User talk:BusterD

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E. Power. Biggs

Irrelvant/unrelated message. This is a HUGE university and there are over 500 computers just in this Professors' Lab and Research Center (off limits to students). However I am sure that Dr. Whoever-it-was would not appreciate his work being deleted. You might want to restore his (or her) edits as they were.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.131.186.122 (talk) 04:10, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NORUSH

Hi Buster. I was wondering what advice or perspective you might have about the conflict between WP:NORUSH and the need for someone in my position to get things done at a reasonable pace.

There is one article that was originally shared on the Talk page in December '11 and was added as a Request Edit almost 3 months ago. Of course, I see how impatient COIs can be, but I also can't reasonably operate on a multi-year timeline. I know I could use OTRS, but also that they don't participate directly in content issues.

This article in particular is just an example, and not something for us to get into - I am just asking the question generally.

Corporate 00:47, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I've said before that WP:NORUSH seems to be a cleavage point for regular Wikipedians and paid advocates. Generally speaking, mostly being volunteers, Wikipedia contributors do work they are willing to do, and in the pace they prefer. While an editor can certainly request another to contribute in a specific way, there are few guarantees or pressures which can move an editor to respond to such a request. I can understand why you "can't reasonably operate on a multi-year timeline." This has been and is a disadvantage to paid advocates. I can only suggest entity clients should be forewarned that timescales with which they are accustomed to experiencing with many social media platforms may not directly apply to this particular encyclopedic platform. To my view, this one reason why so many smart people become willing to risk getting caught editing in COI situations, and so attempt to mask their involvement to reduce the risk. BusterD (talk) 12:04, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FYI[1]. As my mentor, I figured you should know about the issue. Corporate 00:17, 16 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Patrolled new articles

Hi Buster, I think what you're looking for is detailed here Wikipedia:New pages patrol/patrolled pages. Also, when you say you "lost your curation toolbar" - try looking in the "toolbox" section in the left hand column when looking at an unpatrolled article. There should be an option to "curate this article" which, when clicked, will pop the toolbar back again. Witty lama 04:43, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info; that's where I'd rediscovered the toolbar. On rereading the page you linked above, I see I've been neglecting to mark as patrolled pages I've CSD tagged, prodded or AfDed. Somehow I missed that on the first couple of readings. That was precisely the poor assumption I'd made. Live and learn. BusterD (talk) 04:52, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

	The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
	Your kindness is appreciated. Abt7217tc (talk) 05:32, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What a nice thing to do. And here I only got you a proposed deletion tag on your new page creation... BusterD (talk) 05:46, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Closing instructions

I had to check to see if you were an admin making the statement:

"Admins do not, as the user says below, "sift through the wheat and the chaff". Closing admins do not themselves weigh into the discussion deciding, for example, whether policy trumps guideline. The closer weighs the merits of the discussion itself and is trusted to measure the consensus inside the discussion."

Since the third sentence "the closer weighs the merits" is identical to the statement "sift through the wheat and the chaff" I think that you understand a little bit about the WP:RMCI closing instructions, but are perhaps not familiar with the wheat and chaff expression?

As to:

"a lone voice, with an historic but unimpressive position"

You will note in the closing instructions that even if a thousand people think that Black Eyed Peas should be moved to bLLaacckk EYED peAS, the closer is instructed to ignore all of them and not move the article. Most of my time, and of most editors, is not spent worrying about whether a dash is a few micrometers longer than it should be or a few micrometers shorter than it should be, but in fixing more serious errors and adding new content. There are very few editors I would say who even know what an endash is, and while it can be annoying to have a copyeditor come and adjust text to correctly put in endashes and emdashes, they clearly should not be used incorrectly, as in for example in any name. I have looked at a suggested style guide, New Hart's Rules, and while it will take me some time to go through all 432 pages so far I can see that it agrees with our MOS that names use hyphens, and by "names" they mean "proper nouns". What they also say is that a consistency is better than trying to possibly introduce errors in fixing a consistent style:

On the importance of style:

"Stylistic consistency is an important characteristic of published material because it removes one possible cause of interference between the text and the reader. Inconsistent styling, whether of the words themselves or their presentation on the page, may distract or even mislead, and can affect the credibility of a publication, just as a work that is well finished in these respects can project an air of general reliability."

and:

"It is, of course, vital to make sure that individual forms are used consistently within a single text or range of texts. If an author has consistently applied a scheme of hyphenation, an editor need not alter it, although a text littered with hyphens can look fussy and dated. Editors can find the dominant form of a particular compound in a suitable current dictionary such as the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors."

On the lack of importance of changing a consistent style:

"How much importance is attached to house style in the case of separate works, however, depends on the policy and traditions of the publisher. In some cases it may be unnecessary or even unwarrantable to impose house style. Where an author has attended carefully and consistently to editorial style and the conventions pose no practical difficulties they may be best left alone: the copy-editor can probably spend editorial time more usefully than in overturning a serviceable and watertight system of editorial decisions, and an imperfect conversion of the author's to the publisher's style will damage rather than improve the work. On the other hand two factors should be noted: it is easier for an experienced copy-editor to impose a familiar house style than to learn an author's style and to check that it has, in fact, been consistently applied; further, those handling the later stages of a book's production may assume that house style has been used and may unwittingly compromise the consistency of the text by making corrections that match house style rather than the author's own style.

Even when house style is in use, it may need to be adapted to the special requirements of particular works. For example, in a historical context modern spellings of place names might be inappropriate; and in a specialist context general practice should not supplant scholarly usage of foreign words or technical terms."

Anyway, I am clearly not the only one who both knows what an endash is and knows that it should not be used in names, such as Mexican American War. But I can assure you that my first task will not be reopening the RM but in building consensus so that everyone understands what the MOS actually says about hyphens and endashes - hyphens are used in proper nouns, endashes are used sometimes, elsewhere. That is clearly what the vast majority of editors have been doing who have been editing books that use a reference to "Mexican American War".

New Hart's Rules also notes a US style of using an endash for "post–World War I". Clearly that makes it a British English vs. American English issue and I would hope that none of the endash warriors are changing post-World War I to post–World War I. Apteva (talk) 16:36, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The wall of text is impressive, I'll grant. It's clear you have a strong sense of correctness in your position. It's too bad few seem to agree with you. BusterD (talk) 16:59, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. Everyone learns at their own pace. I started editing WP to fix an error, and I still find errors now and then. I am not saying I am right all the time, I just want proof that I might be wrong, if I am. Verifiability, right? Apteva (talk) 18:36, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Page Curation newsletter - closing up!

Hey all :).

We're (very shortly) closing down this development cycle for Page Curation. It's genuinely been a pleasure to talk with you all and build software that is so close to my own heart, and also so effective. The current backlog is 9 days, and I've never seen it that low before.

However! Closing up shop does not mean not making any improvements. First-off, this is your last chance to give us a poke about unresolved bugs or report new ones on the talkpage. If something's going wrong, we want to know about it :). Second, we'll hopefully be taking another pass over the software next year. If you've got ideas for features Page Curation doesn't currently have, stick them here.

Again, it's been an honour. Thanks :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick question

I started improving the article on Brand management and ended up realizing there are 22 articles on branding that could be consolidated into about 5. I've started posting a couple merge suggestions. Is there a formal process like AfD for getting consensus or is it more of a be bold situation for merges?

Corporate 19:59, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure. I would think this would depend somewhat on how many editors are involved in those page creations. If it's a situation where you can actually contact the major editors directly via talk, you may be able to do boldness. If on the other hand there are a bunch of folks involved, I'd recommend proposing merges on talk using the normal merge template. Before this you might want to create a unified merge plan so this can either be linked or applied as a block into the merge proposal, then discussed by those concerned. You might create such a plan in your space, then invite several interested editors to discuss this prior to introducing the merge. It may not become that complicated.

Sorry about what happened with User:Cantaloupe2. I disagree with the way that editor made the changes, but I chose not to involve myself directly. It occurred to me that dealing with such a dedicated editor could get way worse. What if, as an example, corporations began hiring consultants such as yourself to degrade and muck up satisfactory pagespace of competitors. The backend to paid advocacy could get really complex. BusterD (talk) 05:03, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

His complaints aren't unwarranted though.

I am working on bringing the CIPR article up to GA status, then the PRSA article next. What I would like to do eventually, is make almost every article I contribute to with a COI a GA article. This way companies can "approve" the initial copy that is contributed following the Bright Line, but they acknowledge that 3 months later when a GA reviewer comes by, I will improve the article to meet their standards as a free agent.

This gives the company the comfort of being able to "approve" the copy through their corporate bureaucracy, but releases me from the shackles of the corporate process to improve it later on based on feedback. And it guarantees the article will be vetted thoroughly. I don't know if it's realistic, but it's a good idea. I'm also uncertain how GA reviewers would feel about getting so many COI submissions from one person.

A big part of doing this right is picking the right clients and partners as well and I feel I am making some headway there, though obviously the details are not appropriate for a public forum such as this. Corporate 15:53, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good articles

Just a heads up, I'm working on creating a few GA articles on a volunteer basis:

Chartered Institute of Public Relations (nominated)
Public Relations Society of America (nominated, but still unstable)
Waggener Edstrom (not nominated yet)
Edelman (firm) (next)

Creating GA articles with a COI is more difficult but that's my target eventually. Corporate 18:59, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for November 4

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Hi Buster,

Yeah, I'm the one who edited that page about Kelley. I had completely forgotten about that it was quite a while back. Anyway just wanted to let you know I appreciate you simply changing it and sending me such a polite note. I don't intend to be changing anymore pages like that it was merely a one time joke. Thanks for being a good sport :D — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.59.94.29 (talk) 04:43, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Obama Wins!

Hi, Buster. It's nice to see you participating in South Park articles. Having met you at the Meetups, I hope this means there's another good editor who's taken an interest in those articles, since they could use more veteran editors who understand policy. Just one thing, though: All of the material to which you added citations in Obama Wins! article--the chicken joke, Cartman's demand for a blaster and a character named "Jewbacca", the Red Lobster--are explicitly seen or mentioned in the episode. For the purposes of WP:V, narrative works such as TV episodes (as well as films, books, etc.) function as their own primary sources for their own content, as explained at WP:TVPLOT and WP:FILMPLOT. Citations of secondary sources are only needed for material that is evaluative, analytical or interpretative, which none of these things are. Just thought you should know. Thanks again. :-) Nightscream (talk) 16:36, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I don't work on a lot of fiction, or television for that matter. I've been watching the last few episode pages and have clearly misunderstood the warring going on between folks who wish to add cultural references and editors like yourself. I know that trivia sections like the cultural references are discouraged, generally speaking. It seems the Onion's AV club is pretty reliable about reviewing the episode the same evening. I'll continue to watch and help. BusterD (talk) 22:44, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Again, the battles you mention that I often wage without others (usually anonymous IP newbies and one-off editors, as well as the occasional established editor like User:Hearfourmewesique) can be really draining, so please, I encourage you stick around to remove that stuff when people add it. I tend to semiprotect the articles for the first six months after they debut, but it doesn't stop editors from adding it anyway, sometimes by singing in just to do so, or adding it after the protection is lifted. I've had more than once IP editor attack me for this on my talk page or the episodes' talk page, so and I could use more established editors to show these people that it's not just me who takes this position. Nightscream (talk) 02:26, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a newsletter

This is just a tribute.

Anyway. You're getting this note because you've participated in discussion and/or asked for updates to either the Article Feedback Tool or Page Curation. This isn't about either of those things, I'm afraid ;p. We've recently started working on yet another project: Echo, a notifications system to augment the watchlist. There's not much information at the moment, because we're still working out the scope and the concepts, but if you're interested in further updates you can sign up here.

In addition, we'll be holding an office hours session at 21:00 UTC on Wednesday, 14 November in #wikimedia-office - hope to see you all there :). I appreciate it's an annoying time for non-Europeans: if you're interested in chatting about the project but can't make it, give me a shout and I can set up another session if there's enough interest in one particular timezone or a skype call if there isn't. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:50, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]