors for everyone actually recruited, and still grow. I think those days are past, actually. Thanks. --Abd (talk) 00:23, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

National Research Libraries Alliance

I've stumbled upon an article about the National Research Libraries Alliance. Are you familiar with this? Do you think it deserves an article? Thanks, Zagalejo^^^ 04:14, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

yes there are problem--I will follow up. These library consortia sometimes are just a purchasing arrangement, Sometimes have other roles & are important. We need some standardized way of dealing with them From the available ghits, it indicates this is just a non-notable purchasing arrangement, but my memory is they also do significant lobbying. I will check and go ahead accordingly. DGG (talk)

OK, thanks for the reply. Zagalejo^^^ 16:36, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Apostolic Christian Church of America

Hi - I see you declined my request for speedy deletion of this article. Just to let you know - I still think there are serious problems with the article, so I have added an afd tag. (Unfortunately it seems not to be a direct copy of the organisation's website..) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 19:01, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

agree there are serious problems with the article. Thanks for checking the cvopyvio. i will do the next step & try to remove the spam. DGG (talk) 19:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Help with Mesodermochelys.

Perhaps a little smile?

[29] Really and truly, I don't always vote delete. I don't know if you saw it elsewhere, but I also noted that I've found myself turning down a fair number of CSD requests because the subjects clearly met the threshold for inclusion. Your comments at my RfA did make me more aware of the need to speak up when a decent article or one with potential should at least be given a chance. This is probably a good time for me to say "thanks for reminding me". Best, Risker (talk) 00:13, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

well, I think well enough of you that you're not even on my watchlist now, so I haven't kept track since way back then. Treating this note as a request for review, I've sampled the log & the history & still see nothing to remark. Is there by any chance something recent you were dubious about? (big smile) DGG (talk) 03:53, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Alfred Holmes

DGG, thank you for your comment in the relevant discussion. I have added my own comment to yours, stating that the assertion on the article that he is the main observer appears to be an opinion, not fact, since no reference/source has been attached to the assertion. EasyPeasy21 (talk) 08:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

1960s fads and trends in North America

Hello DGG,

your edit to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1960s fads and trends in North America somehow lead to the page being blanked; this may be a technical problem. I have reverted the change, so the AFD is visible again. Whatever comment you intended to make, would you mind re-adding it? --B. Wolterding (talk) 11:34, 28 July 2008 (UTC) thanks for fixing it and letting me know. DGG (talk) 14:31, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Guardian Life Insurance Company of America

DGG: Guardian page has been altered again and questionable content has reemerged. Request that the entry is restored. Please advise as to how we can prevent alterations like this again in the future.

Guardian Per denied deletion of Guardian Life Insurance article. Per Wikipedia standards, companies cannot edit their own pages/articles. Please advise. The entry can be constituted as vadalism per site standards. 15:38, 15 July 2008 (comment added by i.p. User:63.72.235.4 ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.72.235.4 (talk)

They are not supposed to, but they are not prohibited from doing so, if they do it objectively. In fact, I'd guess that about 1/2 of the entries for businesses and other organisations are done by people connected with them. We ask them not to, because it's hard to do it properly, with respect both to what they say, and how they say it. But it can be done, and if it isn't done right, we can help them edit it. This is discussed in considerable detail by Durova's excellent page of advice on the subject, our Business FAQ. I shall keep an eye on the article. It needs keeping an eye on, for it has a curious history. It was originally entered as a stub back in 2006, and expanded in what seems to be an unobjectionable fashion by an ip account that is reported by whois to be connected with the company. Additional material that would appear to be controversial, inappropriate, and inadequately sourced [26] was added soon after by an account, User:Policyholder, accompanied by the removal of reasonable descriptive and historical material about the company. The account was soon blocked indefinitely for adding such material to this and articles on other insurance companies. Additional inappropriate material was later added -- surprisingly, from an ip address also reported to be connected with the company. Quality was restored by a very reliable Wikipedia administrator [27]. Unfortunately, it was later compromised again. Now, you, using an account reported by whois to also be associated with the company, have requested removal of the article. What I have done instead is restored the most recent good version of the article. If it is vandalized again, I will protect it. As I have said, you are welcome to add material to the article, but perhaps you would do well to register and declare any conflict of interest. DGG (talk) 21:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC) Thanks DGG. We'll monitor the article also and take your advice re: editing 16:03, 16 July 2008

The user who added it has been blocked for 4 months and the changes reverted. If it is vandalized by another, the article will be protected, but we prefer to block the editor involved. I again urge you to find a good published source or two on the company. DGG (talk) 17:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

UMN Primate Research

Hey, Sorry about that. I have gotten side tracked with life. I still do intend to add more and I have a little bit written on my computer. Carniv (talk) 20:02, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I'm going to wait a couple of more days to see if you comment on the page and if you don't, I'm going to put the quotes back in.Carniv (talk) 18:06, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Times of London and John Edwards

Hi D - Well, apparently editors think that Sunday Times sleazy piece that used only the National Enquirer as its source, is a reliable source. I wonder if any of them actually read the piece. There's no reliable sourcing even about if this tabloid story hurts his career - just some random writers' opinions. I'm amazed that this has been added. Any suggestions? Tvoz/talk 08:03, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I consider Sandstein a responsible admin about BLP, and the consensus was clear, and I've always said no individual admins have the right to object to consensus on BLP questions--or anything else. And, we would really have difficulty saying the event isn't notable--in the end I think it would appropriately have a separate article, with a one line link from the campaign and maybe the bio. I'd think the article should discussing the blogging as much --or more--than the Enquirer's actions. That there is actually a quote from them defending their journalistic methods is telling. I'd not advise going to great lengths keeping it out for a few days when it will eventually be in after all--not as if the convention were tomorrow. I intend to continue discussing the Times as a RS when stories like this are used in WP. I want to wait a few weeks before adding it to the article on them & on the Enquirer--here your argument that it would be good to know the conclusion is very much to the point.DGG (talk) 08:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

My issue is not with Sandstein - I disagree with his view, but I think he was being responsible. I do have serious questions about the sourcing - not only the Times, but is the Irish Independent "News and Gossip" column seriously considered a reliable source? Because that's what we've got. Tvoz/talk 17:42, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

not enough to say he had an affair, not perhaps enough to say he was suspected of having one; enough to say that some blogs and tabloids published that he had. DGG (talk) 18:14, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

AfD essay

Greetings, David. I have been playing around recently with the idea of writing an essay on an aspect of AfD you might be interested in. The idea behind the essay (stub version here) is that it would be admirable for inclusionists/eventualists who argue that articles could be improved to an acceptable level to take immediate steps in bringing that article up to scratch. Per this comment, I imagine that you are sympathetic to the notion. Would you be interested in collaborating on the essay or throwing around a few ideas on the subject? Sincerely, Skomorokh 11:20, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I hope you do not mean "immediate"--I dont see it in your proposal. --it is many times easier to nominate for deletion than to fix. I fix articles at Afd, yes, but i can only do 1 or 2 a week or so properly (I usually do another 2 or 3, but some of those fixes are minimal & dont really meet my standards for a decent article.) In that week, usually 1000 are nominated, of which probably 200 of the deleted ones could be fixed, and perhaps the same number of the ones that get kept need majpr improvements. But Wikipedia is too large to require fixing to save articles--many articles will not be worked on for long periods,--this is very unfortunate, but until we have more people prepared to work on the less widely interesting topics, it will remain the case. One thing we'll need to get them, is to not delete articles that they might be interested in. them. Incomplete articles are inevitable in a wiki like this.

Lets try to generalize this--that people who nominate for deletion must demonstrate they did at least a minimal search, documenting where they looked.

Maybe it should be a how-to, not an exhortation.

Try a longer draft & I'll look in more detail. DGG (talk) 02:43, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The Times

Hi - I saw your comment here about the declining standards of The Times. I'm consistently impressed at how crappy and tabloidy their coverage is. For me, it goes all the way back to their promotion of AIDS denialism in the early 90's. The science editor of the Sunday Times decided that HIV was harmless, AIDS in Africa a myth, HIV tests unreliable, and heterosexual AIDS nonexistent, and beat the drum relentlessly. Finally Nature actually called them out, saying their coverage of HIV/AIDS was "unbalanced", "selective", "seriously mistaken, and probably disastrous" - a pretty unusual step for a scientific journal of that stature to take ([30]). Ever since then, nothing they print has surprised me, though it's disappointing to see how much credibility still attaches to the name. MastCell ^Talk 22:03, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

can you find some references? we cant be the first two people who noticed. The place to add them would be the article on the newspaper. DGG (talk) 22:12, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Re: Psych

As you have noticed, I am a Wikipedia novice and, consequently, my article-writing skills are terrible at this point. I want to thank you for your comments because they will hopefully help me improve.

Per your message, I could use help with something. I would like to make a table for the article's alumni section so that one can organize it alphabetically by the name of the student, by the year in which a degree was received, by the type of degree that was received, and alphabetically by the name of the employing institution. Is it possible to do this? Would be able to help me with this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gyan Veda (talk • contribs) 13:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

See HELP:Table and HELP:Sorting -- it's set up for you, no coding skills necessary, & works well. It can be done in html, but since, like a typical computer help page, they gives all the details & variations, you may want to read instead the excellent chapter in John Broughton's Wikipedia: the Missing Manual an O'Relly book. Parts are online free, Princeton may have the whole thing as an eBook, but the paper is I think the best format. DGG (talk) 14:49, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Psych

Thanks for the compliment. I have never been to Princeton. KnightLago (talk) 01:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC) FWI, the compliment was for figuring out what was wrong with (one part of) the place from a laudatory article on it. DGG (talk) 15:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

RE: Gangster prods...

(RE: [31])

No, I hadn't... I was going by the article alone, as there were quite a few that were only a paragraph or two long. If the basis of the article was "He was a gangster, he robbed this place, he killed this guy, he was killed.", it got prodded. Sources or not, if there wasn't anything in the article that showed any semblance of notability, it was prodded. Just being a gangster and/or getting killed is not notable, otherwise we're going to be overrun with little kiddies thinking they're badasses and writing an article about themselves just because they're "gangsters" and might have been mentioned in a newspaper article... - Adolphus79 (talk) 02:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

then I shall have to check myself before deleting them, as an admin is supposed to do. How can one tell otherwise if they might in fact have had a notable criminal career? (Agreed that the first responsibility is the people who are writing these inadequate articles). But have you found us much bothered with minor criminals cited wanting to get their bios into Wikipedia?DGG (talk) 02:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Nicholas Rockefeller

Hi DGG, Thanks for the kind words. I was actually the one who originally nominated the article for deletion. I haven't followed developments, but I doubt NR has become notable in the meantime. In any case, I've retired after being topic banned on 9/11 articles, and I have a feeling that, given those libelous rumours, working on NR would violate at least the spirit of that ban, if not the letter.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC) Right, probabyeven they were not included. I'll take a look myself some time maybeDGG (talk) 14:16, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:PROF revision draft - move to proceed with the replacement

I would like to try to give another try and make a motion to proceed with the preplacement of the WP:PROF guideline by the revised version. I made a post to the talk page of WP:PROF to that effect and I'd appreciate if you comment there, one way or the other. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 15:02, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Any further suggestions? Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 16:04, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you have any further modifications to WP:PROF revision draft? I see that you made a few changes (they all look fine to me), but your last message at my talk page mentioned Tuesday night, so I'd like to double-check with you before moving further. Also, if you are done, please leave a note at the WP:PROF talk page. Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 04:16, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

still at it--doing more than I though i would at first, so its taking longer. DGG (talk) 04:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to bug you again, but could you please give some idea when you might be done with WP:PROF draft revisions. It has been a week since your last edit there... Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 15:03, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Re: Your note to Iceflow.

I am merely going by the terms attached to Twinkle, which is what I use for placing my CSD tags. One of those tags being "Very short article which provides little or no context".

To me, 3 lines of text, a map and a box telling me its registered as a historic place, does not constitute sufficient context. Also not exactly notable, historic or not. A quote enclosed Google search pulls 3 hits, with the remaining 486 being duplicates. Thor Malmjursson (talk) 03:07, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I just have to say, I've changed my views over the last few months. It is clear to me that having even thousands of deletion or vandalism related edits does not guarantee a candidate's readiness to push those particular buttons.

I see a dichotomy in the deletion process. A bad one. I see articles deleted speedily that should not be. I see articles kept at AFD that should not be. I hate chaos. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 03:45, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Chaos and inconsistency is characteristic of immaturity and rapid growth, and a certain amount of it is to be expected during the explosive development of this medium. The wiki process, and user contributed open editing in general, is exceptionally susceptible to it, and there is a limited amount that can be done to ameliorate it. But what can be done should be done. Perhaps the first step is to eliminate automated tools for sensitive processes--I do a great deal of deletion myself, and I never use them.

For deletion in terms of notability, we need firm standards, not individual judgment. We need defined levels at which articles are and are not notable, in keeping with consistency and basic principles. Things recognized as notable by official agencies are notable in any reasonable sense of the word, and that the Register of HP and its equivalents in particular establish notability at Wikipedia is a very basic standard. We need to establish similar objective standards based on the nature of the subject at hand for all classes of articles. DGG (talk) 04:39, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Could not agree more, except I don't know what, "the Register of HP," is. I usually avoid automation for deletion, though it helps with the initial tagging and notifying-- after I've read the article and searched the internet for meaning, notability, context and sources. (But I can't always type a complete sentence without striking the wrong key, so twinkle helps reduce the typo's.)

I think WP:BIO has become more nebulous-- anyone with a couple of local news articles can claim notability. I feel like a person (or any subject for that matter) should have more for an encyclopedia article.

At any rate, Wikipedia is becoming the best source of information period, and is already the best source for a lot of things. That's the most important consideration. Cheers, and may all your edits be happy ones. Dlohcierekim 14:56, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

sorry, National Register of Historic Places

BIO has become very nebulous, especially because one can interpret "significant coverage" and NOT NEWS to produce any result whatsoever for many of the articles you have in mind. We need to make up our mind abut what depth of local figures we intend to cover. We need to make up our mind about whether to cover the central figures of human interest stories. And then stick to it, whatever the decision is. You and I would probably disagree on one or both of these in general, I at least would much rather accept almost any stable compromise rather than fight each of them from over-general principles. (By the way, I use a keyboard macro of my own for some of the standard phrases--my typing is also unreliable. ) DGG (talk) 16:09, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

We'd probably be closer together than you might think. Yes, the community as a whole does need to thrash out local notability-- something that a narrow constructionist can rely on but which would allow some flexibility. Any standard, even one I loathe, would be better than none. As you say, any result is possible the way things are. A dice roll would be less stressful and do as well. This is why I avoid AFD. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 14:09, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

as with any democratic type of process, it works better if the good people stay in. The way I avoid stress is my commenting once or twice, and then not looking back--either my arguments is accepted, or not,and then on to the next. I generally do not look back to see what the result is, or I would get too often angry, or at least disappointed. Not that it's a game for me, but that I can be effective only by keeping detached. DGG (talk) 16:36, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Commander Dante

I was looking through deletion reviews to see if other articles with histories are up for deletion and I found: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Commander Dante. I made a quick internet search to find out what was out there, and I found four items quickly. Perhaps this is a rush to judgment? Or if he was part of the one page that was deleted, perhaps that page is brought back and he is merged there along with these sources? I don't know. I don't know the topic, or know much about how people feel. I just made a quick search and it seems to suggest the above. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:20, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

What you are seeing is part of a systematic campaign to destroy the coverage of fiction on Wikipedia. The strategy is attack simultaneously pages on the individual characters, the combination pages, and the coverage of plot and characters in the main article or to reduce it to one or two spare sentences--essentially leaving the barest facts of publication without with only the least possible mention of what the fiction is about. As you notice, trying to get any compromise will be defeated by removing the compromise pages. This immediate part is a concentrated effort on as many article on that game as possible, but it's nothing against the game in particular, just a wider systematic campaign on books, video series, films, games, and anything which can be thought of as similar; This is not limited to "popular" culture -- there have been similar attacks on Tolstoy & Shakespeare--the the ones I first spotted. Nor is it limited to the periphery that fewer people know about--it's been done on Lord of the Rings and even Harry Potter.

I have never played this or similar RPGs, which is all the more reason I want to be able to find information on them. Now I know what other people talk about. Oddly, the people deleting these articles are often fans of the games or fictions involved. [material redacted-DGG]

Myself, I like strategy games, & the first article I rescued at WP was on one of the weapons in Civilization II, and I highly recommend it to any student of history. Under any realistic conditions, the Greeks always beat the Persians. I've also spent a long time over years replicating Manhattan in several versions of Sim City--always failed over the impossibility of managing adequate transportation for something of that shape and intensity--Doesn't work no matter how much money you give yourself. I consider these as important as any formal study, and a good motive for it. It is possible to love and understand the value of both Austen and Heyer.

I came here in large part to defend coverage of traditional topics, and soon realized that this required defending the right of everyone to extensive coverage of their own hobby. They're the parts of what make up a comprehensive encyclopedia.

As a practical help , please add your references to the AfD discussion--the way to go is to put them somewhere at least so they'll be in the history for later use. DGG (talk) 17:16, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I added five. Some will need to go through the reliable source process, but it seems that there are some review sites that look over these products. I would be willing to help out finding sources in the future. I'll keep an eye on the situation. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

(to DGG) There's a growing rift in Wikipedia that commonly makes itself known at AFD. For the most part, both sides are pushing each other farther apart. I would like to remove this divide without making anyone change his or her position. Whenever you use words like "destroy" and "attack" to describe good faith actions, or attempt to psychoanalyze others ("lack of intellectual self-confidence", "inner contempt", "inwardly somewhat ashamed") you are effectively shutting down any chance for a reasonable discussion. We have no hope of resolving this issue until editors on both sides (and I know, work is needed on both sides) are willing to commit to rational discussion and let go of the impression that the other side is out to destroy Wikipedia. Pagrashtak 13:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

That's not what I think, or what I said. I see that there are various groups of people who want to sharply diminish to the point of destruction our coverage of various particular types of material. For other examples, there are those who would end the overlap with Wikinews and not cover current events at all, or who would deal with BLP problems by not including any BLP, or would not cover people in one or another particular field unless they are famous, not just notable. There are, more to the point, those who object to any coverage of fictional plot, and those who have openly declared they want to reduce the coverage of fiction to the minimum. None of these proposals would destroy Wikipedia, but they would destroy or essentially our coverage in the areas involved. And here are people who believe in the eternal fundamental sacredness of 2RS=N, and think it a core principle. These just might destroy the flexibility and relevance of the encyclopedia in general, not just particular fields.

As for motivation, even though this is on my own talk page, not in WP or article talk space, and presented frankly as speculation, I should not have said what I did, and I've redacted it. (for the most I've said in WP space, see [32] and [33], where I said that "Such a nomination shows a determination to sharply reduce the encyclopedia's coverage of contemporary culture.") (I notice I've !voted delete for an number of town libraries. Looking at my own motivation, it's specifically because I do not want to seem too aggressive in my own subject.) But it's my attempt to account for those people who want to claim as unsourcable material they have not tried to source. For an example of what can be done to source material claimed to be unsourcable, see OR's comment just below.

I wish to attain a stable compromise. The first step in doing so is to stake out clearly the starting positions. Mine is that we should cover all published fiction with wide readership (etc) , as fully as will be understandable to those who are not fans of it and not familiar with the work. as much as the general reader might possibly like to know. For too long people with this position have countered the people who want minimal coverage by saying we want a moderate amount, in the hope of a compromise that will alllow at least a little more than minimal. It's time we said what we meant, while being prepared to reach a compromise in the true middle. It's been my observation that in discussions like this the closest polite approach to absolute frankness is helpful, if it can be kept impersonal. If I've come too close to personal, I was wrong to do so. DGG (talk) 17:57, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The part about "destroying Wikipedia" was meant to refer to sentiments in the conflict in general, not you specifically—I can see I didn't write that very clearly, I apologize. I don't recall you saying such, but I have seen comments like that, or very close to it, coming from both sides of this. I realize this is your talk page and you have great leeway, but hurtful speculation is still hurtful, even if not directed at editors by name. I suppose I should stake out my position then? I believe, in part, that Wikipedia should not cover a subject unless there is enough raw material to create such an article that is verifiable and written from a Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. To that end, an article's subject should have significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. If the sources are not reliable, we obviously shouldn't use them. If all sources are primary, or associated with the subject/publisher/author/etc., then the article cannot be NPOV, as it will reflect the point of view of the creator or the fictional setting. If the coverage is not significant, we will not have enough material for a full article, and the subject would probably be better represented in the context of a larger setting. That is, the article is probably best merged.

Regarding your reference to OR's source searching, you can see Craw-Daddy's response at the AFD. Sources presented at AFD commonly fail one of the tests I've mentioned above—reliability, independence (secondary, not primary), or significance. A review of the game that mentions Dante off-hand is a good source for a higher-level article, but doesn't provide a lot of raw material for something this specific. The Blood Angels codex is a great source for the Blood Angels article, but it is not sufficient by itself. The article will never be NPOV if independent sources cannot be found to complement it. A fan site's comments about Dante are great, but it's just some guy on the web where anyone can say just about anything. Pagrashtak 18:58, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I have redacted further--you were correct in what you said about my comments on motivation--it was not appropriate even on my talk page. My apologies for the impatience I showed above--I did come too close to personal. As for the general issue, I agree with you about the need for V and NPOV, but I disagree with you about the use of primary sources for uncontroversial descriptive content, which does not affect POV. The work itself is the most reliable source for the plot and characters--the interpretation of them must of course be based on secondary sources, and all too frequently it is not. What these articles need is more careful writing in general--and that's why I get impatient when I see the relatively good ones be nominated for deletion. DGG (talk) 19:12, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks—no hard feelings. I'm not disagreeing with you about using primary sources for certain content. If we were to have an article on the Blood Angels, I would absolutely expect to have their Codex be a source, and at least one section would be largely dependent on it. I'm just saying that the Codex by itself is not enough to warrant an article. If you're writing an article on a book, the plot section shouldn't require any sources beyond the book itself, as long as you don't have any analysis there. I would expect other sections, though, to be largely or completely referenced to secondary sources. Pagrashtak 20:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

so then, if there is enough content to write an article, on what basis to you say we shouldn't? If you accept the sources, then there are two usual ansewers--1/the article would have to be limited to plot, a violation of not plot--to which I respond that the article can to be seen as a spin-off article for the entire game, and that is not limited to plot, and 2/that for some reason it's not important enough by itself. I'll agree that is possible, but how are we to decide? Please don'tsay by independent sourcing, for you've just agreed that the primary sourcing is reliable enough. And supposing that it were agreed that it is not important by itself, shy should we not then include as full information as possible in a more general article? As I see it, that's the critical point--the division into articles is really just a format question at heart--whether we want to have a small number of large articles, or the other way round. The important thing is the content. Why should there not be a mnerge, included all the content that can be sourced from the reliable primary source? DGG (talk) 22:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I think you're putting words in my mouth. I never said we shouldn't write an article when we have enough content. I'm saying that primary sources by themselves are not enough content. I'm all for merging, believe me. In fact, you can check out List of Star Control races for evidence of that, where I've been cutting down and merging about thirty articles practically by myself. I could have easily nominated them for deletion, and it probably would have been successful. In fact, one had already been deleted. It has since been restored and now has a section in the list. And, of course, comments like "Wikipedia does not have a 'Slash and Burn' policy. Pagrashtak might, but he is not Wikipedia, as much as he may think he is." are the thanks I get from some for trying to strengthen those articles against deletion (and, in the case of Mycon, restoring deleted content). Sorry to vent on your talk page like this, but sometimes I feel like I'm getting hammered on from all sides. If I nominate something for deletion, I'm yelled at for ruining Wikipedia and my user page is vandalized. If I try to merge, I'm told I'm destroying organization and creating a huge mess. If I redirect, I'm reverted. If I cut down excessive plot details/game guide information/in-universe writing, I'm reverted. Not too long ago I saw a huge list of fictional character articles that consisted of in-universe information, most did not have any secondary sources, and some did not have any references whatsoever. So I tried what I thought was a gentle approach. I picked one article, tagged it with In-universe and Notability. I couldn't get even that to stick. Someone changed a section header and claimed that took care of the in-universe problem. Notability was removed with the standard "important character in this game" argument, even though I pointed out that Wikipedia:Notability says we needed secondary sources. I said on the talk page that the article needed some out-of-universe information and secondary sources, and that a merge might be a good option if that couldn't be added. I explicitly said I wasn't looking for deletion and that I would have used PROD or AFD if I were trying for that. In response, I was accused of "whining" and "threatening". The word "crusade" was brought up. I was called a hypocrite. I got the standard "this article should have lower standards", "why don't you improve the article then?", and "guidelines apply to scientific articles, not fictional character articles" arguments. Again—I'm not meaning to say that you are doing all this. Just trying to convey that I feel like I'm hitting a brick wall every way I turn, which is why I am so desperate to arrive at a place where we can all get something done with a minimum of hassle. I've seen too many people get burned out over this. I'm the type of guy who usually takes things in stride, like Le Grand Roi. I think I can stick around, and I know he will. But I'm tired of seeing other editors (on both sides) getting fed up and leaving. Pagrashtak 17:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

first, for the specifics I apologize for the rewording but I was specifically trying to narrow down on an exact statement--I knew you wouldn't agree completely, and I wanted to find out where and why. so you think primary sources alone are not enough to justify an article, and the question is why are they not? Do you think perhaps that spin-off articles are not acceptable? Or do you think that N=2RS is the basic controlling policy without exceptions? You say above that WP:N requires secondary sources, but this is not policy, only a general guideline, and (in addition to the fact that all policy needs interpretation and all guidelines admit exceptions), this one specifically says that it is only general and will not apply in all cases. Do you agree with that part of it? (Incidentally, I don't agree with keeping the general notability guideline at all, except as a backup if there is no other possible standard, for I think it leads to absurd inclusions as well as deletions, but that's another discussion. My key objections to it are about other topics than fiction.) Or do you think that, although they might be acceptable, and although we can make exceptions, it would be better practice in general for us not to write articles this way, for some other reason?

More important, much more, is the point about being attacked from both sides, which is certainly true. As I mentioned above, there are in fact those who want to decrease the content on these topics to the minimum possible, and since they sometimes state exactly that, it's not maligning them to say this. They have in the past shown , and continue to show, that they will find reasons to reject any possible compromise. At the beginning, I tried offering compromises on-wiki or off, in the hope of settling this, and found that though they agreed to compromise, nothing except their own views was actually acceptable to them, and if i suggested otherwise, they broke off discussions. If any would like to try again, this page and my email are open. I think I've explained why, in order to deal with this attitude, those of us who support even moderately extensive coverage of fiction will generally try to preserve almost anything that can be reasonably preserved, as the only hope of getting a balance. Now, I am reluctant to discuss individual topics on article talk pages, for I often am not very familiar with the fiction in question--that in fact is the very reason I support full coverage, but I don't sometimes know enough to explain except as a general principle why some particular thing is important. DIscussions there should be left to the knowledgeable. And since many people reasonably don't participate on talk pages where they are similarly uninterested in the particular topic, the people who oppose such content and are willing to do so there are the more easily able to attack it in detail, (I have no hesitation in saying attack is the right word, and I think what you have said above about your own experiences proves it.) I see no way to resolve this except a stable compromise. The only way at present I think it possible to attain one is to hope that new people will join in the discussion.

Myself, I would much rather leave the topic of popular fiction and work on things I do care about, but, as I have explained elsewhere, many of the topics I do care about are those that interest only a relatively small number of people, or have difficulty in sourcing because of the limitations of the internet or the narrow definitions of RSs, and general inclusionism and tolerance, together with a broad acceptance of whatever pertinent sources are the most reliable for the topic, is the best way to get content on these subjects. If we can broker a compromise that is acceptable generally, I remain willing to try, but i am not optimistic. However, I am pretty persistent myself, and intend to continue working towards this indefinitely, though not always with my full attention. Editors leave for various reasons, after all, and we cannot expect everyone who likes to work on Wikipedia to continue to do so indefinitely--that they are fed up with a particular topic is not the only reason--only a minority of active people remain really active more than 18 months or so. There is, after al, life beyond Wikipedia, not to mention other wikis. I've tried some, but i find that this is the most promising. DGG (talk) 18:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say 2RS=N is a hard-and-fast rule. That ignores the subjective nature of notability. A subject mentioned very briefly and trivially in two reliable sources would not make notability—we require significant coverage. On the other hand, I could consider a subject with only one reliable secondary source notable if the coverage is comprehensive and in-depth. I don't put much credence in the "only a guideline" argument. True, it's not a policy, but guidelines are still to be followed unless there is a very good reason to not do so. I would never put the "External links" section above the lead and then claim that Wikipedia:Layout is only a guideline, if you'll allow me to make a silly example. If you're only swayed by policies, we can do that too. Wikipedia:Verifiability states, "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Suppose we have articles about Super Fun Game and the protagonist Captain Super Fun, and there aren't any reliable secondary sources for CSF. You might argue that CSF is a spinoff article of SFG. I would probably reply that if you wrote so much about the plot of SFG that you had to break part of it off into another article, you've most likely written too much about the plot. Because, (everyone's favorite!) Wikipedia is not a plot summary. If the plot is covered succinctly, the need for the separate article will probably disappear. To come at it from the policy angle, if no reliable, third-party sources can be found for Captain Super Fun, Wikipedia should not have an article on Captain Super Fun. Pagrashtak 19:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

We are not totally dependent on the wording of either guidelines or policies, both of which we can change. We can have the kind of an encyclopedia we collectively want to have. Once we know what we want to do, we can adopt whatever rules will get us there. (That does not mean IAR. I don't hold with using IAR as a rule, except to deal with something obvious but that happens not to have been foreseen. I mean we should see what we want, and write the rules accordingly.) Some policies are more basic than others, but the only ones absolutely necessary for it to be a WMF project is avoiding copyvio and libel as defined by the Foundation. Everything else is negotiable. I consider NPOV and V as very basic, more basic than the others, but they need a great deal of interpretation, as the noticeboards make it evident. Rulemaking is done in two ways: by deciding of policies and guidelines formally, and by deciding in practice on how to use them. Actual practice is as basic as specifically written rules, as in all human communities--even though some have been known to claim otherwise, in my opinion to give the illusion of social cohesion.) I remind you of the totally disputed interpretation of NOT PLOT, which does not even say no plot summaries, but no treatment of a fiction that is entirely plot summary, a very much weaker criterion.

The problem, of course, is getting consensus, for we have no clear way of determining it. It's accepted that a supermajority is necessary for policy and guidelines, but the extent is not specified, there is no mechanism for closure, and a small determined majority in practice can block decision. AfD dependent upon the vagaries of a voluntary jury system, abetted by the lack of any requirement to notify the editors involved, the presence of oodles of undeclared meat and sockpuppets, and made totally erratic by the practice of letting any admin make a decision, regardless of fixed opinions, based on whatever decision rules he chooses to follow, permitting them if they choose to ignore consensus altogether in favor of whatever they regard as the more important of conflicting policies. True there's an appeal system, but it is so complicated as to have very limited participation and even vaguer decision rules, with domination by a few self-selected regulars. (I say this non-pejoratively, because I participate in as many as possible myself.) The culminating absurdity is the declared refusal to follow precedent--except of course when people choose to do so.

So don't base things upon either current rules or current practice--we need to decide what we want to do. So I ask you again, why can we not write an article on Captain Super Fun, even if there are no formally reliable third party sources? We can still verify everything in it. Why do you think what you state should be policy? And then I remind you how much fun we can have deciding what counts as "reliable"--one can argue the possible interpretations of that word to include or exclude almost anything. What should; we do, is the question. No divinity, even the foundation, ordains 3rd party sources, let alone a particular repertoire of them. We can decide what we want to do. This is a wiki. DGG (talk) 23:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

When it comes to fictional matter, encyclopedias should have real-world information. Impact, reception, that sort of thing. That is not possible with primary sources alone. That's what I want to read, and it's what I want to do. Basic plot points should be present too, but they should be concise and not dominate the article.

I think we're starting to go in circles. I've been down this road before: not notable -> but that's just a guideline -> verifiability is policy -> policy can change. Yes, policy can change, but there's no sense even bringing that up unless you can actually change it. In the mean time, we have to assume it's consensus and abide by it. If we can't use policies in debates, we can't debate anything other than "should we have copyvios and libel?" Pagrashtak 02:33, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Let's go back one step. I think the paragraph above this demonstrates my point. You say that " encyclopedias should have real-world information. Impact, reception, that sort of thing. That is not possible with primary sources alone. That's what I want to read," but that's not what I want to read about unfamiliar fictions. What I want to know about fictions that are unfamiliar to me is what happens in the fiction. I look them up here so I can find out what people are talking about. That to my mind is one key purpose of an encyclopedia. For finding out details of publication and the like, library catalogs and sources like IMdB do as well as we do. The important thing about fictions to me, and I think to most people who aren't deeply involved in them as fans or scholars, is the fictional contents: the plot characters and setting, and that's what I think the encyclopedia should cove. Now, there are a few fictions I am a fan (or perhaps even a student of), and for these I do want to know all the details. If we have people who can cover them, we should cover this fully-- also -- but the basic part of a fiction is, after all, the plot. Sure, if I look up an episode of the sopranos I missed, I want to know when it was shown and who were the actors. But my real purpose here is to find out what happened so I can keep the continuity. For a Wodehouse story, on the other hand, I more or less know what happened in each, and I am more likely to want to find out in just which collections it was published, and the detailed differences between the US and UK editions. Writing too--I like the challenge of clearly explaining something complicated, like a fictional plot; collecting critical views is less interesting to me, though I'm glad others want to do it. The thing about an encyclopedia is to be encyclopedic, to include everything different people might want. You want to meet your needs, I want to meet everyone's. You therefore quote what policy supports your position, and i quote what supports mine. (Please realise I'm not using "you" pejoratively or personally, just following up on your remark here for clarity). If we radically don't agree, and those holding your view are unwilling to allow the validity of the interests of other people, we will not find a compromise, and I will try to explain the more comprehensive position so newcomers will see the virtue of it, and the ambiguities of the rules be interpreted broadly, not narrowly. As I say at the top, of my user page, I am not so sanguine as to think I am likely to convert my opponents. DGG (talk) 03:01, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say it's what everyone wants to read. You said the wiki should be what we want it to be, so I'm telling you what I want it to be—I can't speak for others. And if you'll notice, I also want plot to be covered, so I don't see where the conflict is there. I will say, though, that your wish to meet "everyone's" needs is foolhardy. There are a significant number of readers who would like Wikipedia to be a game guide, contain cheat codes and strategy, contain original fiction, cover original research, be a social networking site, or contain dictionary definitions. Simply put, we cannot and should not meet everybody's needs. An encyclopedia is not a replacement for everything. Some things are better left to strategy guides, dictionaries, and other reference sources. If you think Wikipedia exists to "include everything different people might want", well you've missed the mark, simply put. Pagrashtak 16:04, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

You'll excuse my continuing this--it's not to quarrel, but because I think this an interesting discussion & that you sum up the arguments well, giving me a good occasion to respond comprehensively. I do not want the encyclopedia to contain just what interests or might interest me. If i did, I would choose to eliminate several large classes of material, such as pornbio, and wrestling, and beauty contests, and reality shows, and motor sports, and the more I look, the more other groups I will find. I can think of no conceivable occasion where I would not rather confess ignorance of these than know what people were talking about. But anything which any English speaking person might want to know about to understand things they were not specialists in, that belongs. Not game guides, because that is relevant only to those who play the game. Descriptions of characters in a game, yes, because people talk about these pretty generally, but not the details of how to play, which only the players bother with. Original fiction (and original writing in general, no, because an encyclopedia is about subjects, not an anthology of them specifically. For example, actual Fan fiction writing belongs elsewhere, but if any becomes popular enough that people talk about it, I expect to see it described here. Just like I don't expect to see the source code for PGP here, but I do want enough of a description that any computer literate person can understand how it works, and if this involves includes some key portions as illustrations, thats OK too. I don't want enough of a description of a university to serve as a student handbook, but enough for people to compare with other universities. I don't want a description of a town that includes every store, because nobody not in that town will care, but I do want some description of anything there that might interest visitors from elsewhere. Not every professor in a university, but every one that someone outside that university might want information on. So I'm not a complete inclusionist, because I think it should still look like what people consider an encyclopedia to be. It's not a replacement for everything, or every reference book, but an encyclopedia is intended to be a complete reference book for general information on everything of possible interest to non-specialists. The rule is that if someone might talk about it to someone not in his immediate circle, you should be able to go to it and find enough to seem intelligent, though not an expert. (The totally inclusive position has some merits too, but for practical usefulness would require a modular layered structure that has not yet been developed, though certainly possible.) DGG (talk) 17:45, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

That sounds mostly reasonable. I also want to include things that don't interest me, naturally. Descriptions of characters are getting into some uncertain territory. Some characters I would want in separate articles, some I would not. Most characters are better described in the article about the main work. Pagrashtak 20:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

ok, back to specifics then: the current problem is-as you pointed out in the beginning--that if merged people then try to remove the content. The true problem is of course getting people to write better articles on them, and to make an attempt to find sources for interpretation--this is usually possible, though getting people to do proper sourcing at Wikipedia is a much more pervasive problem than just in fiction. I like the overlap of plot in character articles-for a major character in a series, the best way of understanding what is going on can be through describing their continuing roles, not by looking at fragments in each episode article. Episodes are, well, episodic, just as book chapters are, and not meant to be seen in isolation. Main articles on complicated fictions get too long and confusing, and so can a single characters article. The question here is overall formatting of WP, and it won't be solved at AfD. We could either have many short articles, of a smaller number of long ones--possibly very long ones, like the multi-hundred p. articles in the old EBs. In principle the two are equivalent, but I think for the time being we are stuck with relatively short ones, because the readership threshold for dial up is still at between 32 and 64k, and we cant cut ourselves off from that very important part of the audience. Also, at present, the most that can e hoped for from most authors here is good short articles, though there are encouraging examples, such as the Charles Darwin group. Ideally, the entire Wikipedia should be restructured as a database of material that could be recombined in multiple ways. As a guess, i think that will be for the next generation internet encyclopedia. It is of some interest that the NIH is compelling publishers to prepare journal articles in XML to be stored in such a fashion for their PMC database, but even they still do nothing with them except output them as conventionally looking articles. DGG (talk) 20:54, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I looked through the previous AfDs and they seem to be based on a lack of third party sources. I looked at the merge suggestions, and I think that "Dante" could be merged into the old Blood Angel page (I don't know what it looks like, because its deleted I think). I went looking on Amazon for products related to it. Here are the ones I could spot quickly: 1. Novel series, 2. Video Game, 3. Earlier version of the Video Game, 4. Not sure, 5. Book series. Related to these products, I found reviews: 1. On Codex Blood Angels, 2. Preview? but needs to be checked as a reliable source, 3. Another review, 4. Video Game review, 5. A Wikipedia page that says the Bloodquest book won an award, 6. Movie in production for that book, 7. Another review of that book. I'm tired and it takes a lot of work to hunt through every variation and check these pages. However, shouldn't 12 links be enough to establish some notability? Ottava Rima (talk) 14:22, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Please read. Depending on the outcome of the Commander Dante page, I will ask for both pages to be placed in my user page (merged together) and I will start putting the sources together to try to create a version of the page that is acceptable. After that, I will go through the undelete process, but I will need some guidance when it comes to that. Hopefully, a page looking at the subject from its real life perspective, with dates of publications, product information, histories of appearances in various media, critical responses to those appearances, it will win approval. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

NLP

You might consider looking at the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neuro-linguistic programming.--Filll (talk | wpc) 11:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

sorry I missed it. I have long felt a considerable degree of sympathy with the noms views, and am delighted to find that others agree at least in part. Of course, as you and others said, deleting the whole batch is ridiculous, but I would certainly hope for a certain amount of condensation. I'll leave it to others t pick out the worst duplications, but I'll support the merges. Dealing with fringe social science is very much harder than science, because the boundaries are not as clear. I think there is real social science, and am convinced that this subject is far outside it, but it's not as easy to make a convincing argument. DGG (talk) 18:56, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I happened to see this, I came here for another reason, and I'm under voluntary restriction, but .... I assume this won't be controversial and that it will be welcome. I became aware of and studied NLP for a few years (through reading and practice, not with an NLP practitioner.) Structure of Magic and Bandler and Grinder's study of how well-known therapists actually did their work, as distinct from the generally very unscientific theories they often formulated as rationalizations, were pioneering efforts in the field. I wouldn't call it science, exactly, it's more like engineering. There is no doubt that the subject is notable and that there is plenty of reliable source. If it is presented as science, it's problematic, but, then again, lots of stuff is presented as science that actually is very poorly understood, there are peer-reviewed journals in the field of psychiatry and psychotherapy, filled with articles that are basically informed speculation. And, by the way, the techniques worked, and still work, many of them. But it's a very difficult field to do controlled research in. The hot place right now, as far as my own experience would suggest, is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which is still quite mysterious as to how it works, but it does work, any my own experience confirms that, and I see it working with others. It works, spectacularly, with PTSD, where traditional therapeutic techniques have be very ineffective, but ... it's brief, unknown mechanism, and could destabilize a whole industry. Current treatment for PTSD without using EMDR might involve a visit a week, at upwards of $100 per visit, for years. EMDR has been known to dramatically reverse PTSD symptoms in one session, the original clinical trials did that. But I haven't followed recent research in the field. The connection with NLP? Well, NLP was largely rooted, when used for therapy, in the inner resources for change that already exist in the patient, and the EMDR techniques are similar in awakening those resources. Whether or not bilateral stimulation is important (other forms of BL stim are now used, perhaps more commonly than eye movement) is controversial, and it's entirely possible that any other hypnotic technique would work, in the hands of a skilled practitioner. Skilled at what? At developing rapport and trust. (Remember the stereotypical hypnotic induction, the hypnotist holding up a pendulum, or moving a finger back and forth in front of the subject?). --Abd (talk) 23:43, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

WoS

DGG, in the PROF draft you write that "Additionally, they list citations only from journal articles--citations to articles published in books or other publications are not included". I don't think this is cormpletely correct. WoS (I'm less familiar with Scopus) will list citations in journal articles TO books/bookchapters/etc. It will not list citations FROM books/etc. When I look up somebody's h-index and citations on WoS, I always run both "search" and "cited search" and join the results from the two if necessary, although I guess that's bordeline WP:OR. Anyway, I think you already know all this and perhaps you just went a bit too fast and wanted to write "Additionally, they list citations only from journal articles--citations from articles published in books or other publications are not included". Good work so far! --Crusio (talk) 09:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

a-ha. I knew I would have to explain there more fully. WoS (and Scopus also) includes chapters in serial works as source items, in series like Advances in .... with a running title and sequential numbering, and does so by treating them as if they were journals. Their precedent for this is that Medline has always done just the same; this is really the only way to make sense with a series like Advances in Genetics, most or all of which do not bear individual volume titles. It still makes good sense with series like Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences even though each volume has an individual topic and title, but are almost universally known as a set. But one also gets such references as Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 888:1111, where the volume is actually the proceedings of a single miscellaneous conference printed in what is really only a publishers series. This sort of thing gives obvious problems to librarians, especially in print Most medical libraries in the US at least cope with this by actually shelving all these items as series, even the numbered publishers series. Most other libraries don't do it to that extent, and it gives problems to people who use more than one library. For the way I handled it see [34] and [35], both unfortunately not updated by my successor. They show almost all the possible variations. The data is in the online catalog, true, but much harder to interpret. Cited works in WoS, of course, includes everything referred to by a source item--in the case of Humanities Citation Index, even non-bibliographic items like paintings.

And there are a few more complications to add, like the Open Access citation indexes such as Citebase, and the so far unsolved problem of linking all the references to the different published and posted versions of an item--not to mention coping with inaccurate and ambiguous names. I recommend for completeness using WoS supplemented by GS and Scopus, and examining every individual item. The need to examine each item is why naĩve mechanized h-index counts are inaccurate. For distinguishing the clearly notable and the non-notable though, anything even roughly quantitative works. The true problem here, which does not of course both academics working in their own single field, is the wide variation in publishing patterns between different subjects. I've yet some more to say at the page for the draft. DGG (talk) 15:45, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

National repository

Hi, I noticed you are the creator of this article and I am wondering if it wouldn't be preferable to absorb it into Legal deposit. I assume most, if not all, "National repositories" have legal basis for their actions, so it should fit in. If I am correct, turning your article into a redirect page and adding any relevant details according to country would be the best course of action.

DGtal (talk) 12:35, 15 August 2008 (UTC) ; P.S. I like your screen name ;-)

there is only a remote connection. Legal deposit libraries are a by product of licensing under copyright law, by which all books that are published need to be deposited with the central authority. Originally this served primarily for the purposes of censorship, and governmental control over the publishing industry. The printers simultaneously made use of it to assure their exclusive right to print. and the development of copyright to protect literary property was very useful in the commercial development of the industry. The advantage of using these deposits to form a de facto national library followed, and remains the chief function of the deposits.

However, national repositories are not set up to provide either governmental control or copyright protection. Their purpose to to ensure access by all members of the community to work that has ben publicly paid for. . They can of course also serve as devices for governmental control over what is produced at a secondary level, but the primary level this control is asserted is at the provision of funding for the research. And, finally, the relationship of national repositories is quite deliberately to restrict somewhat the rights of the copyright holder, by requiring that there be some degree of free public access to the publications derived from public money

Naturally, the same institutions can operate both: the National Library of Medicine, the US Legal Deposit library for publications in the medical science, also serves, through its PubMed division, as a national repository for the papers produced as the result of publicly funded US NIH grants.

And, true, in a sense, there is a shared basis principle--that the public should have some access to published material. DGG (talk) 21:05, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Your comments are interesting, but some of your facts are only correct in some countries. I'll try to seperate the points. Some may be obvious to you, so be patient.

History: The first modern "legal deposit" (I'm ignoring the Library of Alexandria#Collection for now) was in 1537 in the Kingdom of France (see section "Similar Laws Around the World") and was indeed meant to create a national collection, though not for general public eyes. The next law, in Sweden 1661, was indeed meant for mainly censorship reasons.

Copyright and legal deposit: The relationship between these two legal terms is quite interesting. In some countries, like Monaco, there is a connection - if you fail to deposit, you don't gain copyright. In others, like Israel, these are largely seperate legal processes, so failing to deposit does not cost you your copyright.

The US case: The US law is quite unique (see Legal deposit#United States). Sending a published work to the United States Copyright Office guards your copyright, but it is not a legal requirment (theoretically, if you don't fear copyright infringement, there is no reason to send a copy). This office then distributes the copies between LOC, NLM, NAL etc. and some, unwanted ones, are donated to public libraries or exchanges (I can show you examples in my Israeli library). In other words, the US has no legal deposit (except for federal material). Pubmed does a great job of indexing articles (from the whole world, not only US), but the NLM is not a technically a legal deposit.

Global view: you treat the "national repository" as a place to allow "free public access" to publically spent money. This is a very noble view, mainly correct in the US, where the Federal Gov. relinquishes copyright, but is untrue in most countries (even democratic, not to mention totalitarian), where access is limited and Gov. copyright upheld.

Back to our discussion: Are "National repositories" equal to "legal deposit"? You are correct this is not always the case. Rethinking the point, I suggest that being a "National repository" is a classic job of any National library. Strangely, if you make a list of "classic NL jobs" almost no NL's actually meet all criteria, but that is not the issue here. Maybe the named articles should actually be absorbed into National library, but maybe not.

DGtal (talk) 08:35, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

all the more reason to keep them separate, when one considers the various possible combinations. Our articles need considerable expansion, both for current and historical practice. Your statement of the legal deposit situation in the US as you gave it here is obsolete, though the one in the article is technically correct, while confusing the two issues. There is a mandatory deposit, and has been since 1978, though that is technically independent of copyright.--as I found out to my considerable surprise a few years ago when I had to formally teach the subject. On the one hand. as you say, legal deposit & registration is necessary for the eligibility for statutory minimum damages, rather than only actual damages--an unregistered work is still under copyright, published or unpublished from the moment or creation. But there is nonetheless required deposit, since the law has been changed to the European practice: quoting from Copyright Circular 1, p.9 [36]

"Although a copyright registration is not required, the Copyright Act establishes a mandatory deposit requirement for works published in the United States. See the definition of “publication” on page 3. In general, the owner of copyright or the owner of the exclusive right of publication in the work has a legal obligation to deposit in the Copyright Office, within 3 months of publication in the United States, two copies (or in the case of sound recordings, two phonorecords) for the use of the Library of Congress. Failure to make the deposit can result in fines and other penalties but does not affect copyright protection.Although a copyright registration is not required, the Copyright Act establishes a mandatory deposit requirement for works published in the United States. See the definition of “publication” on page 3. In general, the owner of copyright or the owner of the exclusive right of publication in the work has a legal obligation to deposit in the Copyright Office, within 3 months of publication in the United States, two copies (or in the case of sound recordings, two phonorecords) for the use of the Library of Congress. Failure to make the deposit can result in fines and other penalties but does not affect copyright protection. " The detailed description is in Circular 7d., and the legal text in USC 17.

The current NLM deposit requirement is something different and additional to this--it's a technical regulation of the US NIH, under the Secretary's power to adopt tegularions for grants. This history of this is another matter entirely. The last thing we want to do is combine articles which are individually unclear..I will try to expand at least on the US legal deposit section above in the next few days. DGG (talk) 04:32, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

You definitely suprised me. After you update the relevant articles here I will update the hebrew ones. DGtal (talk) 09:30, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

surprised me to. I found out a few years ago when I had to teach a course on copyright and discovered how out of date I was. DGG (talk) 09:32, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

The strange thing is that, if I am correct, the LOC doesn't keep all the books it gets, so you could claim they aren't really doing their job. Strange, very strange. Regarding "National repository" - I guess there is no evil in having an article that describes the concept. Trying to give a complete list might be a waste of energy because it is usually done by the NL. Perhaps we should just give a few "out of ordinary" examples and say this is generally the job (and one of the defining tasks) of the NL, and this collection is limited since all deposit laws have limitations (not required under X copies or for certain types of publication). Maybe a mention of national archives can also clear the picture a bit. DGtal (talk) 09:46, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

LOC does not keep all the books it gets submitted to it, and never has. Popular myth entirely. There is a typical role of a national library, but many do more and some do less. This can & should be discussed is some detail library by library for the major countries. If I eveer get clear from the need to defend articles on notable academic proposed for deletion by people who don't think anyone without the Noble prize is notable, and defending articles about fiction from those who who think that the plot and characters are unimportant material, I will return to where I started, which is to improve the articles on librarianship. Fortunately, there are a number good librarians around here, but of course we need many more. DGG (talk) 09:59, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Just note the line "In Australia, there is the " needs completion. I assume National Library of Australia is the answer. Unfortunately in Hebrew I seem to be the only librarian that comes often, at least my Library article is a FA, maybe it will help someone. DGtal (talk) 10:12, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Snotling

Hi there. I noticed that you made a contribution to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Snotling indicating that you think the article should be kept. Your comments don't appear to address the fact that no mention of the Games Workshop "snotling" can be found in reliable, third-party, published sources. As the AfD debate has been relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached, I thought you might like to elaborate on why you think the article should be kept, bearing in mind WP:RS. Many thanks. -- JediLofty ^User_Talk 14:43, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

You have confused Notability and verifiability. For subjects of this sort, V can be done through primary nonindependent sources. The notability of the characters and settings is irrelevant--if the main article is notable, we may divided the total content however is convent purely as a editorial question--only the overall topic need show notability, not the subarticles. The wording of the WP GNC,. N=2RS, has confused many people--but its just a back-up in case we cant figure out whether a subject we do not understand or have no criteria for is likely to be notable. DGG (talk) 00:56, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

CSD vs. AfD

The articles in question don't fall under "local chapters" - that was a slightly different yet related item. The articles concerned consisted of two lines, (name and address), and external link to a page where the name appears in a list of related groups, and/or a link to a dead or non-informative homepage. That does indeed give no indication of importance (no sources), unless something being called "Grand" implies importance (which it shouldn't). I am certain that I had to start 4 AfDs that I really didn't need to because of baseless claims of supposed notability "because of the name" or "because this other thing (which also had no independent sources and thus didn't assert its notability) was important."

I also discovered that some of the articles were informationally wrong, and referred to entirely different groups than what the sources were pointed at. Yet I'm the one supposedly "gaming the system" and with a "personal bias" because I don't think we should have articles that remain unsourced for months at a time with no editorial changes and no reliable sources. MSJapan (talk) 17:31, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

MSJ - the CSD system is not meant for questionable cases, which is what you've been doing. JASpencer (talk) 18:02, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

If an article is wrong, fix it.

If it is downright vandalism, and the vandalism would be unquestionably clear to anyone even if they knew nothing whatever about the subject, tag it for speedy

If it is downright vandalism, but the vandalism would not be immediately clear to anyone ignorant of the subject ,list it at Prod or AfD

if the article is unsourced, try to source it. The proposal that articles that remain unsourced can be deleted for that reason alone, even at AfD, has been repeatedly and decisively rejected by the community. If you want to challenge it , try the Village Pump. If you nominate for speedy on that reason it is disruptive, because you are deliberately going against established policy and instead following what you think the policy ought to be.

If for a particular article, you think either the facts or the notability is unsourcable, nominated for Prod or AfD. It helps to have a good reason, like the result of a search, because if others can source it, they will probably consider that you have made a careless nomination.

For the minimum requirements to keep an incomplete article, see WP:STUB. Again, by repeated decision of the community , it does not have to be sourced.

It is considered unsuitable and a violation of WP:BITE to nominate within a few minutes after it has been written an incomplete article for not indicating any nobility -- instead place a notability tag. If after a few days it indicates no notability whatever, then place a speedy tag. If it indicated anything that any reasonable person could think might possibly indicate notability, use Prod or AfD--se below for the advantages of doing it that way.

If however, it contains too little content to tell what the subject is even about, it can be nominated for speedy as empty.

The amount of work involved in trying to recover from an improper deletion , or argue about a questionable speedy, is even worse than the tedious mechanism of Afd. Therefore, if you think there will be any opposition, use AfD. It has the additional advantage that the article can be prevented from re-creation. This is especially valuable if someone is deliberately creating bad articles. DGG (talk) 19:53, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

(This does not imply any view of mine on any of the articles or on the topic. I !vote to delete a lot of things at AfD, and I might well !vote to delete the articles in question. And I do a lot of speedy. We need speedy, and I have no hesitation in using it when it is unquestionable.) But there's no point arguing individual article deletions on personal talk pages. that's what Afd is for. DGG (talk) 20:18, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

yes, I understood that. DGG (talk) 20:55, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Question as to your comment at JASpencer's talk page... that "If there is any reason to think the article's deletion would be challenged, even for inappropriate reasons, it is necessary to use AfD."... doesn't that negate the entire concept of speedy deletes? Your approach would allow one disruptive editor to "exempt" an entire topic area from speedy deletes... all because he thinks that anything to do with the topic is notable. Blueboar (talk) 21:52, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I misworded it there, and have corrected it to even for reasons which would not save the article at AfD. Objectiions that are clearly disruptive should of course be ignored, objections based on good faith are another mater entirely. When I encounter disruptive addition of articles I have no hesitation to warn or even block the person involved. But some of the afd criteria are matters of judgment, and if in any reasonable doubt, I prefer the community's judgment to my own. DGG (talk) 22:02, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you... that does clarify things significantly. Blueboar (talk) 23:32, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

And thanks, I am always grateful when people point out if I've gotten something wrong, or worded it too broadly. I know I will make mistakes, and I must rely on others to correct them.. DGG (talk) 04:30, 17 August 2008 (UTC)== Michael Birawer ==

We edit conflicted on this speedy delete, saying exactly the same thing (both declining the speedy). Good to know I'm still in line with your thinking every once and a while :-). I'll get in contact with the article creator shortly and see if I can't help him/her out. Keeper ǀ 76 21:43, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I think we'd agree with each other 95% of the time, with almost all the others being matters that we both would consider equivocal. Obviously the remaining few are the ones that stick out. All we can really do there is stay polite and let other people judge. If I've pushed you too hard on any of them I apologize, and I certainly never intend to let an argument on one thing carry over onto another. You might be interested in some of my recent comments today at WT:CSD. DGG (talk) 22:05, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I was hoping we agreed more like 99% of the time :-). I read your comments at wt:csd, very well worded. I support them. I personally, with rare exception anyway, have ever "speedy deleted" something that was untagged. Probably because I don't do "new page patrol" and rely on others to patrol properly. I wish there was an easy tool to see my ratio of "agree with patroller" versus "remove tag". I think I'm about 1 of 5 that I "decline" for one reason or another, maybe but hopefully not more like 1 of 10 (I spend a lot of time at C:CSD). In the last few months, I think the "speedy taggers" have gotten more careful and less bold, which is a good thing. I attribute it to this: Many "speedy taggers" are doing NPP because they foresee an RFA in their near future. It is well known (and appropriate) that if an editor is sloppy as a speedy tagger, they will be sloppy as a speedy deleter, therefore those taggers with "aspirations" of "finishing the job", which seems to be all of them, are reluctant to tag borderline articles. Encouraging, in an ironic sense. Anyway, I'm not an article builder, never pretended to be one, I'm no good at it. I've asked another editor, who I know to be an excellent article rescuer, to take a look at this specific article that you and I both agree isn't speediable. Seeing as this particular artist lives (purportedly) about 5 miles from my home, I don't quite feel right about doing much more than copyediting myself. Thanks for your input and insight. See you 'round, Keeper ǀ 76 22:19, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

New policy proposal and draft help

Wikipedia:Scientific standards

I have drafted a new proposal and would like help in clarifying, adjusting, adapting, and improving it. It is based on five years of work here at Wikipedia (not always the prettiest, I might add). I think it summarizes the opinions of a great majority of editors as to how to handle scientific situations. This proposal serves as a nexus between WP:NPOV and WP:RS for cases where we are dealing with observable reality. It is needed because there are a lot of editors who don't seem to understand what entails best-practices when writing a reliable reference work about observable reality. I don't pretend that this version is perfect, and would appreciate any and all additions, suggestions people may have for getting to some well-regarded scientific standards.

Note that these standards would apply only when discussing matters directly related to observable reality. These standards are inspired in part by WP:SPOV but avoid some of the major pitfalls of that particular proposal. In particular, the idea that SPOV even exists is a real problem. However, I think it is undeniable that we should have some standards for writing about scientific topics.

See also WP:SCI for another failed proposal that dovetails with this one. I hope this particular proposal is more in-line with the hole I see in policy/guidelines for dealing with these situations.

ScienceApologist (talk) 20:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I have added a section that I think necessary for balance. I doubt you will like it, but I think it necessary to express the rue meaning of POV. I have not yet attempted to harmonize it with the discordant elements in some of the previous sections, some of which I consider rather clearly remarkable violations of NPOV, pojectivity, and the way i think a properly skeptical scientist looks at the world. DGG (talk) 00:10, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I find nothing wrong with the content of what you are writing and essentially I think the same thing. One bit I do find strange is this "primary approach" issue. My idea is the following:

1. A religious/philosophical/spiritual/metaphysical/etc. article should discuss all ideas about a subject relevant to the main approach to the article. Virgin Mary is the Christian ideas about the Virgin Mary; Reincarnation is about the various reincarnation-believing groups' approach to reincarnation and so on.
2. Most ideas are utterly irrelevant to science because they will deal with things other than observable reality
3. If and when such an article happens in the natural course of development to discuss a particular idea that is contradicted by or is supported by scientific evidence, the idea is first presented from the perspective of the main approach to the article.
4. Issues which have scientific evidence should have the scientific evidence that is directly relevant to the issue and nothing more. The evidence should be presented simply and straightforwardly without attempts to exaggerate, inflate, marginalize, or eliminate it.
5. Article continues on, unaffected by the scientific evidence presented.

That's what I envision. I think it is very close to what you envision too.

Now, I do have some issues with your particular choice in wording AND I think that your section can be combined with the previous section, but I think that we really are much closer than you suspect.

ScienceApologist (talk) 01:17, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I did a quick cleanup of your prose (which I really did like). Can you see if I garbled anything or messed up? Please fix as you see fit. ScienceApologist (talk) 01:33, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

The process is known as dialectic. I tend to do these slowly--we actually are close, because i wrote mine mainly in response to the section directly above as an alternative to rewiting it. Needless to say, it is much easier to write consensus statements about this sort of thing than to actually apply it to real articles, when all the differences become manifest. Will you be at the NYC picnic sunday? DGG (talk) 01:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes! Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. Hegelian rules, etc. With regards to the picnic-attendance, unfortunately, I will not be there as I have another engagement to attend to. Give my regards to all present. ScienceApologist (talk) 01:58, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

• I took a quick look and I like it. It met the "I thought this already was a policy" check. :) Protonk (talk) 01:52, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Eldercraft Worlds should be merged to...

Well, due to it's complete lack of notability , I would say the void, or oblivion, or non being. Do you have a better idea of where to merge a large non-notable article like this? Judgesurreal777 (talk) 05:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

at the worst to Eldecraft Worlds, but prefereably to characters iof ... , or Locations in ... , or whatever. Theyr're part of the story and the setting. I'll compromise by saying they are not important enough for separat articles in WP if you wi compromise that they get covered in some manner. If they fit in the main article fine, if not divide. Im not claiming they are worth individual articles, and items of content don't need to be notable, just relevant. The characters are settting for a story is at least relevant' to the story. You're turn to speak: will you compromise, or no? I like to get my way accepted, but I also like peace, and I like it enough to compromise. though not enough to surrender. Your choice. DGG (talk) 05:30, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Ecclesiastes 12:12

"the assertion that someone has written a non-self published book book in any subject is a clear assertion of importance" - oh, dear Lord, that makes my heart break just to read! I'm an author, book reviewer, bookseller and long-time member of the National Writers Union; do you have any idea how many new books come out every year, even when you screen out the self-publishers? Most of us harmless Grub Street hacks will never be notable; and certainly most of my one- to three-book friends are not, nor would they assert themselves to be. This concept, if accepted, would open up the gates to endless floods of vanispamcruftisement! I cannot accede to your request. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC) (yes, Dave, I know you're a librarian [weren't you a Wombat at one time?]; but librarians aren't subjected to as much of the petty end of the spectrum as booksellers and reviewers are, and see less of the dross and more of the substance)

I never said it was enough to b notable, just avoid speedy, at least in the case of an apparently significant book, and certainly in this case when supported also by published articles. Speedy is deliberately worded very loosely to permit any good faith assertion of notability to pass and be judged by the community. I agree most of the people who have written a single book wouldn't pass notability, but the point is that this is most of the people -- some would, and no one admin should be able to judge that for the same reason we don't speedy books themselves at afd. someone in the field at least should have the opportunity to check for reviews and citations and library holdings and sport things by recognition that need further checking. As for librarians, we get junk enough but of a different sort. I'm not sure I catch the reference to wombats? I invite you to find a suitable wording for what counts as passing speedy, but in this case, since there was material besides the book, I am probably going to Deletion Review, not to support the article particularly, but to establish that your standard of "indication of importance" is too high. DGG (talk) 18:10, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Obviously we disagree. Ah, well; certainly not the first time! (As to the wombats, that's a Stumpers-L reference.) --Orange Mike | Talk 18:52, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

DGG - I completely support your position. The point here is not to have an exercise in the use of rhetorics but to operate on the basis of evidence and community feedback to make sure Wikipedia remains true to its purpose of providing useful information written by open and transparent consensus [37]. I'm disappointed to see Orange Mike continue to ignore the feedback from the community. I hope it's not the case for other articles he's been reviewing. Were you able to take the "Deletion Review" action you mentioned?

Alex Omelchenko (talk) 04:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Episodes and Characters

• I notice your presence at the contested article about Bubbles which has provoked: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement#Eusebeus. Perhaps you have some knowledge of the matter which may help. Colonel Warden (talk) 00:02, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

and perhaps what I said wlll be of some help. DGG (talk) 15:46, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:No original research#Proposed text addition to the policy

Would you care to comment on this proposal? Thank you. --Phenylalanine (talk) 20:34, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

& I did DGG (talk) 23:58, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

3rd opinion

Hi. I put something on WP:3 that may concern you. --Firefly322 (talk) 20:56, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

and where is the discussion exactly? -- I gather this is relevant to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Depression and natural therapies (2nd nomination) but that has closed.,

PSTS Policy & Guidelines Proposal

Since you have been actively involved in past discussion, please review, contribute, or comment on this proposed PSTS Policy & Guidelines--SaraNoon (talk) 19:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Matthias Kuhle

Please point me to the bit in the above article that indicates importance/significance. It looks like a massive COI attempt at somesort of self-promotion to me and all I see is resume/C.V. stuff with some books he may have supposedly written. Jasynnash2 (talk) 15:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

saying one is has a position such a significant executive in a major orqanization or professor at a major university or anything of the sort is an assertion or indication of notability enough to pass speedy. Almost any good faith assertion will do--read WP:CSD and the discussions on its talk page. The bar is much lower than WP:N. Given his publications, it's probably going to pass afd,though I have not checked how widely he's cited, which will be the determining factor. You can verify the books at WorldCat. You can do at least a preliminary check at Google scholar--and see the comment I left at the author's talk page. We do not delete for COI!! DGG (talk) 15:43, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay let me make sure I understand the above. Saying you are the CEO/Chairman of the Board/etc counts as an assertion of notability? Just that? Saying you are a professor at "a major university" automatically counts as an assertion of notability? Forgive me if that makes no sense to me. After looking more deeply into things (including the idential article that existed with a misspelled first name) I did find some stuff that mentioned the name (but, couldn't read any of it). I've got no plans to take to AfD. I'm just trying to find somesort of consistency from the admins on these things. Is it oaky to ask you (and the other admins) to be like really really specific in edit summaries and such on stuff like this? Jasynnash2 (talk) 16:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

two levels: example 1/ Saying someone is president or chairman of the board at a notable company if it can be shown from the company web site is actual notability,and even if it has not yet been shown, that's only reason to find the reference, not delete the article via speedy or any other process. Most people , not quite all, agree on this, but most such articles are kept at AfD. Further, saying one is chairman of the board at any company that anyone might possibly think notable is an assertion of notability. Saying one is a corporate officer in a lesser position or a lesser company is usually not enough for actual notability except for major officers of really major companies {e.g. CTO of Apple is notable) but that too whether or not actually notable is an assertion of notability enough to defeat a speedy, and almost all admin agree. example 2/ saying someone is a full professor at a major research university is almost always enough for actual notability, and is trivial to verify, althugh not the literal standard of WP::PROF, because almost always enough recgnition of importance in the field can be found, and has been confirmed for almost all cases brought to AfD in the absence of special circumstances; saying someone is professor at any university or college is an assertion of notability--it may or may not be enough to pass AfD, even when verified--it depends on rank, nature of the school, and accomplishments nut it passes speedy. I point out that whether someone has written books is trivial to verify.

The principle is that speedy is only for articles that beyond any reasonable question are not notable. Anything that might, if true, give rise to a good faith debate, is not a speedy--whether about notability or anything else. Even copyvio-- Unquestionable copyvio is a speedy -- probable copyvio is a suspected copyright violation, not a speedy, and can be blanked, but not deleted. Purely promotional articles which cannot reasonable be rewritten are speedy; if it might be possible to rewrite them, they are not, and require afd. "No context" unclear enough enough to literally make it impossible to figure out what the article is about is a speedy, dubious context is an afd. And so forth for all the criteria.

This is not an extreme position. Many, probably about half, of admins say that speedy is not for any article for which there is any good faith doubt at all, even if it is not reasonable in terms of WP standards. I have proposed limiting it to those with a reasonable doubt, and this did not obtain consensus. As it stands, the wording of CSD holds: unquestionable, not even reasonable question.

True, some admins are ignoring the plain language of WP:CSD, and speedy deleting articles that assert but don't support notability, or that they think will not likely pass AfD. Unfortunately, at present if carried to deletion review, the current attitude is that such deletions are sometimes supported if it appears really unlikely. This is an artifact of the limited number of people who bother to show up at deletion review. When 1000 active admins, and no policy on precedent, many decisions will inevitably be wrong. Just find me any group of a selected 1000 people who agree on anything! Humans don't work that way. Admins as a body are not totally consistent, and though we should work towards getting them more consistent, experience shows we won't get all that far. Only a project directed from above with the equivalent of a supreme court can be consistent. If you want consistency, you need a dictator. There are such projects, such as Conservapedia.

The reason behind the principle, is that no one person, admin or otherwise, is qualified to decide on notability if the matter can be disputed, only the community. Similarly , no one admin is qualified to decide on blocking if it is disputable--any other admin can reverse it, and force a discussion at AN/I to see what the community thinks--not just the community of admins, but the entire community, for anyone can give an opinion there. analogously, bureaucrat is a position of very high trust, but no bureaucrat can individually promote a person to admin--it take a community decision at RfAdmin. Arbitrator is a position of the greatest trust we can give, but they too decide as a committee.

Help

DGG,

Could you help with this issue.

Thanks, Twerges (talk) 22:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Abuse filter

How would you feel about letting the filter trigger a short block (15 minutes or so), and fire off an IRC or a report to a log page? That way, false triggers have minimal effect, and an admin has to decide to extend the block. It does keep the kind of serial vandalism sprees we see from being very effective or much "fun".Kww (talk) 03:27, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I think this would be an excellent way of doing things, to limit the damage from the abuse and simultaneously limit the damage the program might cause. I suggest the block say explicitly that it is an interim measure. (please copy your Q and my A as appropriate) Very clever, and I wish I had thought of it. :)DGG (talk) 04:27, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Section 270

This page is 455 kilobytes long. Have you considered archiving for your fellow editors' comfort and ease of use? KillerChihuahua^?!? 16:01, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Second. I cried when I tried to load the page on dial up. I was short in my email because of it. Pllleeeasseeee. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:42, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Endorse. I'd even set up MiszaBot for you! EdJohnston (talk) 02:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Can you do it retrospectively, so previous archives are also indexed? Otherwise i will have to do a cut off point. Yes, I am beginning to see the need to move some of the things I've ben doing to formal essays. DGG (talk) 04:07, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by 'indexed.' If MiszaBot is used, it will automatically increment archive numbers as they fill up according to a scheme like Archive_19, Archive_20 etc. but I don't think it can do 'Archive_19_Aug._2008' like the system you currently use. EdJohnston (talk) 04:30, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I no longer remember how it was done but if someone knows or wants to talk to the bot operator, look at what's done for the museums project. In archiving it creates an index which includes topic and which archive it's in. I don't know if it can be done retroactively. TravellingCari 12:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Looking at documentation, though I can change the names of the archives, the indexing is done as it makes the archive. I would have to remerge everything. What happened of course, is that a/I never imagined at the first they would get so large b/I started with topical archives, and this takes more maintenance than Ive actually done, and , of course 3/ there have been some very long postings here, not all by me,some interesting enough that I want to keep visible. Expect slow improvement. till and maybe a new normal system in January 09 DGG (talk) 14:51, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

1. Indexes, what indexes?
2. At User:MiszaBot/Archive HowTo there is a pointer to User:HBC Archive Indexerbot. I think this is the bot alluded to above by Travellingcari, currently used by WP:MUSEUM. EdJohnston (talk) 17:39, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Responded

DGG, I responded to your helpful post here

Twerges (talk) 06:49, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the good advice

I am not a very social person, but i do appreciate the time you took to try to convince me to maintain a more polite front at the page that defaults as my user page when i forget to log in, or get timed out, or whatever. I think i'm logged in now, but i can't really see the screen or read it up at the top, just the keyboard and the portion of the screen directly in front of me (the little window box), so, anyway, i'll put a nicer message there, Thanks for your kindness. cat yronwode a.k.a. "64" Catherineyronwode (talk) 07:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Jonathan Bishop

An article you previously voted on in an AfD has been re-nominated. You can see the discussion at This link. Cardydwen (talk) 21:25, 12 September 2008 (UTC)