Do not add comments here; add new sections at the bottom, not the top
About: your eloquent summary of what does and does not improves this project
Hi DGG, or if I may be so bold, David,
You wrote at WP:AN/I Archive691:
<block quote>There is more than one valid way of working here. Some people prefer to create only high quality articles, even though they may do very few of them. Some prefer to create many verifiable articles of clear notability even though they may not be of initially high quality. As this is a communal project, I think every individual person is fully entitled to do whichever they prefer, and the thing to do about people who prefer otherwise than oneself is to let them work their way, while you work yours. The only choice which is not productive is to argue about how to do it, rather than going ahead in the way that one finds suitable.</block quote>
Many [who?] editors include a statement about their attitudes to editing on their user pages. I am not one of them, that is until I came across what you wrote. I would really like to include this on my user page. While I can add anything at all I like to my user page subject to WP:USER PAGE, I nevertheless ask for your permission to add the quote. OK with you? I'm fine if you decline this.
--Shirt58 (talk) 12:37, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
WP:TALKINGSOFASTNOBODYCANHEARYOU. Is my memory that faulty? I can't find it, and it's possible the syntax isn't precise. Did you use this a sort of irony? I seem to remember you used the link to represent bullying behaviors. I'm seeing one such user who seems to be wanting to turn the entire AfD process on its head by using such a technique. BusterD (talk) 11:48, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have sometimes used pseudo-links like these as a statement for their own sake, without writing an actual essay. I remember saying something like this, but I can't find it. I think this one was TALKINGSOMUCH... -- but I can't find it either. As for the problem, I've commented pretty extensively at AN/I: [1], and will comment at the RfC also, But please don't confuse the reasonable message, with which I am in agreement -- that Deletion Policy is overbalanced towards deletion, and one step towards rebalancing it would be to require some version of WP:BEFORE -- with the unreasonable way it is being over-expressed. DGG ( talk ) 23:23, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, David. I was a debater in school before "talking so fast" became the current style. I feel anything which games the system deserves appropriate response in order to keep the system sound. I appreciate your valid concern about deletion procedures being over-weighted toward one outcome. Thanks for your valuable comments in those forums. Be well. BusterD (talk) 23:37, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yes, I had forgotten that context. And so was I, in college--a very valuable experience, especially in facilitating the sort of intercampus experiences only the athletic teams otherwise gave occasion for. But the stimulus is interesting: if I take a turn at NPP, the amount of junk turns me for a while into a deletionist before I catch myself and stop being so unfriendly to all the newcomers. If I take a look at AfD, the number of unwarranted nominations makes me inclined to give a similarly snappy and unjust response to all of them, with the less than rational thought that if I argue against all of them, maybe there's a chance the good ones will make it. Several good inclusionists have run into trouble here falling into such temptation. DGG ( talk ) 23:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
basic rules about professor notability
All full professors at major research universities have sufficiently demonstrated that they are recognized experts in their subject to meet WP:PROF,and that WP:PROF is an alternative to WP:GNG. This is not a formal rule, but almost all AfD have had this result, except in fields where people here have doubts about the rigor, such as Education. (Major: in the US, Research Extensive in the Carnegie Classification + schools of similar rank; elsewhere, similar level). The rationale for this is that this is the basis on which people are promoted to such rank at such universities, and their judgment is more reliable than ours.)
For those at lower level institutions, this is not automatic, and the judgment goes by individual cases; the rationale is that in such institutions people are often promoted to this rank based on lesser accomplishments or for other qualities than being a recognized expert in their subject.
For Associate professors, automatic notability is not generally accepted, but is determined case by case. AfD results vary, but imho are usually reasonable. Personally, I think it could be extended to them on similar grounds, but this has not had consensus. ("Associate" = the US rank, and corresponding ranks elsewhere)
For Assistant professors, and corresponding ranks outside the US, it similarly goes case by case, and almost all AfD results have been "not notable". I agree with this.
Additionally, in the humanities most full professors in the highest level universities-- ,-- have written two or more books that have reviews in RSs for notability, and thus meet WP:AUTHOR. In the very highest level universities, this applies to Associate professors also. In other fields, where tenure usually depends on articles, not books, this doesn't work as frequently, but it sometimes does. Similarly, in the fine arts, many people at various academic levels will qualify by WP:CREATIVE.
For that matter, if one argued on the basis of the GNG, we could find for almost anyone who has published one or more important papers that the 2 or more of the papers referencing them contain substantial discussions of their work. This would require examining the actual papers, as the mere fact of being cited does not necessarily or even usually mean there is substantial discussion of the work. If I really tried, I could probably find this for many people even at the post-doctoral level. As this result is contradictory to most people's intuitive feelings on the appropriate contents of an encyclopedia (as distinct from a faculty directory), it shows imo the uselessness of the GNG in this subject. Before the WP:PROF standard became accepted, I did use it when it matched my intuitive view. If we return to GNG-worship, I will go back to using it.
Where the GNG is used here appropriately , is for people at any level whose work happens to strike the fancy of newspaper writers. I don't consider most such people notable as academics, but since the public will read the news accounts and want some objective information, it's reasonable to have the articles here. (I have sometimes objected to isolated news accounts as being based on PR if it seems really counter-intuitive). DGG ( talk ) 17:39, Apr 24. 2012
Admin review
Which brings me to my pother point. When I was a new admin, I half expected someone would be assigned to follow me around for some time, just to make sure I was understanding the rules correctly. Either that didn't happen, or they were very, very quiet. (I'm even more surprised it isn't SOP at OTRS, but that’s a different issue.) I think we should have a more formal review system for new admins. I know there's the ability to check with someone else, but I'd like to see something more formal.
Having made my point, I'm not sure it belongs on the thread at this time, because my suggestion isn't going to help the problems that are being discussed at the moment, so maybe I'll think some more on it, and formalize a proposal later. Maybe after getting some thoughts from people like you.--SPhilbrick(Talk)22:26, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You are quite correct--I was oversimplifying. Sensible new admins do only the ones that are totally obvious while they are starting--it must be very discouraging to have people revert your first admin actions, and I've seen that happen. And it is true that I will make a point of checking speedy nominations others have thought it wise to pass by, and AfDs that people don't seem to want to close; I know some others do just the same, which is how we keep long lags from developing. But I had in mind also a few long term admins who actually do decide almost all equivocal cases as delete. To expand on what you have said , in a direction of my own,
I have occasionally checked a new admin's deletions if I think from the RfA there is likely to be some problems, and I suppose others do similarly. But I do not know if any people systematically reviews the admin logs the way people do new pages--if anyone does, I've noticed no sign of it. The only thing I've seen checked systematically is the very long-standing page protections. It might be a good thing to do. The AfD closes are very visible, the prods have been checked by several people before they get to the top of the list, but speedies and blocks and unblocka and protections and unprotections don't get looked at, unless someone suspects a problem. I have sometimes thought of doing it, but I have always stopped, because, to be frank about it, I don't want to see the errors. I can't pass over a clear error I do see, and I am fully aware that some admins use the tools beyond the proper limits. Some of these are my friends, & I can mention it to them from time to time quietly. But for obvious reasons most of the ones I would disagree with are by people I often disagree with, with whom relations are often not all that friendly. I don't want to spend all my time quarreling and navigating sticky situations; though I may get the errors corrected, it is not likely to improve mutual relations. (I am also aware that I too make both errors and borderline interpretations, & I suppose I even sometimes interpret things the way I would like them to be, & if I have any enemies here, I do not really want to encourage them to audit me with the utmost possible rigidity. I expect I could be able to very well support my interpretations, but as Samuel Johnson put it, nobody however conscious of their innocence wants to every day have to defend themselves on a capital charge before a jury.
When I started here, I wondered how a system with a thousand equally powerful admins who could all revert each other could possibly exist. I soon learnt the subtleties of wheel warring--there were some major arb com cases on it during my first year here which pretty much defined the limits. But more important, I also learned that even the more quarrelsome spirits here understood the virtues of mutual forbearance--and that even the most self-sufficient people do not really want to look publicly foolish. Our balance is I think over-inclined to protecting the guilty if they are popular enough, but it is not as bad as it could be, or as it often is in human societies. DGG ( talk ) 03:25, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I smiled at your closing comment. I had the same, thought, although for the project as a whole, rather than just the admin function. I'm more recent to the project because, when I first heard about it, a few years before actually joining, I thought about the model and decided it couldn't possibly work. Oddly, I still feel that way, intellectually. If there were no such thing as Wikipedia, and I heard a proposal to create, my instinct is that it will fail miserably. I actually can't quite put my finger on why it hasn't failed.SPhilbrick(Talk)12:52, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Deletion review response thank you / Tutoring newbies on how to do online research
I left a thank you for your response — and unrelated question(s) — here. Another thing that maybe we agree on is the importance of knowing how to do research. I really like Wikipedia's Search Engine usage guidelines and tutorial, and have tried to link to them from Wikipedia:Article titles — because I think it's important to research usage when deciding the best article title, best category title, or the most appropriate term to use — but my attempts to link to this have been repeatedly reverted by people who think they own anything related to the MoS. Likewise, for the same reason, I have been unable to add links from Wikipedia:Article titles to the regional MoS guides. The article on category naming conventions also does not explain how to search existing categories or link to the above article on how to use search engines to research the best category title, either. Maybe you have some advice or ideas on this? LittleBen (talk) 13:51, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I discovered in my first year here that there were some parts of Wikipedia where despite my interest in the subject, for one or another reason I was unlikely to be very effective. Prominent among these were the MOS and categorization. I am a little concerned with article titles, and in that field, fundamentally I disagree with you -- I think the best article title should be the clearest and fairest, and counting ghits or the equivalent is usually irrelevant. And to the extent I understand categorization debates the problem there is often finding a sufficiently clear wording to encompass the desired set of article. I think the MOS is a little more rational than it was 4 years ago; if I were doing it, I'd limit to to pure matters of style, which does not include choice between article titles, just such matters as whether to use singular or plurals. But in questions like this , your opinion is as valid as mine, and there is no point in arguing the issue here--neither of us is "right". DGG ( talk ) 23:56, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My main question was aimed at getting your opinion on "Tutoring newbies on how to do online research". You don't seem to have answered this, but maybe this is something that Kudpung is more interested in than you are. My comment on article titles was related to this: there seem to be many people creating new articles without adequately researching if there is an existing article on the subject already. Part of the problem is that Wikipedia Search, by default, only shows if there is an article title that is an exact match to the search term; it does not show if there is a category that matches the search term. If it did, it would be far easier to find related material. It is difficult to work out how to search categories. Terminology (e.g. article titles and category titles) is often inconsistent for this reason. Just one example: There are Web browser engine and List of web browser engines articles, but there are nine Comparison of layout engines (XXX) articles, and the category is Category:Layout engines. I don't understand your reference to counting ghits, and don't understand how my viewpoint disagrees with yours. LittleBen (talk) 02:25, 23 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize for not covering everything. The WP search function is not the problem; if it does not find an article, it suggests searching for the term. Perhaps the page could be revised to suggest that first, rather than as an alternative to making an article. I think there has been some previous debate on whether it should initially search for the term rather than the article. I also have seen it said that by the standards of other search engines, it could use some sophistication. About 1/3 of people come here from Google etc., and though those search engines rank article titles at the top, they also include articles with the term anywhere. But the Google search engine is, deliberately, getting dumber and dumber; it is no longer possible to use the "+" character as an intersection, and Google Scholar has removed the limit to subject field possibility in advanced search.
Many apparently duplicate articles are created deliberately as a POV fork, others in the mistaken belief that WP includes essays on very specific term-paper type topics. Many are simply naive, as when someone submits a two sentence article on something where we have extensive coverage.
I think teaching people to search properly is a part of research, but the main result of its failure is not the duplicate articles, but the unreferenced articles. Way back when Google was new and exciting, we librarians used to impress the students by showing we could use it more effectively than they could. (The secret is partially cleverness and experience in selecting search terms, but mainly just persistence--something like 90% of users stop at the first page of results--I will if necessary scan through even a few thousand. I have found that people learn by experience better than didactic instruction, provided they are alert enough to pay attention to what experience shows them. Certainly we should do a better job teaching beginners, but the way I think works best is to show them one at a time how to do better. A person learns best when one individual person shows them how to fix their errors and misconceptions, and this is not done by templates. Besides Kudpung & myself, very few NPPatrollers or even admins take the trouble and patience. It's too much for a few people--we need everyone who is able to do it. We progress not by discussing how to work, but by working. DGG ( talk ) 03:38, 23 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we progress not by discussing how to work, but by working. You seem to be better at that (more productive) than I am ;-) But sometimes it's more scalable if we offer others the opportunity of learning how to do the work (not specifically thinking of Tom Sawyer ;-). Thanks and best regards. LittleBen (talk) 04:23, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. It was suggested by several people at Wikimania that we quickly make similar changes in level 4 and 4im, and then consider whether to combine levels--that part would need an rfc. The easiest way to go now would probably be to go to three levels, by combining 2/3 , to avoid having to rewrite the level 1 warnings. DGG ( talk ) 21:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What you said here was very interesting. "I do not think a community editing project where anyone can edit will ever rise above mediocre quality. Our goal should be to not come below it--above is unreachable. The greater the degree of summarization, the more skilled the writing must be. Even among the scholarly societies, many more are capable of specialized writing than of general introductions."
I would agree personally with that. Summarising a comprehensive subject is difficult, as it involves both a comprehensive knowledge of the subject itself (rare), and good communication skills (less rare, but not frequent). But it surprised me you say that because you seem to be one of the main defenders of the Wikipedia 'ideology', i.e. the idea of 'epistemic egalitarianism', the idea that a 17 year old has as much to contribute as a professor etc. Do you see any conflict between the view you expressed above, and your belief or faith in Wikipedia? Interesting Hestiaea (talk) 08:26, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't call it by such monumental terms as "faith and belief"; my hope and expectation for Wikipedia is that it will be a good and useful general encyclopedia. Some aspects of it are already very good, and can be excellent: comprehensive scope, up-to-date coverage. Some will be very good, and are quite good already: accuracy, referencing and cross-linking. Some will I hope become good, though they have problems at present: freedom from advertising and bias. Some will never rise above mediocre: the quality of the writing, including their detailed style. Some of all this is characteristic of a large scale community project: comprehensiveness, timeliness, lack or bias, linking. Some are special features of the people gathered here and they way they work: objectivity , accuracy, referencing.
The intention was for WP to be at the level of the average college student. Many 17 year olds are at that level, some considerably younger in fields with no special academic pre-requisites. Certainly the high school and junior high school Wpedians I have known in Wp circles have been working at a mature level. I learned this freedom from agist bias from my parents, who treated their children as rational beings who would learn more if given the opportunity. Here, we give them that chance. Children should be treated as adults as soon as they're ready, when it does not risk their safety. This is a very safe place, compared to others on the web. And it does not affect our own safety, because when there are errors, there are thousands of people to fix them.
As I said elsewhere, there still remains the need for an encyclopedia of higher academic quality. Most high school students would not be able to participate significantly, but neither would most adults. And a great many of those with advanced subject degrees I have known in my career would not have the necessary skill at comprehensive comprehensible writing. Scholars too need to be edited, and complicated works do best with skilled organization. It can be more efficient to have questions settled by editorial ukase. But not always: as you know, I joined WP and Citizendium at the same time, resolved to go with the one that made more progress. DGG ( talk ) 16:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! BTW I wasn't aware of your involvement with Citizendium.
I don't altogether agree with your comment about academic quality. I don't think articles in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy would be suitable for WP. What is needed is well-summarised and well-explained articles on difficult or general subjects that would be accessible to anyone of high school age (15-18) and above. The Wikipedia article on Being and the corresponding SEP article [3] are both unreadable but for different reasons. The WP article, as you will appreciate, is a rambling dog's breakfast of uncited original research (plus some glaring factual errors). The SEP article looks pretty accurate to me but just goes off into the clouds ("Anti-Meinongian First-Order View") once it gets going. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is better for a general audience but is incomplete. Hestiaea (talk) 09:15, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's a good question whether we need all of these systems of organization. We've tried others: a systematic organization based on List of Dewey Decimal classes or Library of Congress Classification or Wikipedia:Outline of Roget's Thesaurus, and yet others have been proposed. I think the overlap more than they ought to, but we'll never get agreement on which to concentrate on. Personally, I very much like the Outline of... structure, and would support it over the others. I believe that's the current tendency, also. Ideally everything would be indexed according to the two library systems also, because they're familiar--not that they're any good--especially LC, which was designed to match the structure of a US university curriculum in the first decade of he 20th century. There is no viable one dimensional way to organize knowledge--the alternative is some sort of Faceted classification, whose construction and use can get really complicated. There's even a totally different approach--to have no classification or indexing of any sort, but rely on free text implemented as we implement the see alsos, and the hyperlinks, as anything anyone thinks related, with no systematic organization. Or the extreme of having everything be a free text search.
Perhaps however you are asking whether every item on that particular outline you mentioned belongs--that's for discussion on its talk page, or whether other things should be added, in which case boldly add them. Or whether the whole outline is biased in some way, in which case, discuss it. Only if it is irretrievably biased or confusing should it be deleted.
Categories are a necessary complement--they are self-populating, but eliminate the possibility of saying anything about the individual items. I use them very heavily for what I do, which is, upon finding a problem article, finding others that are likely to have a similar problem. They should also do very well for finding term paper topics. They will be more effective as subject guides when we implement category intersection in a simply and obvious manner. (And there's the related Series Boxes, those colored boxes at the bottom. I dislike them--they're visually awful, and are used frequently to express or dispute a POV. But they do serve nicely to indicate missing articles.
Quick question, long answer. See chapter 17 of Wikipedia the missing manual for a longer one, oriented towards categories. DGG ( talk ) 18:29, 16 April 2013 (UTC) .[reply]
Since you've mentioned wikidata many time, I thought you'd be interested in this: Wikipedia_talk:Category_intersection#A_working_category_intersection_today. We could use it as a band-aid while waiting for wikidata to spin up. Also w.r.t your votes - I think that whether we use the proposal i made above, or wikidata, simplifying the categories *beforehand* will actually make things easier. None of the categories i've proposed deleting could not be recreated through an intersect - but for now they serve to ghettoize and are against the guidance for ethnic cats.
Anyway, regardless of what you decide on the CFD votes, I'd really appreciate your input and help on the cat intersect proposal. cheers --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:25, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have almost always supported ethnic subcategories. People look for articles in these fields, often to find subjects for school papers. I in general agree with maintaining the categories in the meanwhile, but I'm not sure its worth arguing about them for the present, considering the degree of opposition. As I said there is that intersection will remove the entire need for the discussions.What we need most to keep are the categories from which the intersections will be constructed. (Defining and organizing the root data is a harder problem--I find some of the current Wikidata proposals a little too casual. Adding data fields as one thinks of them is not as good as a systematic ontology.) DGG ( talk ) 15:02, 4 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Admins tagging for speedy
I noticed you (and other admins) often tag pages for speedy deletion, even though you can delete them yourselves. Is this out of personal preference for wanting review by another admin or is there some guideline or unspoken rule that calls for review by at least two different people? Ramaksoud2000(Talk to me)00:36, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Most of us think it better that two people see the article. I am capable of mistakes, and I know I occasionally make them, because people are not at all reluctant to tell me--sometimes I will have missed something, or not understood, or just gone too quickly. Even for the utterly obvious, there's the possibility of carelessness or sleepiness, or just frustration at having been seeing so many totally unsatisfactory articles. I doubt anything requiring human judgment can be done at less than 1% error. I've deleted over 12,000 articles over the 7 years I've been doing this. and that would have been 120 wrong deletions, and potentially 120 good editors lost to WP. But with someone else checking, that makes it only 1 or 2 in the whole time.
In fact, I've argued that this should be absolutely required, but there are cases where one must act immediately, and it's been difficult to specify exactly the exceptions. DGG ( talk ) 00:48, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker) I appreciate that there are times when you must act immediately, such as WP:ATTACK and WP:OUTING and possibly other situations. Do the admins have a tool that makes it easy for admins to "delete (or WP:REVDELETE) now, and list the page for review by another administrator ASAP" and if they do, to most admins who make "unilateral deletions" use this tool? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:04, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker) There is no rule that admins can't delete anything on sight, but tagging and leaving for a second admin to delete is a good, unwritten practice that most seem to observe. Most of us will of course delete blatant COPYVIO, attack, and vandal pages immediately and some other cases of obvious nonsense. However, admins don't actually make many mistakes with their deletions, so 'delete and review later' by another admin would be redundant. I've deleted around 3,000 pages and only restored 20, and those were userfications. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:15, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I define 1% as "many" if one thinks of the cumulative effect over the years. If everyone who had a reasonable case stayed and complained, yes it would work, but most don't. There's also the definition of "error"-- does it mean an article that would pass AfD, or an article that with enough work might possibly pass AfD, an article to which the speedy criteria did not apply, but would end up deleted anyway The 1% is for the first two classes; for the third, it's more like 5%. In any case the error rate will depend on the type of speedys. I tend to look at the ones that have been passed over for a few hours. I only really know about my own errors, and of course my rate may be unusually high because I may be unusually incompetent. Some years ago I did intend to audit speedies--the reactions I received from admins involved in the ones I challenged persuaded me it was not the route to effectiveness here, and tolerating injustice in this was the way to be more useful overall. (There was 1, & only 1, admin who did change their practice in response to my comments.) I think I will decide the same about the G13 AfCs. DGG ( talk ) 20:57, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
SIgns of promotionalism
For anyone watching, there are some internal signs of promotional-style biographies for businessmen that are almost always copyvio as well (besides the obvious giveaway of a statement of how important the company is, and especially a statement of how important their duties were in previous positions in the firm.)
Headings that use <big> instead of our formatting
Placing the education at the end, with a final sentence of about spouse and children.
Not giving the positions in chronological order, and often not including earlier positions except the one just before coming to the firm.
The corresponding signs for academics are slightly different, depending on whether they're done by a central office or by the individual. For senior administrators they characteristically include multiple junior executive positions and in-university awards. For any faculty, if the individual wrote it, it will often includes full details of all publications however minor; if the central office, it will omit most exact titles, especially for journal articles. DGG ( talk ) 01:39, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Local interest topics again
Hi DGG, a while back I asked you for your position on local interest topics. I think you may have forgotten about it. Could you see if you can find the time to give it another swing? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 09:32, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As before, the problem is maintaining them free from promotionalism. The more local the organization, the more likely it is that any available sources will be essentially press releases. for example, I've got this problem in my own neighborhood, Boerum Hill: there are a number of interesting creative projects of various genres, as well as some fascinating stores, all with good coverage in the fairly respectable local paper, but that paper will essentially write an article on anything in the general area, and will say more or less what the proprietors tell it. (The paper's political coverage I do trust, and i could use it to justify articles on every city councilman and community board member in the Brooklyn, not to mention the losing candidates, but I don't want to push it against the consensus they aren't notable ) So Iwait until the NYTimes or at least New York covers something in a substantial way--New York may be a bit of a tabloid sometimes, but it isn't a PR outlet. I love local journalism. I even read it when I don't know the area--it shows the way people live, in all their variety. If we could maintain the articles, I might want to do it.
The best hope for this is a local wiki. The attempts at a local wiki in NYC haven't really taken off--there are insufficient people in any one neighborhood who understand, and the ones that exist tend to be dominated by the real estate agents and local attorneys. Or possibly something built around Open Street Maps--that sort of a geographical interface makes sense. Or a combined wiki, Wikipedia Two, still maintaining NPOV and sourcing, but not requiring notability and not all that strict on promotionalism.
actually, I'd like a three way split, WP, the general encyclopedia; WP 2 for local content, and WP+, for academically reviewed material. Citizendium offered promise for that third part, but it 's manner or working drove off too many of the good people. I in fact joined it as one of the original group of expert editors, but I didn't get along with Larry, and if you didn't support him, there was no place for you there. DGG ( talk ) 06:22, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your responses. Reading what you say, and thinking about my own experiences, the problem here is that local newspapers are reliable on some subjects, but aren't necessarily reliable on all subjects. Because of that, we have no objective measure on how useful inclusion in a local newspaper is as a measure for inclusion in Wikipedia, and some organisations and individuals will take advantage off that to inject their self-promotion in to Wikipedia, so you prefer to rely on other sources that make it easier to draw a clear line. Is that roughly it, or am I just filling in my own perspective? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 09:50, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer to rely on other methods than using the GNG to make it possible to draw a clear line. Decisions under the GNG come down to the details of what counts as reliable especially with respect to the key words "substantial" and "independent." Depending on what one wants to include or exclude, questions of what is a RS for notability purposes can often be rationally argued either way. But I've learned to work with the GNG, since it is unfortunately still the rule and likely to remain so.
And our key problem now is dealing with promotionalism. It's hard enough to deal with it in articles on major organizations--our standards for what we've accepted before were incredibly lax, and probably 90% of the articles on commercial and non-commercial organizations need to be rewritten. I'm reluctant to start including any thing that would add to the problem. DGG ( talk ) 00:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comment We normally accept inclusion in anthologies as notability[4], which as well as being a welcome contribution to that particular discussion interests me more generally.
I agree we should, but is this documented anywhere? I can't find any explicit mention in guidelines or policies or help pages, but perhaps I'm just looking in the wrong places.
Or, are there other notability discussions where inclusion in anthologies has been cited as evidence? I don't lurk on AfD currently (I used to but WP:RM seemed to have a greater need) so I'd have missed them.
Any help appreciated. I'm vaguely thinking of proposing some sort of tweak to notability guidelines to better cover hymnists, and don't want to be reinventing the wheel and/or generating useless instruction creep. Andrewa (talk) 03:55, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
we've routinely used this for poets and writers of short stories, and for short stories themselves-- see for example Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mouse (short story), where it was used in a negative sense, deleted for not being in anthologies. I don't know we've used it in this context before. There was an explicit guideline once somewhere; I typically have the sort of memory that always remembers if I've seen something, but not necessarily where or when. Actually, I consider this an exceedingly broad criterion, but so is NBOOK, and in consequence NAUTHOR. . DGG ( talk ) 04:54, 8 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have now come to interpret this as not in standard anthologies, which is much less broad - DGG
Notability
Hi DGG, You've nominated several of my articles for deletion or speedy deletion. I'm always careful to write neutrally and cite everything that I write. Obviously, I think the topics that I choose are notable, but you disagree with me on some points. I find the notability guidelines to be somewhat vague, so if a topic has enough information written about it in newspapers, magazines, or similar media to create a short article, then I go ahead and create one. Is there some other measure or guideline that you're using to determine notability? Are there a certain number of sources that you look for, or does a magazine need a certain amount of circulation? Guidance is appreciated. Thanks, HtownCat (talk) 17:52, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I rather expected to hear from you, and I've delayed nominating further articles until I could see your response. There are two separate but linked problems in articles about organizations, their leaders, and their products: notability and promotionalism:
The basic problem of promotionalism is that WP is addressed to the potential readers, giving them the information they might want to know upon seeing mention of a subject (for example, at the most basic, where is that company and what does the company do?, or which organization is that & what do they advocate? ). A promotional article is addressed to a prospective user or purchaser or supporter: This is what we do, and here is why it is valuable that you buy our products or support our endeavors. Encyclopedia articles are characterised by plain description, promotional ones by praise, or the sort of detail one would need only if one is considering a purchase. Promotional articles are intended to give a favorable image of the company, such as describing its ostensible social purposes or community contributions.
the basic problem of notability is deciding whether something is worth describing in an encyclopedia at all. It doesn't correspond to importance in the world, but to whether it should be included in WP--we can;t after all judge the world, but we must decide what we want to put in our encyclopedia. . In a few cases we go by a general decision--for example, the decision that all named populated places are appropriate for articles. In some others, we go by outside evaluation: for example, that a holder of a distinguished professorship at a major university is notable, or someone chosen to compete in the Olympics. In many cases, there are no such firm standards, and we go by the WP:GNG, the general notability guideline, which requires substantial coverage by multiple independent third party reliable sources. (some people say this is the only real standard, and everything else is just an assumption of what will meet it). the key words there are "substantial" , "independent" , and "reliable." A substantial source is more than a product listing, or a mention of an event taking place, but a significant discussion, such as a full product review. How substantial it must be is of course a matter of judgment, which is decided by consensus at WP:AFD. An independent source is one not derived from the subject--not the subject's web page of product literature, or what its principals write, or the press releases the put out. A reliable source is one using editorial judgment, rather than simply publishing press releases or gossip. Again, these terms are matters of judgement to be decided at consensus.
In all but extreme cases. nobody can predict accurately how consensus will go--I will nominate an article for deletion if I think there is a substantial probability that it will not be considered suitable, --but even after 7 dears of experience at it , sometimes I am wrong, either because I made a misjudgment or because the community wishes to interpret things differently. The community decides, and another administrator judges what the community has decided. Guidelines are necessarily subject to interpretation, and what really matters is how the community decides to interpret them--after all, we make our own rules collectively, and we can decide how we want to use them , and if we want to make exceptions. The best way of learning this is to observe afd discussions on similar topics, to see what arguments succeed, and what the practical standards are.
Some things are deleted immediately, by the concurrence of two administrators, rather than an AfD. One relevant example is blatant promotionalism, which is an article so much devoted to advertising or promoting something that there appears no way to fix it without rewriting. (As an admin, I have the technical ability to do it without concurrence, but I rarely use it unless there is some immediate hazard, such as libel or copyvio) . We also immediately remove articles on people or companies where it seems obvious on the face of it there is no possible indication of any importance or significance, --a much less demanding standard than actual notability,. Again, normally two admins will concur in this. If such deletions are seriously disputed in good faith, most admins will reverse the decision and send the article to AfD for a community opinion.
I said there was a connection between the two: A key reason we have a notability standard is that for most things that are not notable, there is nothing much to say except directory information or promotion. It is critical to WP that it not become a mere directory or a place for advertisement--we want to provide information that people can trust, so we require sources and objectivity and some degree of significance. There are many other places on the web for advertising, and google does very nicely as a web directory.
There are additionally some factors that can affect how people here view an article. We tend to regard an attempt to write simultaneous articles about a borderline notable company, its products, and its executives likely to be an attempt at promotion--it is much better to have one strong article. Also , it is considered possible that someone writing articles about a wide range of barely notable subjects may be doing so as a paid editor. We do not absolutely prohibit this (though many people here would like to do so), but we strongly discourage it, because it is extremely difficult to be objective about what one writes with such a strong conflict of interest. If by any chance you are such an editor, I can explain to you how best to deal with it so as to get the articles accepted--I am one of the relatively few admins here who are willing to assist paid editors who come here openly in good faith and are willing to learn our standards. 'DGG (at NYPL) (talk) 21:29, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I really thought I was careful about keeping promotionalism out of my articles. I would like to improve them, if given the chance. Is there a way that I can edit the deleted articles and then submit them for approval to be posted? I've read something about restoring articles to a userspace, but I'm not sure what the procedure is for that. I absolutely do want to contribute quality articles and nothing that other editors might view as promotional. Thanks for your help. HtownCat (talk) 20:02, 24 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I will take a look next week. You should first check if there are good references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, because otherwise a rewrite is useless. DGG ( talk ) 04:19, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Library holdings
Hello DGG! Thank you for your note at my talk page, I appreciate the feedback. I will look at those articles you listed this weekend and do some cleanup on them. I'll also try to be more mindful of promotionalism in the future. I'm curious about your technique of judging notability by library holdings, as in the Jedediah Bila AfD - it seems useful especially for pre-internet authors. Do you use Worldcat to find that information? How many libraries do you think are necessary for notability? --Cerebellum (talk) 01:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I use WorldCat most of the time. But WorldCat requires interpretation for 5 factors: First, it covers mainly US and Canadian libraries, with a lesser coverage for the UK and Australia and New Zealand, a very scanty coverage of Western Europe, and little else, so it requires careful interpretation when used elsewhere. Second, it covers almost entirely English language books, for in the US only the largest academic libraries buy anything else. Third, it covers current holdings, so what libraries had 50 years ago is not represented, so for older books of shorter spans of interest such as popular fiction it requires correction also. Fourth, how many titles count for a book to be likely notable depends on the type of book-- mainstream novels and important nonfiction are much more represented than esoteric subjects. I go by the experience of having looked for many books of all sorts, and one can do the equivalent by comparison with books known to be notable. (I have sometimes used comparisons to say that a work is or is not a major work in a field) As a fifth factor: editions must be combined to get a true picture, and the way libraries report holdings this is not always easy. As a result I usually report holdings as approximate figures. For major current works in popular interest academic subjects like economics, a notable book would have at least several hundred. For experimental fiction that fits no standard genre, only a few dozen libraries might buy it, but it can be just as important. For fan-oriented books on games, libraries usually buy very little, because they get outdated very quickly. For some of the kinkier sexual topics, libraries don't buy at all. A scattering of small libraries often indicates author gift copies.
The official WP standard is book reviews. But library holding correlate nicely with book reviews, because libraries buy largely on the basis of such reviews, especially for public libraries.
In light of the increase in GLAM projects internationally, I'd like to start a new WikiProject, WP:Exhibitions to help coordinate activities around major museum and gallery exhibitions. If you are interested in the project, please contact me here or on my talk page. I'm hoping to establish guidelines for creating, editing, and tagging articles on major exhibitions and to begin improving articles in this area of Wikipedia. OR drohowa (talk) 19:42, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. It was a sprawling debate that'd been going on in multiple forums for so long it's hard to get a complete sense of it without a lot of reading. Thanks for putting in the time and thinking it through. — SMcCandlish ☺☏¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 04:00, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hear, hear! A very generous donation of time to get your mind round a long-long-long meandering debate with loads of distractions, and very brave to tackle one where people feel so strongly. I think you did an excellent job. --Stfg (talk) 10:14, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Right, you're off my Xmas card li- As much as I hate the result, I appreciate with the time and effort put in to possibly one of the most detailed closing rationales I have read. Despite apparent appearances to the contrary, I do support the idea of a global Manual of Style and conformity and am content to abide by the decision. Agree with the idea of some sort of bot to enact this. Cheers, Cas Liber (talk·contribs) 10:28, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would have preferred a different outcome, but your arguments were really well-done and respectful to all positions. Kudos for you. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:26, 1 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto, I just wanted to thank you as well although I followed the discussion from a distance (I think it had more than enough active participants). Admins can get a lot of flack but when one takes on settling such a sprawling debate, knowing that no matter what one decides, there will be some very unhappy editors, I can only say thanks. And providing such a thoughtful rationale (rather than a sentence-long decision), is admirable and helps the decision "stick"...ambiguity would have only resulted in further challenges to your decision. Instead, if individuals do want to overturn this decision, they know that the burden of providing evidence resides with those wishing to change the status quo, and there has to be a substantial case to do so. LizRead!Talk!19:14, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I am hoping that you won't need to clarify that the consensus finding doesn't only apply to birds, but you might; there's a (smaller and quieter) camp who want to always capitalize moths/butterflies and dragonflies, and another in favor of doing the same with common names of British (and I think Australian) plants. The debate may have focused on birds, but that focus should be scene as license to capitalize non-bird species common names. — SMcCandlish ☺☏¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 08:39, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
the opposition to this and the other parallel "Jews in .." articles that were deleted is so opposite to everything I hold important in the world, including the idea of a NPOV encyclopedia, that I can only with difficulty participate in these discussions. I have elsewhere ascribed it to the desire to hide the significance of Jews in the world to avoid arousing the anti-Semites. It is not possible to logically argue against fear and irrationality. DGG ( talk ) 02:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I did justice to your very acute wake-up comments at the AfD, particularly striking because, in the drift towards uniformity, you took a stand marked by complete independence of judgement. Deeply appreciated. When I read, particularly,
There is no reason why anyone--in particular any Jew --should find anything shameful about the association of Jews and Communism in Russia, except the inability to foresee the future.
I thought of Vasily Grossman's outstanding Life and Fate, which manages, other than the direct horror of the context, to write astonishing vignettes that embrace all the complexities of identities, Kalmuck/Tartar Jewish swept up in the Communist cause, with, among comrades, the various prejudices, ethnic/antisemitic, coming to the surface, only to be talked out. 2% of the officer class of the Soviet forces that effectively won WW2, despite our films and lore, were Jewish. The great vice of superficial eyes is to judge with the facile wisdom of hindsight while ignoring the hard and sometimes tragic options fronting real people in earlier generations (it's true, for me, also of 1948). After the trench warfare attritions and military command's quasi genocidal military tactics in WW1, choosing to be Communist was one of the few ostensibly rational or ethical options left, something events in Italy and Germany in the succeeding decade could only reinforce. Thanks, anyway, and sorry for this soapy intrusion.Nishidani (talk) 16:16, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You may appreciate in connection with the novel the edition of his wartime notebooks,A Writer at War : a Soviet Journalist with the Red Army, 1941-1945 edited and translated by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova. For another account of the appeal & disappointment of Communism, see the final volume of Victor Klemperer's diary, The Lesser Evil DGG ( talk ) 19:47, 11 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Questionable notability page for WikiProject:Women Artists
Hi, David,
It was a pleasure to meet you, face-to-face, and hear your presentation. Are your slides posted on the Wikiconference page? I'm really interested in the stats you shared about the state of AfC in 2007 vs. 2013. I think it's so important to be aware of the changes occurring on Wikipedia as it evolves over time in order to gain an accurate long-term view of where things are headed. Thanks again! LizRead!Talk!22:03, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
1 point: in addition to saying in a general note that the material is copied from the US govt site, it's best to indicate by quotation marks exactly what has been copied--is it just the quotation in the box? then add it in the footnote there. DGG ( talk ) 02:28, 10 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Only the MOH citation is copied verbatim from the Public domain material. The general note added is a template {{ACMH}} . I am not sure there is a parameter to include exactly which portion is copied. NQ talk02:40, 10 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My approach to copyright is not to rely on google, but to check the person's web site, and any other posssible relevant external link or reference. In particular, many universities use noindex on the web sites, or on the portions of it which is a people directory. DGG ( talk ) 16:42, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Removing copyvio
The choice of which way to solve problems of copyvio is not purely a question of administrator idiosyncrasy, but involves many factors.
The general principles are found in both WP :COPYRIGHT and WP:Deletion Policy and its subpages. First, Deletion policy is that "Reasons for deletion [are] subject to the condition that improvement or deletion of an offending section, if practical, is preferable to deletion of an entire page)" and "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page" Section 3.1 for copyright violations says "remove the violation if possible, or edit the page to replace its entire content with {{subst:copyvio|url=address of copied material}}. For blatant, whole-page copyright violation, you can simply tag it for speedy deletion with {{db-copyvio|url=...}} after checking that there are no non-copyvio versions in the page history." Second, with respect to copyvio, WP:CSD says it applies to "Text pages that contain copyrighted material with no credible assertion of public domain, fair use, or a compatible free license, where there is no non-infringing content on the page worth saving. Only if the history is unsalvageably corrupted should it be deleted in its entirety; earlier versions without infringement should be retained. For equivocal cases which do not meet speedy deletion criteria (such as where there is a dubious assertion of permission, where free-content edits overlie the infringement, or where there is only partial infringement or close paraphrasing), the article or the appropriate section should be blanked with {{subst:Copyvio}}, and the page should be listed at Wikipedia:Copyright problems. " Third, at WP:COPYVIO, it says "Handling of suspected violations of copyright policy depends on the particulars of a given case" It then says "If you have strong reason to suspect ... some, but not all, of the content of a page appears to be a copyright infringement, then the infringing content should be removed, and a note to that effect should be made on the discussion page, along with the original source, if known. "and " If all of the content [is]... a copyright infringement or removing the problem text is not an option because it would render the article unreadable, if an older non-infringing version of the page exists, you should revert the page to that version. If there is no such older version, you may be able to re-write the page from scratch, but failing that, the page will normally need to be deleted. "Fourth, looking at WPRevision Deletion, one of the permitted uses is for "Blatant copyright violations that can be redacted without removing attribution to non-infringing contributors. If redacting a revision would remove any contributor's attribution, this criterion cannot be used. Best practices for copyrighted text removal can be found at Wikipedia:Copyright problems and should take precedence over this criterion." The word "Blatent" is obviously open to interpretation, but a small paragraph copied from the persons website is not "blatant".
:I interpret this as follows:
I. removing a whole article because a nonessential part is copyright is not supported by policy. None the less, policies have some flexibility, and admins sometimes do that, and I have done something a little like it on occasion, based on the phrase in G12 "when there is no non-infringing content worth saving". If the articles is inherently promotional, I generally delete saying both G11 and G12, and I think of "entirely promotional" in a more more flexible way when there is significant copyvio. For articles, I'll sometimes do the same with A7/G12. For draft where A7 does not apply, and which the person has been repeatedly submitting without improvement, I'll try to find some reason. I will be more flexible in helping those.
II. As a general rule there is no reason to revision-delete, as long as the copyvio text is removed from the current version. It is not even permitted unless the violation was "blatant".
Basic cleanup steps for professors (and much of it applies to all bios)
Basic cleanup steps for professors (and much of it applies to all bios):
Remove all "Professor", "Prof.", "Doctor" and "Dr.", Ph.D, or M.D except in the lede sentence or as actual titles of positions or degrees. For every use of first name alone, substitute the last name. For every use of full first and last name, substitute the last name, except in the lede sentence or if needed to avoid confusion.
Then, for every use of the name more than once a paragraph at the most, substitute "he" "she" or the equivalent.
remove all adjectives of praise: famous, renowned, prestigious, world-wide, transformative, seminal, ground-breaking, etc. referring to either people or institutions or discoveries; even "well-known". In all of these, nothing needs to be substituted.
Consider replacing "expert" with "specialist". Replace "across" with "in" or, if documented, "throughhout" Remove all similar jargon. "
"best-selling" etc. needs to be justified by specificity and a third party quotation. Just remove all these throughout the entire article, or add a {{Fact}} "First" similarly needs a third party source.
Move the most important factor of notability to the very first phrase of the first sentence where nobody can miss it: not "A.B., an expert in something, who has taught at Wherever for 23 years, is the Distinguished Professor of" , to "X, the Distinguished Professor of ... at Wherever, is a specialist in something....
Remove complicated sentences of birth place and date to the section of biography. The lede sentence should just have the dates, eg: "(born 1945)"
If they have written books and work in the humanities or history or Law, or any field where books are the main factor of notability, remove journal article section entirely. If there's a section on conferences, etc., remove it in all cases.
The list of degrees received and dates is critical information. It goes in a section labeled ==Biography==, right after the lede paragraph. If you find it at the end, the article was unmistakably written by a press agent, and will need careful checking for copyvio.
In fact, the likelihood of copyvio is so great that I usually prefer to rearrange or alter most of the text.
Books need to be sourced to Worldcat, not Amazon or the publisher. Bio facts are sourced to the person's official page at the university. These should all be formatted as references, so there will be a conventional reference list DGG ( talk ) 20:16, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker) Just noticed this useful list. One comment (in case you've got this chunk of text ready to paste in elsewhere in future): in point 7, about dates, I think the standard format for the lead sentence is "(born 1948)" not "(b. 1948)". Your point 6, about moving the main claim to notability to the very start of the article, is really important - so many poor articles start by telling you the subject's parentage or other irrelevancies so that you have to plod through a lot of verbiage to find any assertion of notability. PamD14:07, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
fixed, though perhaps even just the date is clear enough for everybody. thanks. (as for 7, press agents writing an academic cv tend not to realise what are the key factors. Hidden in the last paragraph among society memberships, will sometimes be "National Academy of Sciences". DGG ( talk ) 21:06, 15 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
General advice, repeated here so it will be visible:
Please don't be deterred by the bureaucracy here. This is after all a very large enterprise, with thousand of people working independently at the same time with almost no formal coordination, almost no supervision, and very little training. to help deal with it, a number of formal conventions have been established. Unfortunately, the sort of people that like to work here are exactly the sort of people who are not very skilled at drawing up formal conventions or procedures, and the net result is a mass of partially contradictory instructions and rules, some important, some not; some enforced, some not. The response to a rule that has proven impractical is usually to add several supplementary rules, rather that to revise the original, and after 11 years, it produces quite a jumble.
Some of us find it fun to manipulate the rules to get a reasonable result. But the true purpose of working here is to build an encyclopedia, and I will normally try to get to a reasonable result as directly as possible. Some people though insist on their interpretation of the rules regardless of the result, and I have also become rather experienced at countering them in their own frame of reference when necessary. As I'm pretty much an inclusionist on most topics, I tend to concentrate at AfD and AfC.
My advice is to concentrate on providing good sourced articles. If you want to learn process, don't be afraid of making errors. There's no other way to do it, because you need to learn not the letter or the rules, but the way we use the and the accepted boundaries. DGG ( talk ) 17:53, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure whether to congratulate or console you, but I am glad that you were elected. Thank you for volunteering for this difficult, yet critical, work to keep the project running. -- Avi (talk) 07:52, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I came also for congratulations! So far arbitration was (for me at least) a synonym for waste of time, and ideally it shouldn't even be needed, - let's work on that ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:07, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's going to suck you absolutely dry for contributing anywhere else, but I can't think of any one more suited to the task of Arbitrator. Thank you for running for election and thank you in advance for all the good work you will be doing there. Warmest regards, --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:41, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Coming off my wikibreak to say congrats. I'm confident you will do good things. I'm also confident that Kudpung is correct; it will be an all-consuming and thankless task for the next two years, but my impression is that you were ready for a new challenge, and I know you are fully capable of handling it. Farmer Brown2¢12:30, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulations and good luck. You're one of the people on Wikipedia I have always respected greatly, and hope the other great work I've seen you do translates well to ArbCom. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 12:35, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Another voice to applaud your success in the recent popularity contest. I hope you find your new role satisfying and may it bring you contentment. Dolescum (talk) 16:16, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Congrats my friend and mentor. I totally missed the elections or you could totally have counted on me for a Support. Happy HOlidays StarM01:31, 22 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If it is permitted, and I know some initiation ceremonies by definition require an oath of secrecy, it might be nice if you can tell us what all is involved in the formal initiation ceremony. John Carter (talk) 00:14, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand it, it is permitted, but it has to be specified exactly what part is taken from the source, and future edits must keep this distinct. Some of our templates, say "some or all" has been taken from particular source. In my opinion, this is inadequate attribution. Exact quotation marks or some other equally clear indication is needed. There are I believe several thousand articles in this unsatisfactory sate, and as editing continues over the years, the result is very confusing both in terms of attribution and in terms of keeping material up to date and not based upon totally outdated views. This has bothered me since I've come here, but it hasn't bothered enough others to make any progress.
The real problem is not just attribution; the more insidious problem is accuracy. The article you cite on Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine (1524 – 1574) shows this. The source, the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia is accurate as a summary for the facts as known at the time, but was never known for balance in its coverage, or for NPOV interpretation, and lacks adequate explanation of what to them was fundamental (That does not mean I do not think highly of it for many purposes--I even own a printed set.) The knowledge of sources, the interpretations of scholars, the interest in particular aspects, will be very different on every topic, no matter how old, from the state of things 100 years ago; even when religious orientation is irrelevant, cultural bias is usually present. (I do not know enough about this particular topic to give a detailed critique, because my own knowledge of the period in France is based primarily upon historical fiction, whose biases can be very similar to that of outdated histories.) DGG ( talk ) 05:44, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that summary. It confirms most of my concerns and adds a couple. I am unsure how much I can correct, but I will work on it a bit and add some tags as needed. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:15, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I am going to take a stab at rewording it. It still reads that we should not have red linked names.
Wikia licensing
Whoa. Surprised I haven't run into a copy/paste from Wikia before (re: Maritz, Inc. v. Cybergold, Inc.). It's really ok for Wikipedia purposes, though? Their licensing default looks to require attribution, which seems a problem unless we're going to put the whole article in quotes and cite Wikia as a source. I understand that's a different issue from a copyvio, but still seems problematic, no? --— Rhododendritestalk \\ 14:27, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Even if the source is PD there is an attribution problem. In principle everything can be attributed properly by keeping the edit history, but in practice it will soon be unclear to the reader what part comes from where. This confuses the page history of all the EB and Catholic Encyclopedia and similar entries, and confuses it in a worse way, because the original source is out of date almost completely, and it is not easy to tell what may have been added by uptodate sources. (In my opinion adding that material was a serious mistake made in the early days of WP, when the expected level of accuracy for articles was much lower) There needs to be serious work done in rewriting every one of those articles, for there is no topic whatsoever where additional material is not known since then and anything implying a judgement has to be rewritten, Back in the first years of the twentieth century, it was seen as ... or it could be summarized as .....We also have scientific material from 10 or 15 year old US Dept of Agriculture publications, which now has a similar problem.
I personally do not add such material without using quotes. (They should normally have a beginning and quote on each paragraph, with an ending quote on the final one.) But I am not about to take on personally the correction of widespread sloppy practice. DGG ( talk ) 00:01, 24 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
yes. as a result of that decision, I no longer trust it for anything at all. I think that's the general view of most librarians I know. DGG (at NYPL) -- reply here21:01, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Obviously any "Kirkus Indie" review is non-RS. Do you think they are secretly paying for reviews on the "non-Indie" side? If so, how should the community handle this? Does it need to get any substantiation/proof that something untoward is going on? Have librarians written about the issue? WhisperToMe (talk) 22:23, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
no it's more that any publication that takes paid reviews is ipso facto non-reliable on any part of the site. this is similar to the way a newspaper that publishes advertorials tends to forfeit some of its reputation. There are indeed a few well-documetned exceptions: the NYT, WSJ, & Forbes all publish directory information on companies as well as genuine news. (I wonder how many of our articles use their directory information as evidence towards notability , btw.) So I agree this may be too harsh a judgement, but it is none the less the usual impression, which I share. DGG ( talk ) 00:33, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if a good way to deal with it is to consider Kirkus post-2009 a "less reliable" source. It can still be used, but if a particular book has a lot of different reviews and editors are trying to figure which ones make the cut, then perhaps Kirkus would not be used. WhisperToMe (talk) 00:55, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
yes, that's one reasonable way to look at it. Another is that it adds to notability if there are some there borderline sources also. DGG ( talk ) 17:37, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I had never noticed it here, but it's a fairly frequent technique in academic writing. I do not see how it is easily compatible with using wikidata for references. There would appear to be two directions: either to make a hack that would be able to parse such references, or deprecate this referencing technique and convert the existing ones manually, which will be easy enough, if someone can figure out how to find them. DGG ( talk ) 00:58, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Any <ref> that has bullets (unordered list), multiple CS1 templates, or multiple bare external links should be suspect. (but if a single CS1 generates multiple external links that's ok. e.g. url && archive-url) Anyway, if there's a discussion started I'd like a pointer to it. Thanks --Jeremyb (talk) 05:57, 10 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I need some assistance, and no longer know how to approach this subject
About a year ago, you were involved with a discussion on Involuntary celibacy, I've always had an issue with this close reflecting the apparent anti-fringing pushing bias rampant on Wikipedia these days. Upon viewing this version of the article I cannot find any guideline violating issues. Tone appears neutral and sources are not only mainstream, but academic. The contentious history regarding the article could only suggest that another DRV is going to be long and difficult. Alone there is nothing I can do, but with help I was hoping to overturn the deletion of the subject. It appears that the NFRINGE noticeboards have become a pool of anti-fringe canvassing whose editors decisions are confirmed and unchangeable prior to any debate. Wikipedia has never been a place where only mainstream views are accepted this in itself is a violation of NPOV we have long sought to establish yet it appears the trend is growing and correlates with the editor drain we have experienced. My gut tells me this article is the first step to changing the environment ... what can we do? Valoemtalkcontrib23:06, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As for Fringe, I never liked the way we deal with it, where we insist from the first that it is non-standard and hammer at that repeatedly, We instead ought to present it as fully as necessary for understanding in its own terms, and then say what people think of it. We need to avoid giving any false indication that fringe topics are accepted, but we still need to avoid giving primarily hostile coverage. If presented fairly, people will understand the relevance--that's the basic premise of an encyclopedia. We do not have to slant or censor, even by implication. WhatI particularly dislike is our tendency to try to minimize the coverage of people associated with a movement we disapprove of (or alternatively of maximizing the number of otherwise reputable people involved to a trivial extent for the sake of denigrating the the individuals)
I consider topics such as this unusual, but not fringe. ("Unusual" is the most neutral word I can find.) Outside sex, some political and religious topics are strongly disfavored. Others, equally unusual or far from the mainstream, but that do have a constituency here, resist all tendencies to discuss them with moderation, rather than in a frankly propagandistic manner.
But sex is always the most difficult area. WP has for long as I can remember been rather hostile to some forms of otherwise unexceptional sexual expression. People have a remarkable ability to disdain those forms of sexual expression they do not engage in; there seems to be some human need to assign some sexual practices as acceptable, and others not, presumably in order to reassure oneself that one is oneself doing it "right" rather than being a victim of limitations, and this supposedly tolerant community insists on resisting serious treatment of things that are now but did not used to be considered subjects for open discourse. For example, there's been a surprising amount of difficulty with articles on even widely-used sex toys.
The best way of dealing with such topics is first find as many additional references as possible. All difficult topics of any sort are best done by accumulating such an overwhelming body of references that he even the opponents realize. Tokyogirl79 has done a good job of it, but there's almost certainly still more to be done, especially considering the multiple uses. I think there are quite a range of different consensual and nonconsensual practices here, which have ended up in this one article because of the resistance to covering them individually. I unfortunately do not really have the time to work on it. I recall there was a 1973 book with the title "SM: the last taboo" ISBN 9780818401787, whose title I thought a good quick explanation of the problem in a few words. (the book itself is apparently a short anthology of stories, not likely to a usable reference) This is 40 years later, and everything in popular culture considered, I don't think the taboo really holds. Except, of course, in WP, which, while it should be the location for work on unusual things , is also the home of obsolete prejudices. People get very easily embarrassed about sex. In particular, some parts of the demographic working on WP particularly easily gets embarrassed.
However, I do not think we have an editor drain. We merely have the expected transition from a exciting new project to something which may be still exciting, but is not particularly new. People will naturally stay here for only four or five years. Relatively few make it a career, or a life-long hobby. People try out new things, and then turn to others; our contributor base is always going to be dynamic. What I do hope is that we will come to attract a wider group than the typical post-adolescent white male geeks. DGG ( talk ) 03:52, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, the encyclopedia has not increased--and in fact in someways regressed-- in terms of scope. I think removing subjectivity from the closing of AfDs is the optimal method. After the article is restored I assume Tarc is going to AfD it immediately, some input when that happens would be appreciated! Valoemtalkcontrib18:37, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well said. In particular that the community tends to use FRINGE to rationalize attack pages, rather than merely documenting that their viewpoint is not accepted by mainstream science/medicine, using reliable sources. I'll take a look at your RfC as well Valoem. I also recently noticed that more effort has been spent on Victoria Secret than all of the articles under Category:Feminine hygiene brands combined (with exception to the one I wrote on Playtex). I found this strange, even given the gender gap, because so many women are interested in women's health, so I wonder if it is because people are too embarrassed to contribute. I looked up the Durex page after they did a presentation at a marketing conference. One of the biggest global condom brands and just a stub on it. Marginally notable supermodels and pornstars have more robust pages. CorporateM (Talk) 16:22, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
DGG, I did some research and commented there, however I wonder if you would still oppose the proposed article-title, now that I've shown an abundance of source material that uses the same phrase. CorporateM (Talk) 17:07, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
...maybe DGG will) tell you about how i (or he, in his case) spot possible conflicted editors and how i (or he) deal with them. Jytdog (talk) 19:45, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The first step is to realize that most people come to wikipedia with some degree of conflict of interest, to write topics about which the really care. The problem is not to keep the out, the problem is to see that what they do contributes positively to the encyclopedia. People who are firm believers in a cause , for example. can be great problems, because they care so much about something (hat may well be in fact really important) that they recent the writing of NPOV articles. Fans of an artist or sports team can be problems also, inserting all sorts of unjustified material in their praise, worse than a publicist would dare even try. Even for products or companies, there are great fans who want everyone to share the POV--those fixated on particular brand of camera or computer or automobile, or on a restaurant or type of clothing, of great believers in the wonderful work of a doctor or financial advisor or charity.
But the problem here is the people with a commercial interest. The come in all sorts: the owner of a business or professional practice; the press agent in a company, and the persona with a small or moderate knowledge of Wikipedia who advertises their services, or now especially those freelancers who answer advertisements on elance and similar websites, Most of these people do not know how to make a decent article even if they wanted to; but few of them want to--they or their clients will not be satisfied by a NPOV articles in proportion to the size of their business with adequate references--they want a web page here, not seeing us a s different fro mother places for posting advertisements. they do not care about our notability requirements--they all at least hope to be notable some day,and want the public to know about them. I and several others have estimated that at least half our article on commercial and noncommercial organizations and their leaders are the products of this kind of editing. t this point WP is so well known ,that it is hard to imagine an organization anywhere that would not want to have a WP page, and it takes a true understanding of the way in which WP is different, to realize that this is not he way to achieve that.
There is thus no reason to get angry at particular instances. The critical thing to do is to remove the pov articles; assuming we have half million, and if a hundred of us set out to do it for an hot a day, , and supported each other , we could mange to keep up with the inflow and clear up the background in a year or two. We did it for unreferenced bios of living people; we can do it here. If this seems unrealistic, for what is possibly the highest-priority category in terms of unjustified advertising, internet businesses, 4 or 5 people could do it.
In the meantime, we do have to pursue the chains of paid editor, who are responsible for perhaps 10 to 30% of the problem. It's not worth the trouble to work on an individual example. What is worth the double is to look for a group of accounts writing articles in identical format in a particular subject, or an individual account using a similar format for miscellaneous totally unrelated minor articles. In the first place, if the writing similarities are close enough , a SPI can be justify.d In the second, a firm explanation can usually stope them. More of the similarities to be looked for will follow in a day or two. DGG ( talk ) 23:58, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
{thank you guys for helping and guiding me, I really appreciate that and I am taking your WP OUTING very seriously. I worked on some col cases and I believe I handled those cases very well without violating any Wikipedia guidelines even though I was not aware of WP:OUTING. I usually kept my distance when dealing with such cases and never asked them to reveal any personal information other than their affiliation with the entity without asking any further explanation about their nature of work or name. I major in marketing and I can easily spot when someone is trying to promote something and I strongly stand against advertisement in Wikipedia.
we have to take advertisement in Wikipedia more seriously, some marketing courses are now teaching how to edit Wikipedia to promote companies coz they see it as important channel for public relations and product promotion, the only reason why we don't see well-written articles about these companies from new editors is becoz of their inability to navigate through Wikipedia and old web Wikipedia editor is still confusing for most of the people,as Wikipedia becomes more and more user friendly with addition such as visual editor, we will see more advertisement and vandalism .There are off course positive sides to these improvements but we should also focus on negative side too. Nicky mathew (talk) 06:54, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Professional press release writers can and do learn html and the very similar wikicode, and even our peculiar referencing conventions. Their set of expected skills encompasses that. What they have much more difficult in learning is now to write in a different style for different purpose. Their training and experience is in how to write effective press releases and advertisements,and they are lost in an environment which does not accept their well-learned glossy promises, convincing rhetoric, appealing personal claims, vague statement of benefits ,and carefully selected statistics.claims is not wanted, Tbey do not have experience writing where plain neutral presentation is w\excpected, where only a set of narrowly defined reliable sources are accepted, where testimonials and name-dropping are harmful, and where extravert claims are signs of puffery. The best preparation for working in WP is journalism, tho teaching and librarianship and technical writing also do well. can also be successful
So of course , is any intelligent member of the general public-- but unlike professionals, unless the are students who know html, they have great difficulty with our current format. it is these people whom we will be able to better reach when we have a rule workignand non confusing wvisual editor that does not require manual post processing to verify that it; has avoided bloopers. Perhaps we'll get there they year (I seem to remember saying that for several years now.)At theta point, our outreach programs can extent more practically to a much wider range of non traditional editors, many of whom maybe interested in the everyday topics we have such trouble with. and those they may be able to drive out the professionals DGG ( talk ) 08:12, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
there's a printed source given. I can't see it, but we should assume good faith that it does cover the material. Checking for copypaste would however require actually locating it. If an article has about at least 60% chance of passing afd, I think it should go in mainspace. Or did I miss something obviously fishy? DGG ( talk ) 21:59, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly it does. As you know, there are several schools of thought: one is to get everything right before moving to mainspace; a second is to at least get them cleaned up to a reasonable extent extent before putting them in mainspace, the third is to put them in as soon as they have a decent chance of passing afd. I started out at the first, but then moved to an second, and am now close to the third. The part that takes experience is deciding if there is the basis of a sustainable article, & I try to look at that for as many AfCs as possible. I admit, tho, that this rougher than even my usual standard: I usually at least add article sections; tho adding links is a good exercise for beginners, I usually add enough basic ones to at least give the impression of a WP article. (But there are a great many people who like to add categories. I learned early on that the best thing for me to do about categories, was to let them do it.) I was going too fast here, and you were right to call me on it. DGG ( talk ) 22:19, 4 April 2015 (UTC) .[reply]
I subscribe to the get to as near perfection as possible before moving it from Draft school of thought. All too often the article is not found again (especially is there are no categories) and remains indefinitely in a bad state. A bad first impression for any reader coming across it. JMHamo (talk) 22:29, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The reason for my style is the experience that slow as it may be to get material improved in mainspace, it is even slower and less likely in Draft. As I understand it, the likelihood of survival in mainspace is the only actual guideline. It's good to do more, and each of us will balance whether we want to work in concentrated way with a small number of articles, or as a preliminary rescue of many. I've always done mostly rescue, with a few each week taken beyond that. I didn't expect it, but I find I like to work at the bottom. DGG ( talk ) 22:39, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In regards to the latest number of undisclosed paid editing issues, I was wondering if the creation of a new WP:CSD criteria is in order. The general idea is that if someone is found to be partaking in undisclosed paid editing, than the articles they have written can be deleted more efficiently. On the grounds that undisclosed paid editors COI prevent the content of the article from being written in a balanced manner. Sort of a Wikipedia:Blow it up and start over speedy for undisclosed paid editing. This would serve to more strongly discourage undisclosed paid editing and reduce the ability of businesses to profit off of the practice.
A rough draft of the deletion criteria could read:
A12: Articles created by an undisclosed paid editor while taking part in undisclosed paid editing where the only substantial content to the page was added by its author.
Is this good, bad, awful, would it destroy Wikipedia? You are a very experienced editor within the deletion process so I'm interested in your thoughts on this idea. Winner 42Talk to me!16:20, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
the problem with "undisclosed paid editor" is we have no means of proving someone is unless they confess to it subsequently. And if they do so confess, doesn't this to some extent turn them into a disclosed paid editor? Even confession isn't absolutely reliable because there have been a few verified examples of joe jobss where an upe pretended to be a well known wikipedian. As you know, the prevailing view here is that outing is more important than coi. Personally, I would be prepared to see that be reversed, but I unfortunately don't think it would get consensus, considering the defeat of the recent AfC on a very mild exception to the outing policy. Officially (i.e., in my role as an admin and arb), I will as I have always done apply existing policy, not policy as I would like it to be.
To the best of my knowledge, and as confirmed by opinions of some people with experience in this, there has never been an upe making worthwhile contributions, so they can all be gotten rid of otherwise. Of course, this means if there has been one consistently doing so, we obviously do not know about it. I doubt it, because the amount of junk being submitted now and in the past is so great that it is reasonable to assume any new entry on an organization is very likely to be coi at least, and in most cases also violation of the our Terms of Use; I would also say this about to individuals in some fields. This then raises the question of if they are making consistently good contribution why should we want to get rid of the articles--the same as undetected sockpuppets.
I would go a little further: imo, even for the best declared paid editors, the quality of their paid work is not as high as the volunteer work most of them also do.
The best course of action within existing policy is to have stricter requirements on articles in susceptible subjects, and for more people to participate in the afds. I would certainly propose a formal deletion reason , that borderline notability AND a mainly promotional article is a reason for deletion. (It is now, if we choose to do so, but a formal statement would make it easier to explain). I am saying this with great reluctance--for my first 5 or 6 years here, I devoted as much of my effort as possible into rescuing just those sort of article. DGG ( talk ) 16:57, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your thoughts DGG. I don't like the situation either, but the quantity of COI violations that are done on a daily basis is so large (if the quantity of G11s and adv declines at AfC are of any indication) that something needs to be done. I'm just grasping at straws for a solution. Can't we just get Congress to grant the WMF subpoena power or at least file FTC complaints against some of these people. /rant Winner 42Talk to me!17:14, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In a very few extreme cases, where people or firms have been identified, the WMF has taken some legal or regulatory action. I have some knowledge of whom to speak to and approximately what their parameters are. DGG ( talk ) 20:15, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot see that anyone has ever written a general WP article on this. I'm not immediately aware of any general discussions in the librarianship literature, but there are many further places to check--I think I recall there are discussions of its use in particular subjects in books on how to do research in history, etc. , DGG ( talk ) 22:04, 31 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Village Capital'
Hi DGG, could you help me remove the advert flagged banner on the Village Capital page? It's been flagged for a while now, and the page seems like it's been improved. I'd love an opinion on whether or not it meets Wikipedia's standards, and if not, what I can do to fix this to remove the banner as soon as possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dahlerbattle (talk • contribs) 14:36, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
as a start, remove the adjectives of praise. the substitute ordinary english for jargon like "across", and decrease the amount of dupllciation. Then I will take another look. DGG ( talk ) 19:04, 16 June 2015 (UTC) Still needed [reply]
Wikipedia:Impact factors
This is your promised reminder that it would be helpful to have information about how to use impact factors in a smart way for evaluating sources across multiple disciplines. Wikipedia:Impact factors is a new redirect to Wikipedia:Scholarly journal, which is mostly a notability essay. I think you can safely usurp the redirect, if you don't want to come up with another name. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:29, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"so promotional that it would need to be rewritten from scratch" is a good reason for deletion.
You rightly owe someone a private thanks, or some form of acknowledgement for their work. Or are you only the whip? :) -- GreenC13:58, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
if you mean others have used this wording before me, that's very possible, but I've been using it for many years, and I'm not consciously copying anyone.
If you mean it's not a valid reason:
WP:CSD is limited to the reasons specified; any reason the community accepts is good at AfD. See [[WP:Deletion policy]#Reasons for Deletion]], point 14." Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia"
It is obviously a good reason for AfD, since it can even justify speedy G11; it's a restatement of "would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic." from WP:CSD#G11. Similarly the essay WP:TNT has been used repeatedly by others as an argument for many deletions. Whether any particular article in question is actually that bad, is of course subject to a community decision: at AfD if at AfD, at Deletion Review if it was done at speedy. In this case, it is indeed possible that the decision may be against my proposal.
a related deletion rationale I often give is that "an article that is only borderline notable and is also promotional should be deleted ." That only works at AfD, and only if the consensus agrees with it.
WP:CSD is limited to the reasons specified; any reason the community accepts is good at AfD. See [[WP:Deletion policy]#Reasons for Deletion]], point 14." Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia" DGG ( talk ) 15:34, 28 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Very few individual academic departments are notable. That's not my personal decision, but the consistent practice of the community. For practical purposes, without going into the rather elaborate Wikipedia jargon, the requirement is world-famous. The basic requirement for inclusion of any organization is coreferences providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements. Very few academic departments can meet this requirement. In addition, a requirement for an article on an academic department (or any organization) is that the article be non-promotional--that it be directed towards what readers of an encycopedia might want to know, not what the organization might want to tell them.
Your department does not meet either part of the requirement. But the primary reason for deletion was not advertising, but rather that it gave no indication whatsoever that it might possibly be important in any sense, let alone world famous. I should have specified that as the reason, and I apologize for any confusion. It was for good measure, very difficult to understand. The title didn't even say what university it was in. The text was written in English that would need to be almost completely rewritten, even if it had been famous. There were no references except to its own site.
I also removed your edit inserting a direct link to your department in place of its name at the university article. We do not include such links. We linkonly to the main university web site. The reader can generally find the web pages of individual departments from there. DGG ( talk ) 16:06, 1 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Afc etc
Hello DGG. I couldn't help but notice your comment on User talk:Timtrent#afc_etc, saying that submissions that are clearly non-notable should be marked as such and that the users should "discourage continuing" writing the article. What do you see as the best approach to dealing with users that submit Afc submissions that clearly do not have a chance of passing? I feel confident in determining notability but I don't want to be too harsh on anybody, especially new users. Many thanks in advance, Aerospeed (Talk) 17:28, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I typically say: "In order to get an article, you will need references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements. If you can not find them, an article will not be possible at this time. When you become well-known enough for there to be such references, then it will make sense to try again. " The key word to avoid harshness is When. Almost everyone understands, except some paid editors. For those who do not, I sometimes go to MfD.
And it's crucial to say this as a short personal message, not as part of the boilerplate. People rarely read long boilerplate. I often modify the templated message after it is placed, removing almost all of the surrounding text. I sometimes remove the color also, so it doesn't look like a template. Here's an example I've given up on trying to get the people who program this to improve the messages. Even the custom message template still has too much unnecessary verbiage, DGG ( talk ) 03:20, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Writing articles about academics
I have created a number of articles about academics recently and I wanted to get some advice from you on how to write such articles, what should be included in them, etc. Everymorningtalk17:10, 31 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I will get there, probably Saturday. In the meantime, look at Chad Orzel, which I deprodded. A full article in Contemporary Authors is proof of notability -- and that article usually lists books review also)It's available online as part of Gale's Literature Resource Center, available thru most public libraries DGG ( talk ) 04:30, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, the only problem is I don't often edit from a library (unlike yourself, I imagine, since you are a librarian). But I'll keep that in mind the next time I stop by a library. Everymorningtalk02:50, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Most large city libraries have it available to library card holders remotely. You only have to visit once, to get a card. DGG ( talk ) 18:19, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
For the last year or two I have been deliberately trying to stretch deletion process a little in both directions, to see if consensus is changing. To keep things responsive, somebody's got to, and better me than someone with a coi. DGG ( talk ) 22:18, 4 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Guy, I must have quoted it about a hundred times by now! It is almost always very effective at putting an end to absurd arguments for coverage. And if someone doesn;'t get the point, it shows very nicely their total lack of objectivity on the subject. DGG ( talk ) 04:59, 11 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Adding Material to articles only serves to draw the attention of editors who nominate articles for deletion
Hi DGG,
(This is a continuation of similar threads on your talk page in 2012 and 2014). I have been away for a few months, and when I started editing again, I was hoping to be left alone to help build areas that, in my opinion, are sorely lacking.
On 8 August 2015 5 I found a little visited article about a very important organization: Condo Owners Association (Ontario) (which has an article here under the incorrect name) and at 17:10 I started renovating the whole area surrounding Category:Condominium on Wikipedia. According to recent news reports 50% of new home buyers in Toronto are now purchasing condos, and the number of condo owners is staggering, considering how little information exists on Wikipedia on this topic.
As usual, however, it appears that my efforts to build up have attracted the attention of the deletionist faction. By August 9 the article that was getting no attention at all for months, was up for wp:AfD, and instead of continuing my efforts to built this neglected Codominium area, I find myself spending more and more time getting into conflicts with other editors intent on deleting whatever else is associated with this article. I seem to have been unsuccessful in trying to convince another admin that the article that is now getting very little attention at AfD should be moved to its correct official name.
I consider it a little too much like a press release, and this will inevitably affect people's attitude towards it. Possibly there might be a little advocacy in some of the other articles also. The last thread is now at [6] DGG ( talk ) 04:53, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I belong to a (dying?) minority of editors who like to work on articles that are not yet developed. Unfortunately it appears that my edits only serve to bring those articles to the attention of editors whose mission is to nominate articles for deletion. I have been asked before to provide examples of this phenomenon and thought : Condo Owners Association (Ontario) can be mentioned as one because no one paid attention to it until I started to work on it.
I am worried that my sad conclusion is also shared by others, which means few editors will be working on improving wp:stubs around here. Thanks btw for finding the 2014 thread - I am unable to locate the 2012 one tirled Useless stubs because the Edits by user tool is broken (another sigh...) Ottawahitech (talk) 09:43, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I have a dual intention here: One is to try to keep everything suitable for an encycopedia. The other to to remove promotionalism. Lately, due to the flood of promotional articles, the second has become more important--even critical. Small variations to the notability standard either way do not fundamentally harm the encycopedia, but accepting articles that are part of a promotional campaign causes great damage. Once we become a vehicle for promotion, we're useless as an encycopedia.
There are several hundred thousand of articles in WP accepted in earlier years when the standards were lower that we need to either upgrade or remove. It will take years, but work on them as I see them.
Normally I send a long standing article to AfD rather than to speedy unless it's utterly outrageous--t will not be deleted unless the consensus agrees with me. I accept the consensus there as the guide in establishing standards. DGG ( talk ) 22:22, 23 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It was superb finally getting to meet you! I only got to hear the last bit of your talk but was quite intrigued. I look forward to seeing you and the rest of the NYC crew next time around. All the best — MusikAnimaltalk04:40, 22 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Phillipviana, I can not send you the deleted contents until you authorize email, using the Preferences link on your user page. But in any case, the material is entirely copied or closely adapted from various parts of their site. I suggest you try to integrate the appropriate material dealing with this topic on a single WP page. DGG ( talk ) 22:52, 30 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
DGG, thank you. I will come up with new content but would still like to have the previous version. I have confirmed my e-mail a few minutes ago. Please send me the previous version when you have a chance. Thanks. Phillipviana (talk) 16:47, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
... our WP article on National Book Award explains it: hundreds of books get nominated--any publisher can nominates as many as they please. In the 2013 procedure, each of the 4 categories is winnowed own by a panel to a long list of 10, a short list of 5, and then a winner. The books on the short list are called Finalists, and get a prize; the winner gets a much bigger prize. By analogy with other similar awards, winning is notable, being a finalist contributes to notability, being nominated is not even worth mentioning. If the NBA site lists them as finalists, they're finalists--we usually regard the award site as authoritative. DLB's text is considered reliable--its headlines are, as usual with headlines, summaries & simplifications. Headlines never take precedence over the text, here or anywhere. USA Today, LA Times etc. are dependent on the actual source of data, and less reliable. Neither of them is really a RS for published books. (The LATimes is a RS for film). This is one of the cases where the PS is more reliable than any report of it. What must be avoided is using any statements on Amazon or the publisher's sites as evidence for anything at all; they both often list awards & best seller status in the most positive terms they can concoct. Pre 2013, there was no list of 10, just the short list of finalists and the winner. DGG ( talk ) 17:13, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
citations are 500, 270, 170, 150 ... , so he's notable, even allowing for the very high citation rate in this area. Even tho its an autobiography, what it needs is rewriting. Once upon a time, I would unhesitatingly rewrite all articles like this, but in the last year or so the number that need doing has escalated to the point where I only do it if it is in my area of interest, it is easy to do, and the article is not hopelessly corrupt otherwise. This articles is a summary of his outrageously self-praising website even by the abyssmal standards for such websites, http://www.drpeterlin.com/dr.-lin2.html , but not close enough to be a copyvio. It's not even a competent summary, because it leaves out some of the actual encyclopedic information, such as the dates of his positions, and makes no attempt to select the most important among the publications.
As we have now learned we need to do, I checked some of the refs. That he was clinical advisor to the bill is referenced to the Senator's web site, but isn't stated there. Some of the rest are also ambiguous. It's implied he developed EKOS--he did not, a/c the references--he merely uses it. And a Reuters article referred to in this connection is not an article, but a press release on their site.
For an analogous case, by a known paid editor, see John Wesson Ashford, where I just removed the minor and stuff and unproven claims to be first in something. He , too, has very high citations.
I am holding off going further until I can decide what I want to do in such cases. I don't want to punish notable people for being naive enough to write their own article or use a paid editor, but I equally don't see why they should get priority for rewriting before all the even more notable people whom we are missing. DGG ( talk ) 23:09, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking paid editing more than autobio, given the contributors' names (and didn't look into notability myself, as I have no time right now). You're right that it's not egregiously promotional. I removed some of the minor awards. If only those paid editors could get it through their heads that it is far more effective to write a really encyclopedic, neutral article... --Randykitty (talk) 08:41, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It might be a group of editors. Look at the main editors and the other articles they have edited. All related.
I have previously encountered obvious but undeclared paid editing devoted to a particular medical specialty, and to other groups of individuals, or companies in the same field, where I assume it was a PR company specializing in the field or working for a trade association. I have frequently encountered it for people in the same or related company, where it has sometimes not been an outside PR firm, but the employer: sometimes in-house PR staff, but sometimes a department manager or the like acting on his own initiative.
Experience has unfortunately shown that most (but not all) people with experience in PR cannot be taught to write a proper article, because they are so completely oriented to writing advertisements or quasi-adevertisements that they honestly cannot see the difference between that an a proper encycopedia article. Declared paid editors here whom I trust have told me they need to turn down most clients, because the clients even if notable will not accept a NPOV article. DGG ( talk ) 20:02, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Copyvio within WP
... second technical issue at hand is that I was quite serious about needing to edit the individual pages for WP:CWW and WP:Content forking to mention the G12 issue and requirements for the "shadow-bibliography" issue (that is, current requirements to exclude Wikipedia article references in the Bibliography section of articles system-wide throughout Wikipedia, but include the Wikipedia article references on the Talk page or dummy edits). Since I am meticulous about checking and verifying references in Bibliographies and have spent a great deal of time cleaning up dead links and restoring bad ones, then this is an important issue. If the deleted articles were mislabeled as G12 (as you suggest in your comments above), then the deleted pages should be at least re-labeled on the admin-only data base as to your stated preference and reason. If they are G12, then WP:CWW and WP:Content forking need some editing and additions to cover the G12 issue which is currently not mentioned on those two pages. If you need some of the other IP-hopping addresses for the IP-account above, then let me know here and I will try to get them listed for you. MusicAngels (talk) 16:27, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The G12 deletion in such cases can be applied, but usually the problem is corrected after a warning. As I said, I personally would not have applied G12 in this case, but the action was within the range of administrative discretion, and therefore I cannot say it was mislabeled. As I said above "Anything organized like WP will never be altogether consistent, or even always fair." The actually best way of dealing with the WP references is very simple: to remove the duplicated text and link the name. If you did think it necessary to include the text, in addition to the techniques listed in WP:CWW, there is also available a rather complicated technique, used often in history and geography articles, but relevant here also: WP:Summary style. I don't think anyone mentioned that possibility in the discussion--I am going to add a link to it on WP:CWW
Yes, that was my understanding as well. This is the template that I had already prepared on my Talk page for insertion in the article, but I took one day off last week and the article was deleted without prior notice of closing. I think User:Fogettaboutit was also in agreement with you on this. This is the template as prepared on my Talk page and I was just going to fill in the names already listed in the Lead section of the poetry article. If you are saying that this will work then I am in full agreement with you and User:Fogettaboutit:
{{Copied multi|list= {{Copied multi/Copied|from=Poet1 |from_oldid=1234567890 |to=Here |diff=http://link/to/diff }} {{Copied multi/Copied|from=Poet2 |from_oldid=1234567890 |to=Here |diff=http://link/to/diff }} {{Copied multi/Copied|from=Poet3 |from_oldid=1234567890 |to=Here |diff=http://link/to/diff }} {{Copied multi/Copied|from=Poet4 |from_oldid=1234567890 |to=Here |diff=http://link/to/diff }} {{Copied multi/Copied|from=Poet5 |from_oldid=1234567890 |to=Here |diff=http://link/to/diff }} {{Copied multi/Copied|from=Poet6 |from_oldid=1234567890 |to=Here |diff=http://link/to/diff }} }} Is that what you are reading as being what User:Fogettaboutit had in mind. MusicAngels (talk) 17:20, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
At a different level, I have to say that using these copies was not necessarily a good idea in a general article. Too much of them dealt with the biography, and the reader of a general article would want to see about the literature. They would know enough to go to the article about the author for the bios. It would have been, as I just said, the actually best way of dealing with the WP references to remove the duplicated text and link the name. That people didnt like the article affected the action. DGG ( talk ) 18:48, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In stating that, you do realize that your suggestion is very close to the WP:TNT option if all of those biographical subsections are deleted. Since this is effectively equal to the solution previously put on the table by Drv participants, then I would like to offer to do the WP:TNT from the inside-out myself for the article. If you could restore the article as a Draft article under a new name "Draft:Poetry in the 21st century", then I will remove all of the biography subsections used in their entirety. This will effectively leave only the lead section and the outline structure for the rest to be then rewritten. This was only a "C"-class article anyway, and I would like to move forward with the option you are offering of straightforwardly removing all the WP:CWW biography material used and then rewriting/redrafting it along with WikiProjects as a Draft article. Also, I would mark the Talk page to inform other editors not to apply any WP:Content forking in the new article. MusicAngels (talk) 20:40, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
paid editing deletions
I'm sure you've seen the outcome of this and this. Personally, I relist at least once before closing as no consensus, but this is an admin's prerogative and is not a reflection on the closer. What I'm more concerned with is that while Cunard's efforts to rescue such articles are laudable, such closures possibly deny us of much needed evidence for finding solutions to Orangemoody and other issues concerning blatant paid-for (or indeed any) promotion. Perhaps one could consider employing G13, G11, and G5 more broadly or more vigorously. Thoughts? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:44, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Cunard is taking the same approach I would have taken 6 years ago. I then argued that the most important thing is to have acceptable content, and how it got there is secondary. I still think that the ideal way of looking at it, if it were not for the current epidemic of paid editing (and the realization that it was there before, also, but we paid insufficient attention to it.) You & I have been assuming a deterrent effect. Cunard has challenged that assumption, and I can't prove him wrong. As you said, its "possibly deny us", but just possibly. Based on some discussions, perhaps what it's most likely to do is discourage pd eds. from giving money-back guarantees, but they will still be able to show portfolios of whatever of their work has not been deleted, including that done before they were detected.
Frankly, I am no longer willing to challenge on the grounds of having been started as paid editing any article that he will rewrite and take responsibility for; I started thinking in the course of the discussion that I am not sure my renoms of those two articles was justified.
G5 has never covered articles started before someone is blocked, or articles with substantial contributions by others. I can see permitting it retrospectively, but the sort of thing we're discussing would require removing the " substantial edits by others" part. I'm not sure I would support that.
G11 of course should be more consistently applied, but I am not sure what wording would make it stronger, as every article on an organization or its product will have some promotional effect., We could add something about "promotional intent", but this is hard to really prove.
I don't see what you propose to do with G13 to make it stronger. I still have my list of 500 or sos articles that shouldn't have been deleted but were because the contributor gave up after improper reviewing.
What we need to concentrate on I think is the notability standard for organizations. Even here, it's hard to think of how to reword it so it doesnt remove the clearly notable--our emphasis on the GNG prevents any rational work on this area. DGG ( talk ) 23:47, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There is already an extra-strict WP:NSOFT-essay, where three coverage-bursts are needed (not just three publishers). If the details of WP:NCORP-guideline are tweaked, so that three coverage-bursts (not just three published sources) are needed, that might ease some of the not-startup-type burden, since most startups only have one product, they get a coverage burst for their first funding round, a coverage-burst when their beta-product actually ships... and then have to wait around for that third coverage-burst (usually a second successful round of series B funding) prior to getting a dedicated wikipedia-article. In the case of Circle, they got their first burst in Oct&Nov'13, their second burst in Mar&May'14, and their third burst in Sep'14, plus their biggest burst yet in Apr&May of 2015. But if the WP:NCORP-guideline standards were shifted to require three bursts of coverage, spaced several months apart, then Circle (company) would have been a redlink (or more likely a WP:NOTEWORTHY mention under Bitcoin#companies methinks) for all of 2013 and most of 2014. Because they had a famous serial-entrepreneur founder, and got plenty of money early on, it would only have taken them a year of operation to get a wikipedia page... but that is still 12 months of WP:FAILN under the three-coverage-burst-test, used by WP:NSOFT-essay already. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 21:27, 24 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
75.108.94.227 (talk·contribs), I don't think the number of coverage-burts matters--it's rather what gets said. If it's just funding, it doesn't show notability. I agree that a famous founder can be relevant--but if that's all there is, the information should be added to that pindividual's article as part of the list of companies he's funded. DGG ( talk ) 04:53, 11 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Randykitty: Hallo David and Randy, I wonder whether either of you has any pointers towards notability criteria for bibliographic databases. Polymer Library, formerly Rapra Abstracts has been PRODded as failing WP:GNG and WP:COMPANY (?). It feels to me like something which ought to have a WP article, but ... any thoughts? You two seem the natural people to ask, and by pinging RK on this page I hope to avoid duplication of any effort! PamD14:44, 24 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly? Nope, no idea. For the most important databases (like PubMed or the Arts and Humanities Citation Index) sources can be found without too much trouble. For the smaller ones, it's difficult. We have more database articles like this, none of them sufficiently sourced (just dependent sources for non-controversial info). In the present case, things are even more difficult, because "polymer library" is not an unambigous search term and gives many hits, but nothing really about this database. The links in the article don't help in establishing notability (the last one - STN - even seems to be a false positive as this library is not listed in the list of sources). Perhaps somebody from the Chemistry project would know of some sources? Curious what David will have to say about this. --Randykitty (talk) 15:48, 24 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think it's worth pursuing the close of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sierra Vista Mall (3rd nomination) (by contacting the closer or possibly del rev)? The closer's argument is that there is no clear interpretation of what constitutes "local" vs. "regional" coverage (play to the semantics/letter of WP:AUD). I thought the arguments clearly stated how the mall's coverage was still of "local interest" (best evidenced by the fact of how its larger import could be unclear at all). – czar14:46, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It rarely hurts to ask the closer, but I generally do not recommend taking a non-consensus close to Deletion Review, and , at Deletion Review, I rarely vote to overturn one unless it is truly perverse. .Just wait a few months and nominate again. But in any case the argument would be that publications serving the San Joaquin Valley are local not likely to have readers outside the valley; publications serving the State of California are regional, being of interest to neighboring states also; A major SF or LA paper read nationally is national. The Oakland Tribune is arguably more than local, and it is certainly outside the Valley, but Tribune Business News is not the Tribune. If one is going to get technical about wording, the rule is that at least one non-local source is needed, which implies that one source is not always enough. In practice, the result of mall decisions depends on how hard they are argued. W
More generally, the majority disputed afd decisions hinge on the exact interpretation of the sourcing rule, and in most such cases a decent argument can be made in either direction. That's why I support going by objective criteria. In the case of malls, size. We have failed several times to get consensus on a general rule. If we did, and it were > 1 million sq ft≈100,000 sq metres, this would be deleted with no argument; if it were 500,000 sq ft it would be kept with no argument. In either case the effort debating it could be used for more important purposes. DGG ( talk ) 15:27, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think sqft is the proper metric (assuming WP:42 is not enough of a metric already). Malls in the Boston area will be low-sqft, and that goes triple for malls in Hong Kong. By constrast, malls in Dallas or Minnesota (e.g. the Mall of America for a 'famous' example) will naturally have far more sqft, because real estate is cheaper and the dense-packed-mall-layouts are not necessary.
Something like average-visitors-per-week ... or maybe peak-weekly-visitors-during-the-year to account for the seasonal nature of malls i.e. december 25th ... would be a better metric than sqft, and similarly, annual revenues is a good proxy for visitor-count slash mall-importance. Physically large does not equate well with wiki-notability, but number of people involved (or as a proxy number of dollars changing hands) does a better job methinks. If we do this, I recommend the visitor-count or dollar-count cutoff be low enough that at least one mall per tiny-city-of-population-10k is theoretically able to get a wikipedia article dedicated to the mall -- in the USA there are about 600 such tiny-cities, according to theKGB.[7] Or, actually that brings up another idea, see below. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 15:14, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Or... now that I think of it... we could just use *that* as the threshold: every city with a population of 10k+ people, such as Charlotte Amalie would be permitted by the hypothetical WP:NSHOPPING wiki-notability guideline to have a safe-from-AfD article called Businesses in Charlotte Amalie. Such a 'listicle' would obviously include the 'major' malls (with WP:UNDUE being calculated based on sqft or visitor-count or most pragmatically revenues-per-annum since that latter figure is often available -- or simply in the usual wiki-fashion by the amount of ink spilled in wiki-reliable sources), as well as other major employers like hospitals/schools/banks, notable tourist traps, oft-reviewed restaurants, and such.
Obviously, these business-in-XYZ-summary-articles will be a goldmine for linkspam, so if we go thataway, I would suggest beginning with a Businesses in CityName, CountryName guideline that sets a temporary initial threshold of 100k+ population minimum for the associated metro area; we even have an on-wiki list of such areas, and for the USA the total as of ~2008 was roughly 267 such medium-cities of 100k+ people (total of 295 as of July 2014 data). Borderline-notable mall articles and such, could be merged inot the business-of-XYZ articles, with exceptions for Mall of America and other not-borderline-exceptions. This temporary approach would cover about 90% of the states and territories in the USA... California where the Sierra Vista Mall is located tops the list with ~70 cities of 100k+ population in 2014:
6+: CA TX FL CO AZ NC IL VA WA MI NJ OH TN
4or5: CT GA KS MA MO NY PR AL IN LA NV OK OR PA UT
Later, if that 100k+plan worked out, we could expand the threshold to include the additional ~~300 tiny-cities in the USA with 10k+ people through 99k people. Most of the states and territories exxcluded by the 100k+ rule, would be included by the 10k+ rule, including Charlotte Amalie, U.S. Virgin Islands which is the capitol and has 18k population nowadays.
If the scheme *does* work, it could be a good recruiting tool for the type of editor naturally-interested in shopping and tourist attractions (plus editors WP:COI-interested in the retail industry and microeconomics), as I mentioned at the AfD for the mall. Furthermore, this scheme could also be a good way to help decide borderline-notability-questions about startups and such with WP:PRESERVE in mind... rather than a binary question of bangkeep or bangdelete, we would (almost always since I'm proposing a geography-based scheme) have the additional option of merging Circle_(company) into the Businesses in Greater Boston article that was a spinoff from Boston#Economy.
And in fact, wikipedia already has Greater_Boston#Major_companies as a spinoff-list from Boston#Economy. So my proposal is that we expand that to be a spinoff-article that gives some details about the companies mentioned, then do the same Businesses of Greater CityName thing with 300 or 600 more cities, based on a population threshold of 100k+ or 10k+ respectively. Both thresholds would permit bangmerging Sierra Vista Mall into a broader Businesses of Greater Clovis, California article ... which at population 102k people just makes the upper threshold.
All I can see is the COI hell that would inevitably result from these sorts of lists (many more anons adding their businesses than caring about an esoteric guideline). More concretely, I don't think a NSHOPPING guideline would ever pass consensus—especially since I think (or hope?) we're moving in the other direction (away from content-specific guidelines) post-OrangeMoody. I'd also say that these types of articles are closer to directories in function (what Wikipedia is not). If any such article was necessary, it would need to extend naturally (in summary style) from the city/town article's "Businesses" section. czar15:26, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I submit to you that we are already in the COI hell of which you speak. :-) Orangemoody was a symptom: the only way even wiki-notable companies like Countly can get their articles approved, is by spending months and months learning all the wiki-policies, or by hiring some kind of wiki-consultant for cold hard cash. Because the COI-handling-facilities are so borked, we are quickly tilting the wiki-culture towards forcing honest disclosed-COI-editors into retirement, which will leave only the dishonest undisclosed bad apples. Agree about avoiding WP:NOTDIR, and agree about extending the Clovis, California#Economy section in summary-style, but disagree that WP:NOTEWORTHY is that hard even for a reasonably tiny business to surmount. The idea here is that the Businesses in Greater Clovis articles will become a place where
#1) we can put 'quasi-local' organizations like the Sierra Vista Mall, that will be better-watched by the anti-COI-hawks than a dedicated Sierra Vista Mall article possibly could, and
#2) we can also upmerge borderline-wiki-notable startups like Countly into Businesses of Greater Istanbul (or Greater Long since they have relocated to London nowadays), rather than let them molder in AfC as potential victims.
There is even the possibility that #3) companies who clearly pass WP:GNG, such as Circle_(company) and the other bitcoin startups, could be down-merged into a paragraph of the appropriate city.
I'm not arguing this idea is a panacea of bliss, there will still be plenty of COI-encumbered clueless wiki-beginners (not all of them IP-anons dern it! ;-) but I think it is a better way to manage things than the hardline approach to handling COI, which I will unfairly mischaracterize as ban-'em-all-and-let-the-great-jimbo-sort-out-the-wiki-bodies. See my argument at the AfD, that the mall-article (and the businesses-of-xyz even more so) could be #4) a recruiting-tool... this is an expansion on that, which will also double as a way to mitigate the COI-encumbrance-problem, by putting all the COI-eggs into one basket, as it were. Whether it is a better idea, than what we are quickly moving towards, remains to be seen, but I do agree it is different from what we are quickly moving towards. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 19:08, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There is no way of preventing promotionalism in an encycopedia that permits anonymous editing. There is no way of preventing undisclosed COI editing either, for the same reason. We have been able to detect those we have, because they've not understood editing here well enough to avoid detection--and because all edits on borderline notable subjects of certain types clearly merit investigation. If we lower the standard of notability, it will be all the easier for them.
We are not in great need of people who will write on local subjects; we are not in need of people who will write on barely notable subjects. We are in need of people who can write on the clearly notable subjects that not enough people have been interested in, and the obvious area properly receiving current attention here is our continuing gender bias. But what we need even more are people who can rewrite the existing promotional editing on the clearly notable subjects. Almost all articles on major corporations and nonprofit organizations need complete rewriting. They've been contaminated by PR from various sources: the PR people who have written many of the articles, the volunteers who write like PR editors because they think that's what we want here, and the inevitably PR writing based on the RW sources being PR in the first place.
It's unfortunate that a few honest paid editors have gotten undue suspicion. But, quite frankly, I would very strongly support eliminating all paid editing whatsoever. Their fundamental mission is not really compatible with a NPOV encycopedia.
However, the proposition that we write as volunteers basic factual articles on all clearly notable organizations is a reasonable idea. If we do it, we shouldstart at the top, not see how far we can go to the bottom. DGG ( talk ) 04:58, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well expressed. The only substitute for the editorial supervision that Wikipedia of necessity lacks is to depend on high quality sources that do have editorial supervision that insists on fact checking, a skeptical attitude toward press releases, and disclosure of COIs. The most reliable of sources are characterized by strict insistence on declaring C.O.I.s, and even the appearance of C.O.I.s, and the use of press releases as no more than sources of questions to ask. The more time spent working on articles written from a source-rich environment (the truly notable), the better our instincts become for working in less information-rich environments. This should be the starting point for pulling out the effects of systemic bias by developing skepticism toward hand-outs and coi claims. (The NYT public editor has just written a piece on two Times published book reviews in which the reviewers assigned had undisclosed COIs).
Wikipedia needs properly sourced articles on corporations—for completeness; the same reason Wikipedia needs any article. But not so much that non-NPOV, poorly sourced articles need be allowed. Wikipedia has accessibility, reliability, and completeness to offer. Completeness is getting out ahead of reliability—this is a perversion of our goals. While it may be admirable to strive for completeness (an impossible goal), reliability back-stopped by adequate cites to WP:RS is existential. —Neonorange (talk) 06:19, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Inherited notability
....
I don't agree with the inherited notability argument above, or that notability can be measured by job title or award. Her notability can be established using the traditional method of evaluating sources, which in my view is the only basis from which notability should be measured. However, I don't question her notability, only whether her publication being nominated for this particular award is significant enough to warrant inclusion in her profile. I wasn't sure what you meant to say in this regard. Is the National Magazine Award known to the public? David King, Ethical Wiki (Talk) 02:19, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
What I think is the correct way to look at inherited notability is that the fact that a person is notable, doesn't mean that everything they do is notable; even a notable person does many less important things. But the way a person becomes notable is by doing important things, so that someone who has done sufficiently important things is notable. The nearest formally recognized analogy here is WP:PROF, where being editor in chief of a major journal is fully sufficient proof of notability. I would extend that to all media. The National Magazine Award certainly wasn't known to me before I looked at this. Based on the information in our article, i would say winning one should certainly be included. For finalist, it needs the recognition of the Nobel or the Booker or the Academy Award. DGG ( talk ) 03:58, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
General concept of whether there should be an article
...
Basic principle from WP:N--passing the GNG does not guarantee an article if it is more appropriate as a section in another article. And there of many other factors for whether an articles should be made: for example, avoiding the appearance of promotionalism or over-emphasis or just plain COI. The way to avoid these for someone notable for a single accomplishment/book/organization is whether to make the article on the accomplishment/book/organization or the person. (I usually see it for books and authors). If an author has written several notable but not famous books, I usually suggest that author, with sections for the books, which can be expanded if they're highly notable. If an author has one, I usuAlly recommend doing it on the person also, because if one books is successful, they are likely to write others. But if the book is much better known, which a first book may well be, then the book. This is a case where the restaurant is the better known. If you wrote one on the author also, it would duplicate much of the material, because you'd have to explain something about the restaurant. Such duplication looks like promotionalism, & can attract negative attention. If one just linked that part, the article would seem too scanty even if technically justifiable, and thus attract unfavorable attention.
Since there are many people here who can make a negative case against anything, and some who have a prejudice against any particular class of article or subject field, the best thing is to not attract them. I deprecate the GNG altogether--for any disputed article I can argue either way whether any reference is substantially about the subject, whether it is truly independent, whether it is based on PR, whether it is in essence a true 3rd party source. I choose which way to argue based on the result I think will help the encyclopedia (by which I of course mean my vision of what will help the encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 00:51, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
general response on Orangemoody socks
The difficult problem is is how to handle potential articles on the people & companies who have been exploited by the undeclared page editors. Most of the time, the problem does not arise: For orangemoody, 5% at most were likely to be notable ; in previous editing rings, the percentage has ranged from 10% all the way down to zero, depending on the general subject area. Aside from these large rings, there has also been use of undeclared paid editing by actually notable business concerns, sometimes with existing articles--most of the time, they knew very well what they were doing was deceitful, even before the clarification in our terms of service. In any case, I really do not see how anyone can ever have deluded themselves that paying to have an article written about themselves in an encycopedia was ethical, or that any respectable encycopedia would have staff who would accept such payment. True, a great many of those exploited did in perfect honesty not fact realize we were other than an advertising medium; some of the fault for this is in the promotion-ridden commercialized nature of society, but some is in our own lax prior practices.
In those cases where a subject is actually highly notable, I think the only reasonable solution is for someone here to write an article in the ordinary way. In most cases, I would advocate waiting at least 6 or 12 months, to avoid giving the impression that we do not remove paid articles. If someone is borderline notable, it as always will depend if anyone is interested, but my personal inclination is that I have other priorities: the truly notable subjects that are not covered. A practical question is whether the deleted material can be furnished to reliable editors prepared to rewrite. I think this would be subject to discretion, and anyone doing this needs to check that the material is not simply reinserted in altered form. (It would actually be a violation of copyright to do that without giving proper attribution to the paid editor!)
If someone else submits obvious coi material without a declaration of coi, the priority is to check for another member of the ring of sockpuppets, not to see if we can have the article. This is best done by one of the admins at spi; one of the main reasons I became an admin was to check deleted material. For articles written with a coi, deleting is more likely to be needed than rescuing.
...
Several of the checkusers have worked with these in detail, and they're the experts in this in general. But those of us who work with particular types of subjects gain special experience at recognizing problems with them. There have been , and will be, other rings, tho so far some of the Orangemoody techniques are thankfully unique. The attempt at promotional articles will always be a problem , if we retain open editing and anonymous users. The problem intensifies as the RW importance of getting a WP page increases. All we can do is try to reduce a combination of various means to try and reduce the impact. One key step has been taken: the current terms of use, and the general recognition here that they are enforceable policy. There are a variety of other possibilities, and I'd expect everything anyone can think of to be considered. One key change requires no change in written policy, and is a matter of outr individual attitudes: to interpret the notability requirements much more strictly in susceptible fields. There are some areas where we should stop accepting borderline articles if they show signs of promotionalism or promotional intent or possible sockpuppettry. So I argue at AfDs, and the position is often supported. I therefore do not agree with 75.'s efforts at trying to rescue such articles--they are better simply gotten rid of. The time spent in trying to fix them is counterproductive in two ways: it encourages the promotional editors, and it prevents us doing more useful work, such as writing the hundreds of thousands of needed articles on notable people, or maintaining the articles we have already. (I shared 75'a attitude for several years when I first came here, but with the rise in promotionalism my priority is now the opposite, and least in some subjects--including even some of my favorite fields.) The time spent on this article, and one lower down on the page in the last week or so, has made me resolve that I will no longer help promotional editors, unless the subject is so famous I'd write the article myself. DGG ( talk ) 01:28, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth
David, I just wanted to say that you are one of the biggest disappointments of this extremely disappointing ArbCom class. Resign. Carrite (talk) 01:25, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Carrite (talk·contribs): Perhaps you mean that I should have done more. While I have discovered I can not do as much as I intended, I think I'm accomplishing more than if I had left the committee. But if you mean that my effect has been a net negative, I think I have come to understand the problems we are faced with better than you do. DGG ( talk ) 06:13, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Question
Hey Dave, I wanted to know if you've ever been at the edge of retiring or ever thought of it? Considering you've been here for almost ten years as have I, there must've been times you had the impulse of retiring. I ask because I certainly have come and go in that time and although I sincerely appreciate this website and its concept (and I get hooked in periods here and there as I have recently, I always get walled by some eventual drama), the unnecessary and tiring drama simply seems to be unavoidable sometimes. Frankly, I think the fact several people have serious health troubles affects this sometimes especially if it's mental and psychological. Cheers, SwisterTwistertalk05:00, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I never thought I'd say it, but I find that I am considerably more reluctant each day to start editing WP. In general the inevitable frustration of the way this system necessarily works can be dealt with by moving from one area to another, but I may be beginning to feel that I've done as much here as I can. Perhaps the fault is arb com, where the public work is frustrating for we almost never actually solve any problem (at least, nothing we've done this year has helped much), and the private discussions which are the bulk of the actual work are not just frustrating but distinctly unpleasant for me, as I generally find myself in a very small minority--I had not realized the extent of the focus on narrow legalism rather than substance. I only remain on the committee in the hope that the new arbs will be more willing to think in terms of benefit to the encycopedia, not in terms of what people "deserve." Of all the places in WP where IAR has a role, it is most relevant to the work of the committee, which has much greater powers of discretion than any individual admin. I suppose having said this much, I should emphasize that personally, I very much like every one of them whom I know--they're much more human outside the committee. DGG ( talk ) 21:26, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if it is wiki-kosher for arbs to name specific usernames, that they would like as new arbs, but if so, please write up a voterguide, DGG. Or if you prefer, just toss out the names you had in mind, or even, the generic criteria that you are looking for. I too would like to see more IAR on the committee, although I also like the arbcom folks I'm familiar with, present company very much included. But it is a hard and thankless job. ( I will contradict my own flat statement by saying, thanks for doing what you can, it is appreciated.) In particular, nobody wants to do the arbcom thing; it is a huge timesink to run, and like a super-RfA tends to attract mostly new critics and little praise. Even if you "win" you tend to be the focus-point of much angst and many complaints. Point being, DGG, if you are permitted by your wiki-honour to urge people to run, that you think would be good arbs, in whatever fashion, please do so. Same goes for your compadres, if you can ask that they speak out. There are some folks already announcing candidacies at WP:ACE2015/C, but Yunshui just retired, and none of the arbs up for re-election have yet put forth their names. Because it has been such a hard year, this is an important arb-election methinks. Best, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 16:34, 8 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Precious again
Precious again, your not supporting to lose the valuable admin service of Yngvadottir!
Hey DGG, I was wondering about that article cleanup you wanted me to help with. I know you were going to send me an e-mail giving me examples of what needed to be changed, but I don't think I ever got it. I was wondering if you still wanted me to do it or not. It'll likely have to wait until after school lets out, since I remember you saying it was going to be pretty time consuming. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)10:42, 14 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
FeatherPluma, thanks for picking up on it--all I did was repeatedly decline to delete by G13 in the hope someone would see it. I'd be very interested to know how you spotted it because one of our recurrent problems with AfC is how to get the drafts worked on by other than the original editors. DGG ( talk ) 00:01, 16 November 2015 (UTC) DGG ( talk ) 09:11, 19 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would also be curious to know the answer to how FeatherPluma found this topic. There are three ways to get drafts worked on by people other than the original editors:
Attract other long-haul wikipedians to work the AfC queue, by making the work more attractive (tried and failed... long-haul people who wanna work AfC already know where to find it)
Change the AfC-submission template, so that as soon as the author clicks 'submit' ... or even before they click submit ... they can see a selection of other articles sitting in the AfC queue, and the usernames of the authors/originators associated with those other AfC articles. The template could explicitly suggest helping other good-faith wikipedians in the queue, by saying something like "Thank you for submitting your article to be reviewed! The queue is currently N days and NNN articles long. While you are waiting, you can help other people in the queue improve *their* articles, if you like -- this would be very WP:NICE of you, and might even speed up the queue." This method is a slight variation on how User:Anne_Delong got started as a wikipedian, so it might even work, although of course there will be some aspect of the blind-leading-the-blind.
Something a bit more risky: mainspace anything that ought to be an article, regardless of the current state of the prose and the refs, then undelete it per IAR, when the inevitable insta-deletion occurs (N.B. this method only works if you are a sitting arb with the heft to make your undeletions per WP:ILIKEIT actually stick :-)
User:Kudpung also has put forth the option, of merging NPP with AfC, so as to automagically have the NPP folks help with tagging/rating/patrolling/etc the draftspace articles; whether this counts as "getting the drafts worked on" will partly depend upon the definition of "work" one opts to utilize. Certainly it would bring more *eyeballs* to draftspace generally and the AfC subset thereof specifically. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 23:09, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There are lots of things that haven't been tried yet. One more thing that could be done to attract people to drafts would be to alter the search engine software so that if someone typed "Son of Foo", and there was no article, but there was "Draft:Son of Foo", then instead of saying "You can start the Son of Foo article, it would say "You can improve Draft:Son of Foo and help it become an article" or some such. Or how about a "Today's abandoned draft for improvement"? And there are more ideas at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Abandoned Drafts. But if you are going to suggest that editors improve each other's drafts, I would not make it automatic, but have a template that reviewers and Teahouse hosts could selectively drop on the talk pages of editors who appear to have made a good start - maybe to this page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Submissions/List.—Anne Delong (talk) 01:27, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, DGG. I was reading the page of Case Western Reserve University, and it seems to me that it's getting to be more like a promotional webpage than an encyclopedia article. Since you work with a lot of these types of subjects, maybe you can tell me if it's appropriate to include noted alumni in the lead, and a long list of academic rankings. I also don't understand the section called Undergraduate Profile. Am I just getting too fussy?—Anne Delong (talk) 10:42, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Almost all university pages in WP are similar to PR. There are two types: when the whole thing is an integrated PR effort, or -- like here -- where particularly PR-like sections are added to specific parts of an acceptable basic skeleton. And a third type, where either the central PR or the PR forthe individual unitshave tried to write separation pages for everything possible. There was one university which tried to write an article for the expanded quonset hut they used for a placement center. & another for the building where they stored the maintenance equipment. Enthusiastic students can do just as bad, but they do it differently:I;veseen articles for individual floors in a residence hall, and I think once for an individual suite.
It is normal to include the 2 or 3 most famous alumni in the lede--the appropriate standard I think is world famous. That they put the computer entrepreneurs there instead of the Nobel laureates says something about priorities. The academic rankings, alas, are standard. At least they're in the proper location, near the bottom. I did some tinkering, but I've seen worse. If I fixed them all, I could do nothing else. DGG ( talk ) 17:18, 18 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG. In your detailed assessment of the acceptability of the article on Rhonda Patrick, you tell us "There is an unfortunate undercoverage of notable women scientists, and there are thousands of notable ones to include. We should fill this by starting from the most notable." Can you share with us at least a few of the names (or direct us to pertinent sources) as we are currently engaged in a virtual editathon on women in science. It is not unreasonable to expect at least a thousand new start-class articles on women scientists over the next few weeks or months. If you wish, you can add red links to Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Red/Women science and technology. If not, simply list names here or on my talk page.--Ipigott (talk) 11:09, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I agree this should be done. I am not sure I have time to do it. I can provide some guidelines for anyone wanting to do it. Note that they apply to women academics in general, not just scientists. I do not make a differentiation here in what I work on & perhaps you might want to consider this also.
(1) anyone who is president of a major college or university is notable. There are some obvious colleges to check here. tho some had male presidents in the past, and a few of the most impt seem to be done already. Checking a few, Simmons hasn't been done.
(2) Anyone in the Institute of Medicine or National Academy of Sciences or NAEngineering is notable. There should be a number in the IOM and NAS at least, who may not yet have been covered.
(3) All people in all distinguished named chairs are always notable. The lists in some appropriate colleges should be checked,
(4) Though it isn't a formal rule, essentially all full professors at a major university have in the past been held notable-- except in some traditionally female-dominated fields such as home economics or education or librarianship. I consider this a major inequity, and an indication of true bias at WP. I'm prepared to defend any article on anyone in such a position. I've lost some of these debates in the past. I hope things have changed. Please let me know of any challenged articles here, because this part is a high priority for me. I'm going to revisit the afds I lost in the past.
(5). There a problem with the first women in X field in Y place. It's fine if X and Y are big enough. The first women chemist in a country, for example. If it's the first women faculty member in synthetic inorganic chemistry in a particular state college, then it's not so obvious.
(6). Academics are easy to screen , because there is a formal internal hierarchy. Grad students are almost never notable, post docs very rarely, asst. professors usually not, associate professors usually not tho I disagree with the consensus here and thing they should be, and full, almost always.
(7)In fields where books show academic notability, WP:AUTHOR can be a very useful & flexible criterion.
Thanks for these guidelines. I had the impression from your earlier comments that you had some specific names in mind. I see now that I was mistaken. Rather than spending your time on examining the notability of red links, I think it would be much more useful if you could add a few names to the red links on scientists -- or indeed any other of the categories listed under Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Women in Red/Tasks. Maybe you would even like to create one or two new articles yourself? It would be great if you could join the current editathon with at least one article based on your notability criteria.--Ipigott (talk) 21:52, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
They are not my notability criteria -- they are my advice about what has been found to happen here in hundreds of afd discussions to be notable. The advice, as all my advice, is very conservative: it represents what should be safely notable and not challenged, not what might be possibly found notable in a particular discussion by strength of argument or chance of participation. My advice, not limited to this subject, is that people working on these projects should start out be choosing safe subjects, to avoid having a disappointing first experience. With sufficient experience, one can then try to stretch the boundaries a little -- but if one does that, one should be prepared to lose the argument without getting angry about it, or taking it as a lack of understanding on the part of the other participants. AfD can be unpredictable, and my predictive accuracy is not perfect, even when I know I'm right. When I know I'm testing to see if consensus has changed, I pick a point where I expect to succeed about 2/3 the time. To work here, one has to accept that not everything will go as it ought to.
If the question is what I think WP should include, that's another matter entirely.
Almost since my start here eight years ago, I do not generally write articles I want to, but rather on those which need rescue. As you can see from this page, so many people ask for help with their problems that this is my priority. (And it's where I can be most helpful--I'm not particularly creative, but I do know how to fix things.) At projects such as editathons, what I prefer to do is to check that what people are writing is OK; I do it in person in NYC, and I'll do it here for anyone who asks me. Everyone here works on what they want to, and that is what I've chosen. DGG ( talk ) 06:55, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
New users, drafts, and thanks
I am researching the effect of welcoming new users. Thus there are a lot of User talk: pages I created on my watchlist. It is a little depressing to see so many of them coming through with their drafts being deleted G13 six months after they join - but your messages that drafts have been accepted is a ray of sunshine. Thanks for that!
I believe there should be a sensible balance between deletion and creation of articles which balanced. What is your opinion about requiring an article historically kepted through AfD to undergo a DRV process before renomination as well? Valoemtalkcontrib02:33, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
excess bureaucracy. It is already well established that there has to be a reasonable time between nominations, and that thistime increases after successive keeps. We haven't been able to mandate specific months or years, but we no longer seethe 6 or 7 times repeated attempts to delete an article we did when I joined. consensus can and does change, and afds are where the action is. What they need for fairer & more consistent decisions is more participation, and that's what we should focus on. If you are referring to Fastwalkers, I don'rt see it was kept by previous afds. The recent one is the first. If you have some other article in mind, what article is that? DGG ( talk ) 06:52, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It was something I noticed in general not related with Fastwalkers. I believe certain situations which require deleted articles to go through DRV, should apply to kept articles as well. It was a question I pondered when I read Emijrp's sum of human knowledge which calculates that there are at least 104 million notable articles that should exist here, we are at a mere 5 million. The reason is the flaw of human nature inherent in us all. While we are all here to built an encyclopedia we are also here to ensure our views prevail, after all, ego is unavoidable. The degree which we suffer varies. Some people become defensive to the point they refuse to admit a mistake was made, protect their views knowing it is incorrect, find petty reasons to maintain it and then mobbing, as you eloquently put it, occurs. There are those who edit to expressive themselves by content creation and others through content deletion and much like defense and offense in combat, defense (being reactive) has its advantages. If the growth of Wikipedia is to be maintained policy needs to favor content creation and entice new editors.
Right now, policy favors deletion and impends the rate of content creation. It may take a hundred editors to create an article, but only one to delete it. To combat this, policy should be changed to favor inclusion. AfD by nature favors deletion, modifying policies to slightly favor inclusion brings natural balance. Requiring a DRV process for renomiation seems like a sensible start we could avoid situations like OpEdNews where a single editor refuses to admit error and attempts to have content removed perhaps in hopes previous participants are occupied elsewhere.
Another idea is to make AfD closure numerically based. For example, we could require a minimum amount of participation from established editors before discussion is valid. The AfD nominator's opinion should accounted and their vote discounted, after all he is looking for the agreement of others, this prevents articles with little to no discussion from being deleted. This of course should not apply to promotional or vanity articles, but NPOV articles with secondary sources. Fewer the participants means higher probability of missed sources and errors. Perhaps a new close called lack of discussion which defaults to keep could be included and applied to articles which have secondary sources. Of course discretion should be applied in exceptional cases. In the end, numbers don't lie, minimum AfD participation requirements could partially remove human bias and error. Valoemtalkcontrib08:27, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the main/sub-article relationship project
I wanted to look up some h-indexs for professors on Google Scholar, what is the general recommend level for notability and how would I do this using google scholar? Valoemtalkcontrib21:35, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Look for their name in the form "FM Last", not their full name. The results will be in approximate descending order by the number of citations. Sort out those references that are to web sites, non-academic journals, newspaper articles, and the like. Th h index is the highest number where are that many papers with that least that many citations: r.g., if the counts as typical for a probably not notable biomedical scientist, are:
40, 35, 33, 30, 29, 27, 26, 25, 24, 22, 21, 21, 20, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13,12, 12, 12, 11, 10, 8, 5, ....... their h=16, because there are 16 papers that have been cited 16 times or more. I report these counts saying just that italicized phrase, rather than report it as an index ,because it is clearer in words..
But the h index can be deceptive. Consider another biomedical scientist, almost certainly notable:
190, 180, 170, 60, 30, 10 , 5, 5, 4, 3 .... . For them, the h=6.
But which is the more notable? The h index emphasises doing a great deal of not very important work, over people who do a smaller amont of extremely important work. DGG ( talk ) 23:04, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Button makers
Hey, because of L. Nichols Buttons AfD, I was wondering, "Does Wikipedia actually have any button makers of notability?" I didn't find anything, but I keep thinking that that can't be right! Thanks! --MurderByDeletionism"bang!"01:26, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There should be sources. It was in the NYC garment trade a distinctly separate industry. There are probably sources on historic manufacturers also. But in checking, beware: most of the material I can find on WorldCat is about political pin-on buttons, not buttons fro garments, and most of the rest about buttons for military uniforms. But see: Newberger, Edward Louis. The Button Industry in the United States. Haworth, N.J.: St. Johann Press, 1998. and Jones, W. Unite. The Button Industry. London: Sir I. Pitman & Sons, 1924. DGG ( talk ) 02:22, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In the NYC trade, the firms were mostly very small; I think it quite possible that none were notable. I have no knowledge elsewhere. Nut has several dozen elevant books listed in addition to the oes I already identified, in particular Jones, Nora Owens, and Edith Mattison Fuoss. Black Glass Buttons. Ypsilanti, Mich: University lithoprinters, 1945. DGG ( talk ) 19:55, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is a fascinating and worthwhile topic. While a modern invention such as zippers will tend to have notable manufacturers associated with the project -- see, e.g., the Wikipedia article on the YKK Group -- the button is one of those objects that's long been so familiar that its history is obscure. Important button makers do pop up in conjunction with subjects that are notable for other reasons or as an incidental mention in a larger discussion; for instance, the button makers of Birmingham are mentioned in the article on Matthew Boulton, while the button making industry of Muscatine, Iowa is discussed in the page on that town, and the storied royal button maker Firmin & Sons has its own page, even if buttons get only a brief mention. (For more background on Firmin & buttons, check out its website [8]. However, one could argue that separate pages could be made for companies or regional button-making industries such as these due to their significant historical impact; the Birmingham button makers were recently the subject of a book by economist George Selgin -- Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage, 1775-1821; the Arcadia Images of America series has a well-researched book on Muscatine's Pearl Button Industry; and Slate had a nice general overview of other key developments [9] Maybe the folks at The Button Room museum, the National Button Society, or the British Button Society would be interested in buttressing the button history here, assuming they have access to even more research. In the meantime, I'm going to see if I can dig a little deeper on L. Nichols. Fashionethics (talk) 01:35, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
What is your opinion with chiropractics coverage? This technique is the third most common in this field. I do agree a chiropractics is a form of quackery, but should be have some coverage on major techniques. I think this passes our GNG guidelines, but some editors deny the use of sources from within the field, what is your opinions on this? Valoemtalkcontrib13:17, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I got the impression you may be familiar with the McKinsey Quarterly and I know you are also interested in several related topics (self-citation COI, improving business pages, etc.), so I thought I would bring this RSN post to your attention in case you were interested and/or had an expert contribution to the topic. David King, Ethical Wiki (Talk) 17:02, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I never knew it existed until this moment, but I'll look at the discussion. (I just read some of the articles, which seem excellent; their greatest virtue is clarity.) DGG ( talk ) 19:24, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The "Articles" tend to focus on McKinsey's recommendations ("China should do XYZ"). This is good information for current or prospective clients to see what type of recommendations they make, but I don't think it is appropriate for Wikipedia and as an involved party in their own recommendations, that's a bit primary. However, if you click "Download the Full Report," those usually have mountains of data deeper into the report about market sizes, global economy, demographics, etc. that I think could be useful in improving core business pages. I don't think it's overly boastful when McKinsey claims in the report to have collected the best available data on the subject - this is what they are known for. David King, Ethical Wiki (Talk) 01:51, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
subjective criteria and afd
hi david,
I hope this is an appropriate space to ask about how to improve an AfD(if not please let me know !), and also to clarify your viewpoint on what is surely a subjective criteria. in regards to a comment that you made about inclusion in a museum collection being a reasonable criteria for notability. the guidelines here dont make a distinction as to the merit of a particular museum or gallery. suffice to say that i mostly agree with your assessment of the particular institution in question,you fail to back your claim with a reasonable argument. please advise so i can best respond thank you!
I hope this is an appropriate space to ask about how to improve an AfD(if not please let me know !), and also to clarify your viewpoint on what is surely a subjective criteria. in regards to a comment that you made about inclusion in a museum collection being a reasonable criteria for notability. the guidelines here dont make a distinction as to the merit of a particular museum or gallery. suffice to say that i mostly agree with your assessment of the particular institution in question,you fail to back your claim with a reasonable argument. please advise so i can best respond thank you!
[[User:Etidorhpaunderground}}, sorry for overlooking this, but the only answer is that it has to be decided atthe discussion in each case. DGG ( talk ) 00:55, 26 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Involuntary celibacy (4th nomination)
... In addition to any particular prejudice against this particular topic, WP can show a remarkable degree of prejudice against some sexual topics. Like many individuals and organizations, WP's willingness to accept such things is in principle very broad, but in practice is limited to what people are familiar or comfortable with. DGG ( talk ) 05:43, 31 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Turns out the page curation tool already picks up articles that become redirects. Not sure how, but I did some tests, and it works. This means they will appear in Special:NewPagesFeed. Now all we have to do is tackle that 1000+ page backlog :) — MusikAnimaltalk05:16, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Inclusion in a research presentation
Hi DGG. I've been building robust measures of productivity for Wikipedia editors. I'd like to use your edit history as an example when demonstrating the measures. See my write-up of the general measurement strategy here: m:Research:Measuring edit productivity. See my notes on your productivity here: m:Research_talk:Measuring_edit_productivity/Work_log/2016-01-18. TL;DR: It looks like your contributions to Wikipedia have been consistent since 2006. This stands in contrast to the bursty activity of me and Jimbo Wales. You've also contributed several orders of magnitude more productive content than I have (2.5 million vs. 17k "persisting words"). ;)
EpochFailCertainly you can include it. I note that when I retired from Princeton & LIU as a librarian, I discovered Wikipedia, and after a few months experience, consciously determined to make a consistent almost full-time effort. There are others in similar positions. For some of us in my age group, various life factors have caused periods of inactivity, but that has not happened to me. Anecdotally, I've seen that for some of our members in the 30s to 50s, periods of their activity in WP have coincided with periods of their unemployment. Analogously, it's long been known to librarians that increased library use is seen during periods of economic depression.
I have one question that is not clear from your graphs: is your data coming only from Article space? I ask because I would have thought that more of my activity in recent years has been elsewhere. And I am only 98th in the count of WPedians by number of edits. My rank in that table has risen only very slowly over the years DGG ( talk ) 21:59, 19 January 2016 (UTC) which would confirm your hypothesis that the other highly active editors are also consistently active. DGG ( talk ) 21:59, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I'm only looking at article space, but I would imagine that your work on drafts would eventually lead toward article space. Generally, measuring productive contribution outside of articles is very difficult, but something that I hope we'll have some good new thoughts about. E.g. productivity on templates may be related to template usage. Talk page productivity would be much more difficult to track, but I imagine that we can at least flag obviously unproductive discussion posts automatically using machine learning and natural language processing.
for Drafts, when I accept an article that needs fixing, sometimes I make my edits on the Draft and then move to mainspace, but equally often I will move to mainspace and fix it there (especially if I want to use visual editor, which I prefer for finding the correct internal links to add) DGG ( talk ) 01:40, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
G13 Eligibility Notice
The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.
...to be on the opposite side of a discussion from you, but it seems to keep happening recently! So here, have a thumbnail picture of a cup of tea, which apparently has some form of magical reconciliatory power :) Thparkth (talk)19:45, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, it looks like the G13 thing is going like the prior G13 discussions so I say we think up something new. What about a draftprod idea? It's suggested. It's not a speedy but it'll clear MFD through a different process and I think it can cover most people's concerns. Something like "any userspace or draftspace draft of an article that hasn't been edited in six months where the creator hasn't made an edited in the last year can be proposed for deletion if after seven days an admin determines that the draft has no likelihood of becoming an article." Any draft can be obviously removed by anyone and there's MFD then. Just off the top of my head but one year is WP:STALEDRAFT so maybe one year not six months and make this part of the STALE deletion process. I'm not sure where this complexity of 'what is a draft' is coming from but that's the only problem I'm still seeing. It's enough multiple parts here but we can suggest the idea first and then do a separate exceedingly complicated broken up RFC to offer the idea. What do you think? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:20, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Strike this whole idea. It's not necessary. MFD, while not ideal, I think could handle this. I may suggest it again if MFD becomes unmanageable. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:45, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In figuring out to do , we need to consider the purpose. There are three basic classes of material
1. Material that might significant contribute to a plausible article. In my opinion, this should never be deleted regardless of time, or whether the editor is active. What we need to do with these is to make findable. My main concern with these is to make sure that none of these get deleted. I've been spending half my time on that for a year now, and I would oppose anything that makes this harder.
2. Material that is abandoned but harmless, and will never make an article. There's been a lot of activity here lately--I regard this as a rather low priority. When we do clean up, it's more important to clean up the areas of Draft space and WT:AfC/ , which are joint-use non-private work areas, than Userspace or User talk space, which can accommodate a little harmless junk because it is not in the way. Cleaning up user/Usertalk space is in my mind an extremely low priority. The priority is in removing stuff that is harmful, and fixing what is erroneous or outdated. That probably amounts to at least 1 or 2 million articles.
3.Material that is harmful and shouldn't be here. The main types of that are advertising and copyvio. G11 & G12 is what we need here.
The main use of MfD for Draftspace is removing material that keeps getting resubmitted but will never make an article and isn't bad enough to be called G11.
The current attempt to remove variant incomplete article versions that do not contain harmful material is in my opinion unnecessary. It would be more important to check them to se if there is material there that would be useful in mainspace. DGG ( talk ) 03:40, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
G13 Eligibility Notice
The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.
not exactly. It has to meet the WP:GNG, as explained further at WP:CORPDEPTH, but any individual case is decided at WP:AFD according to the policy-based consensus of the Wikipedians present. The general view is that the GNG is not met by routine announcements and Press releases, but the interpretation of this is often disputed. I personally sometimes take a stricter requirement for this than does the consensus, and the consensus is what decides.
In the two cases you mention, Pure Storage is on the main board of the NYSE and therefore almost certainly willl be considered notable enough for an article; Stellar seems to have gotten a good deal of technical press about its algorithm, and would almost certainly qualify also. Both articles are however quite promotional , and in need of major improvements.
I see you have been trying to fix articles on some similar companies. I consider AppDynamics borderline; Shyp borderline at best though there is some recent material that might make me think otherwise; I listed Stripe (company) for AfD as not notable; Sidecar was never notable, but it did get some press; I'm going to try to merge it. DGG ( talk ) 22:54, 3 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for all that. I don't think Wiki should be naive. There is a certain cache about having your company written up in an encyclopedia, but I don't think Wiki should be used that way. Chisme (talk) 05:40, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My strategy in raising our standard, is that the key step is to deal with the material which clearly does not meet our current standard,and that will clearly be deleted at AfD. In my experience, AfD rather than policy pages is where the action is, because it's how we interpret the rules that makes the actual difference . Removing that raises our average, and we can also proceed with trying to convince the community to raise it further--that is best done by trying to see with a few AfDs just what the consensus is, and how fast it is changing. In arguing, I try to lead a little; in judging, I stay with the mainstream; in giving advice, I try just to say what the current practice is and try to emphasise that it is not I who makes the decisions. DGG ( talk ) 06:09, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I was at a business meeting in Silicon Valley a couple months ago as part of a freelance PR team. I was the writer. The subject of Wikipedia came up. "Can we get an article for our company?" This kind of thing goes on a lot. Wiki really ought to lay out criteria about when a company or business belongs and when it doesn't. Chisme (talk) 06:39, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes indeed, but Wikipedia goes by consensus, and unfortunately consensus has been to rely primarily on the GNG. I've been trying to convince people of the absurdity and inconsistency of this for 7 years now (my first year here I was naïve enough to believe in it). The way to do it is to argue in that direction at enough AfDs that people accept the idea. Perhaps it will only take a few years more. I'm a librarian--librarians think on that time scale. DGG ( talk ) 09:25, 4 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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Sir,
I was looking for a reference to Mangold Dangling, a long-standing game akin to human skittles enjoyed within the engineering community of the Royal Navy; I can see that there was an article which you deleted in 2012 as a hoax. The game exists (I can probably find some reference to it, or even pictures if I look hard enough), but do not wish the page to be deleted if I write a new page. Alternatively, is it possible for the old page to be restored (I do not know the process well enough)? Thanks, Jon F — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.89.130.70 (talk) 00:53, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In the beginning, I had a bit of a problem latching on to your concerns over "puffery" in the Gabor B. Racz article, but I think your efforts have finally paid off. To better understand the message you were sending me, I studied some of the articles you created and edited. I learn better with a hands-on approach. The first BLPs I reviewed made the lightbulb go on -Carl Joe Williams, Philip Needleman, H. Boyd Woodruff. By the time I got to Theodore Rappaport the light was much brighter and I saw exactly what you were trying to teach me. It appears as though other editors went in to that article and added all kinds of puffery and peacock words that I know you deplore, so I deleted them, and added citations needed templates as needed. Hopefully you will realize that I really am trying to learn to be the "encyclopedic" editor you envision from what your experiences have taught you. Thank you for helping me see the light. Atsme📞📧01:09, 17 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Very glad to have the help. But the process of improving articles is never complete. What you did at Rapport was quite good. But consider the need is for proportion: he's a IEEE Fellow, so he's very notable. But he's not a member of the National Academy of Engineering, or any comparable distinction, so he doesn't count as famous. The article is 2 or 3 times the length it should be, and minor material needs to be removed. And it wasn't "various people" who added the puffery, it was one particular promotional editor, with a lot of further tinkering from an ip. Now contrast Woodruff. He is in the NAS, and has received a further --and very exclusive--distinction. The article should be 4 times as long. It needs a more detailed personal bio, and some details about his work and probably a considerable number of other honors. Ditto with Needleman. Williams is OK in proportion, and has been added to appropriately, but needs a little more detail and clarity;
In my own editing, I usually do by successive rounds (tho sometimes i will remove whole sections), and there is so much to work on that I tend to leave an article to work another as soon as I've done the bare essentials. I don't generally recommend that, & I've been criticized for it, but we each have to figure out how we can be most effective. DGG ( talk ) 05:25, 17 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
DGG, I think the article is where it should be now. With collaboration from Derek R Bullamore, who is a citation fixer deluxe, the references/citations are fixed. I'd like to nominate Theodore Rappaport for GA promotion and would very much appreciate a PR from you as the article's creator if you wouldn't mind? Atsme📞📧15:17, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Further good work from both of you. But some more is needed: 1/ a little more bio: place of birth, high school, undergraduate degree, free photo if available 2/the books should be cited to worldcat, not to book dealers. Alternatively the {{isbn}} format template should be used 3/Strictly speaking each individual award needs a reference. But at least the list needs a link to his CV 5/ Many of the citations are a little defective., Press release sources should be minimized. Probably a single link to his cv would replace many of them. 6/the papers selected for citing merely show he worked in a field. They do not show he did significant work in a field. You can fix this by checking citations and listing them. DGG ( talk ) 17:45, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
DGG thank you. If it's ok with you, I'm going to copy your list of what still needs to be done over to the article TP with hopes of recruiting some help. I'm currently helping prepare another article for FA promotion, and as soon as I've completed that chore, I will start back on this one. Atsme📞📧22:36, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
IP keeps reverting
DGG - an unregistered IP keeps adding information about the history of wireless technology and promotional company material to Theodore Rappaport which is supposed to be a BLP. It's not unlike attempts to discuss surgical procedures and devices in a BLP about a doctor. There is no way for me to discuss the situation on the IP's talk page because there isn't one, [10]. Suggestions? BLPs fall under DS and I'm certainly not going to edit war with an IP who is proving to be problematic. Atsme📞📧04:04, 20 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
DGG - they're back and the added call numbers which I deleted thinking that's personal information not unlike adding somebody's phone number, right? I don't know if I should contact oversight or just advise you so you can redact the numbers. I'm concerned about posting the diff here but I think something needs to be done ASAP. Also, can you semi-protect the page so I can finish editing without worrying about personal information being added again? Thanks in advance. Atsme📞📧02:33, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Cyber Defense Labs 2
Why are you recommending a draft article that is under development for speedy deletion?
Draft_talk:Cyber_Defense_Labs
The entry on Microsoft is unambiguously self promotional, it includes content lifted directly for its investor reaction page. Firehouse (Armor) has an article in the main section that is obvious self promotional Armor, Inc. are you going to delete it for the main encyclopedia?
I'm trying to profile a group of companies that actually defend critical infrastructure, I'm not getting anything out off this. Why recommend for deletion from DRAFT SPACE!!!!! DrSchlagger (talk) 20:51, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note about professors
The section with this name on your user page may have a problem, or maybe it's just me. I think you may mean "not likely to be notable". I call it a typo, but am not willing to change it on my own, since it reverses the meaning of what you are saying. Lou Sander (talk) 03:08, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I said "People unfamiliar with the academic world may not realize that even a full professor at a major university is very likely to be notable" and indeed I do think that any full professor at a significant institution is very likely to be notable; I would say further than I think any full professor at a major research university is always notable. And in fact every one of them discussed at WP in the last 5 or 6 years has been found notable, with the exception of those in some special fields about which there is prejudice. Those at institutions less that major research universities, have sometimes been found not notable, but not all that often. DGG ( talk ) 04:19, 9 March 2016 (UTC) Was my wording unclear, or do you disagree? (perhaps there's some lack of clarity in the word "even" -- by which I mean that at ranks of assistant and associate professor, they in fact are not usually considered notable here.) DGG ( talk ) 04:19, 9 March 2016 (UTC) .[reply]
It was just me. I misread it, thinking that you said/meant "I thus sometimes delete..." Folks like me might benefit if you said "they thus sometimes delete..." IMHO it would also be clearer if the "even" were deleted. (But I'm just one guy out of the many who would read that paragraph.) Lou Sander (talk) 05:51, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Lou, I will rephrase accordingly.In generaly, the author is not the best guide to whether what he writes will be unambiguously understood. DGG ( talk ) 03:39, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG. I don’t mean to overtax your patience and goodwill, but I thought since you have contributed to Wikipedia:College and University article advice, you may have a natural interest in college pages. Here I have suggested a draft to replace a poorly-sourced and heavily tagged article. If you do get around to taking a look, it would be greatly appreciated and if not, I understand your time is limited.
Thank you very much.
Berenice at John Cabot University — Preceding unsigned comment added by Berenice at John Cabot University (talk • contribs) 16:50, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello David. I hope this reaches you. This is Kevin and we spoke at last weekend's Art+Feminism Wikipedia-thon at MOMA. You suggested that I notify you once I have a reasonable draft for the new proposed article on the artist Renee Radell. May I kindly request that you take at look at the draft page for Renee Radell? Please let me know what you think, how I might improve the article and whether is has merits for pubication. Thanks much! OtterNYC (talk) 02:32, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You have deleted the page I created 'Hull UK City of Culture 2017' and I am now unable to recreate it. Please can let me know why you deleted it and how I can reinstate it? I know some referencing still needed to be added but that was what I was planning on working on today!
It was an advertisement for the festival. and deleted not just by me, but by another administrator also. I have made it a redirect to the city, and you can add a short section there in the Festivals section--perhaps a single paragraph. Do not duplicate the material already at the appropriate section at the article UK City of Culture. And do not add the programme of the festival or puffery such as "The role of Hull 2017 is to galvanise local stakeholders to instil a shared vision for the city in 2018 and beyond" . DGG ( talk ) 16:02, 15 March 2016 (UT
The whole content of the article couldn't be considered to be an advertisement. The Hull UK City of Culture 2017 event is a year-long event that is taking place in 2017 and should be recognised with it's own article on Wikipedia similarly to Leeds and Reading Festivals etc. The entire programme of the festival has not been confirmed as yet but I was planning on updating the page once it was confirmed and I did include part of the programme strands. How do I go about reinstating the page and I will of course remove any promotional text regarding stakeholders etc as you suggest.
Hi David. I enjoyed our chat yesterday at the NYC meeting. Please remember to give me a call when you care to discuss business plans and how I might provide some help in that area. Cheers, Kevin — Preceding unsigned comment added by OtterNYC (talk • contribs) 16:06, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
Sorry I didn't "sign" my last post. Looking forward to hearing from you on my help with business plan reviews. Thanks! OtterNYC (talk) 22:22, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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Well this closed keep saying that it is "chemically notable." You never dealt with what I said - that the only reason people care about that chemical is its potential use as a drug. Never responded to that. And I find that to be just disrespectful. And with this "keep" based on your argument - which seemed to me to almost willfully ignore that key thing (the use of the chemical as a potential drug) - you have just shut down an effort I was about to undertake to clean up a particularly filthy part of Wikipedia - a whole slew of articles about putative "nootropic" compounds that people write shitty Wikipedia articles about as part of their online community - they make these chemicals or buy them from reagent companies and actually take them. I will walk away from that effort now. I just wrote this out of protest; I am not really looking for a response to let you know I am upset, but you can of course reply if you like. Perhaps there was some larger issue at stake for you as well. But still, your not responding to the core of my argument was frustrating for me. Jytdog (talk) 16:58, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are, as you say, quite a number of such articles, and most of them need editing. I would gladly work with you in improving this content if we could agree on the principles that apply. 1) All chemical compounds that have been not just reported once but discussed further are notable, and the discussions need not necessarily be in scientific articles. 2) MEDRS is irrelevant to the chemical portion of articles on actual or potential therapies. 3)MEDRS refers to claims that something is a therapy, not that something might be a possible therapy. Decent sources are still needed, but secondary reviews in the sense of MEDRS are not required. 4)What I would suggest does need cutting is the detail in many articles on the phase I trials, and possibly some of detail on the phase II trials 5) I see no reason to avoid covering substances in illicit use. This is an important application of NOT CENSORED (I would in fact think just the opposite, that we have an obligation to do so.) The "larger issue at stake" for me is indeed NOT CENSORED, and I consider it as a basic policy that over-rides any guideline, and that we only even consider conflicts when they are to other equally basic policies such as BLP or NOT INDISCRIMINATE (and, to some extent, the less basic parts of WP:NOT, such as NOT TABLOID and NOT NEWS) DGG ( talk ) 00:10, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Here is where I feel like you didn't read what I wrote. I didn't argue with you on the chemistry thing at all - not even at the AfD. I agree that primary sources are OK for chemistry - that is a "predictable art" as they say in patent law. The place where you and I really part ways, is the "possible use"/"potential therapies" aspect, which comes down to biology. "Possible" is how garbage happens in Wikipedia. "Possible" is what altmed shills, pharma drug rep shills, people trying to boost the stock of biotech companies, and nootropic knuckleheads, blah blah use to try to wedge garbage into Wikipedia. "Possible" is how almost every search result here happens. Garbage. It is not a matter of NOT CENSORED it is a matter of "accepted knowledge". In the biological sciences, a research paper is absolutely not accepted knowledge. The primary scientific literature in all sciences but especially in biology is where scientists talk to each other as they grope toward understanding. That is why reviews are particularly important for biological content in WP. They give us the best indication of what is "accepted knowledge" at any given time. On top of that, there are literally hundreds of research papers discussing, say, "potential" diagnostics for Alzheimers. Hundreds. How in the world do we decide which of those to discuss in Wikipedia? Should we rely on which university PR office does the best job shilling theirs? Ugh.
Related to that are issues of WEIGHT. By relying on secondary sources to guide us in discussions about weight (which is the letter and spirt of NPOV), we don't talk about every phase I trial of every drug or every potential therapeutic. The literature guides us, not personal preferences or external interests. It is essential for helping us keep the tidal wave of promotional garbage out of WP about health. And there is so, so much.
If you would be willing, I would be happy to talk - to listen actually - to try to hear the deeper logic under what you are saying. Because right now I don't get it at all, and what you are saying has terrible consequences for many, many articles, in my view. And I hope you would be willing to listen to me. Jytdog (talk) 02:22, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
From my userpage, written many years ago:
I have "an extremely strong opinion that the uninhibited free play of ideas is essential to a free society and to humanity in general. (I basically follow J.S. Mill in this.) ... I take pride in being what some call a First Amendment Absolutist, and I mean it in the literal sense. We are responsible for presenting information accurately and honestly, not for what people will do with it. The way to prevent them from interpreting it wrong, is to present it better, not to conceal it. If anyone thinks I have deviated from that position, I'd like to be told, so I can correct myself."
I am consequently very dubious about using MEDRS and related guidelines, such as FRINGE. They are needed because of the continuing assault against honest judgment by superstition and commercialism, but they should be used narrowly to clarify what is the accepted status of what is presented as knowledge. We must not use them to avoid covering a subject in all its aspects. The fundamental assumption behind the creation of a crowd-sourced encyclopedia is that all people are able to judge, if they are given information. They are even able to judge what is reliable information, if the background and the principles of judging are explained properly. It is then their individual responsibility to decide; it is not ours. Those of us who understand science do not have the right to decide which information to give: if we both know science and know how to present it, we will be understood correctly. That is the true meaning of WP:EXPERT. DGG ( talk ) 05:01, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
all i can say to that, is you are in great company with every tinfoil-hat wearing nut job who comes to Wikipedia. I can't believe you of all people play the "censorship" card. My god. Here is where, in my view, your perspective on this is not just a little, but profoundly unwikipedian. We are not a community of experts. We are a community of nobodies. It is not for you or me to judge that primary source over this one. We rely on the published literature to adjudicate as much as we can. That is what happens in reviews; which are essential for adjudicating the biomedical literature. The Wikipedia world you depict is a Mad Max one where anonymous editors duel based on their putative expertise. I don't want to edit in that Wikipedia, and I don't. Jytdog (talk) 05:18, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I also said on my user page, that among my biases was a
"distaste for quack anything: medicine, science, psychology, social science ... I often vote to keep articles on these subjects, because the advocates of orthodoxy here sometimes seem to be even less reasonable than the quacks--and because I think the best way to expose quacks is to let them state their views plainly." DGG ( talk ) 05:32, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am not saying you believe in quackery. I am saying that you are standing with the quacks. I have neither the time nor desire to debate with woo-pushers in Wikipedia. Applying high sourcing standards - what OR, NPOV, and VERIFY call us to do when we edit at our best - not only drives high quality content but provides a way to very quickly shunt aside woo-pushers' efforts to make Wikipedia into a Madmax world (both in content and in endless talk page battles) - and likewise helps us keep pharma reps from pumping up content about their drugs. Everybody wins when MEDRS is applied consistently to content about health, including - and especially including - "possible" applications of X. Everybody loses when we lower sourcing quality (including the content that is not generated when having endless debates with people trying push content based on low-quality sources). It is not about censorship at all. That is orthogonal to the heart of the issue. Jytdog (talk) 05:43, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What caused me to write that essay was my experience in working on the article on Intelligent Design. The people defending the ID side of things were defending it very weakly,not being aware of the sophistication of some of the modern proponents. I attempted to present these , in the classic model of WP:Writing for the enemy; arguments which are not at all that easy to refute with the usual high school-level of biology. I was accused of being a wolf in sheep's clothing, hypocritically pretending to be an proponent of science. Being new here, I decided it was hopeless and left the topic, and have not followed the argument since.
There are nonetheless several things I think we agree on: the necessity that you have just mentioned of writing good positive content, the overemphasis of early clinical trials (personally, I would attack first the problem of the notability of drug development firms that have never brought a product to stage III). I have learned in WP that people with quite different perspectives can nonetheless accomplish a good deal by simply working where their interests intersect, without necessarily ever coming to terms with the differences. DGG ( talk ) 08:07, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am completely with you on the ID thing. I made the effort to try to edit neutrally on the acupuncture article, which is a battleground between woo-pushers and woo-fighters and the resulting article is crappy. Acupuncture and some other alt med methods have actually become mainstream to help manage (help manage) otherwise unmanageable conditions, like cancer pain. Some of that is just ugly pandering by the medical establishment to make money, but some of it is evidence based; there is now decent evidence discussed in reviews and textbooks that some alt med methods help where standard medicine doesn't (mostly pain or nausea, where one would expect a placebo effect to play a big role....) but it is what it is. So no argument with that effort.
Anyway, I know that you have adjusted your thoughts about NOTABILITY in light of the promotional pressure that WP is under; in my view raising source quality accomplishes the same goal in articles that already exist, and should also be taken into account in deletion debates. That was why I was especially curious to see how you would respond on the AfD on this drug candidate. Anyway, I hear you desiring to move this to concrete discussion about actual content... I will suggest some things later today. Thanks for putting up with me. Jytdog (talk) 21:11, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
business plans follow up
Hello David. You must be terribly busy. Kindly recall our conversation about business plans last week at the NYC Chapter meeting. I am eager to be helpful on this as you see fit. I would also like to follow through with you on the Renee Radell draft if that is still the best approach. Please let me know if you are receiving my messages. All the best, Kevin OtterNYC (talk) 17:48, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
Nice to hear from you David. I was hoping you would reach out. You may have noticed that I had some suggestions from Jytdog about my draft (draft:Renee Radell) and he made a talk page for it. He thinks it has notability so if there is anything I can do to further the process, please advise. I could probably add some online links to some of the sources, since I have seen online archives at a few of the major publications. And, as you may remember, I have the hard copies of the original art reviews. Also, would like to connect on the business plan concepts we discussed a couple of weeks ago. You have my number and happy to provide it again if you send me an e-mail at ktrgeneral@gmail.com. Looking forward to our conversation. I will be working at home all weekend so feel free to call. Cheers, Kevin OtterNYC (talk) 03:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Need some advise about finding a source
Medical articles are not my strength and I usually deal in history, pop culture, computer science and general sciences and whatever I come across. I do not sign in as I do not wish to ever see my watchlist again. It has cost me thousands of hours of life and lost me income.
I am having trouble finding a review article (they are preferred but not required) that Jyt is asking for but can find plenty of other non-reactionary doctors and researchers opinions on the subject along with text books that have included the primary research results. Do I use a Request for Comment to draw in other eyes for a deeper source search or some other method? So the article is Talk:Diphenhydramine and you can see the edit history for current discussion. Thankyou for your advise. 97.85.173.38 (talk) 00:45, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to add strong content about anything in WP, but especially about health, you need a strong source. You want WP to say that this drug causes dementia, so you need a very strong source. I would have been happy to help you but you chose to argue with me. I am glad you are asking someone for help. That is a good thing. Jytdog (talk) 00:54, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say cause, and the source doesn't say that either I said "greatly increase the risk of developing". That wording is too strong and should be modified to "associated with a higher risk of dementia". And you started combativeness with weasel words and implications that I have no experience. Jytdog, this seems a bit stalkerish to come here to this page and insert yourself into this discussion. I didn't request your help here. 97.85.173.38 (talk) 01:03, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
jytdog did not come here in the expectation I'd endorse his position--there's some rather frank back-and-forth between the two of us a little above.
I'm quite a skeptic regarding the literature. I know it's been estimated most individual medical research papers are wrong. What I don't think MEDRS adequately recognizes that so are most critical reviews and consensus statements--this is very easy to prove: look at the last 30 or 40 yrs of consensus statements on diet, or blood pressure, or lipids, or anti-depresives. There is rarely reason to expect the current consensus will be better than prior ones. And medical textbooks have a unique style of writing: they typically include in their references everything , not just the material the authors think actually correct. I therefore think that MEDRS should be used in a more restricted manner, and that information based on multiple primary sources do have to be considered. I see no reason why medicine should be different from other fields, where a fair statement might be that no sources are wholly reliable, and , if used appropriately, no sources utterly useless. Mechanical rules for inclusion do not do justice with the very wide spectrum of reliability in almost any subject. What the spirit of MEDRS should be used for , is to a/eliminate the totally idiosyncratic reports, b/distinguish downright quackery c/ lead to proper use of qualifiers in wording. (That said, I think that wording alone cannot clarify adequately; I don't even pay attention to judgements not accompanied by actual numbers, and no numbers purporting to show probability without sample sizes and with an explicit basis for how the sample was taken. What is needed is numerical literacy--which fortunately can be found even among those who do not actually have training in formal mathematics. And wording alone is helpless against the tendency of people to interpret what read according to what they want to believe. what they want
Responses to pharmaceuticals, and in particular psychoactive pharmaceuticals have a tremendous variation. I'm not a physician, but in my experience good physicians in practice recognize this. Everyone has anecdotal reports, so there's no point adding my own to WP.
As for my actual opinion of the article, and my view that the efforts for exclusion of articles about nonstandard medicine of even the most absurd variety is an example of bias and prejudice and failure of NPOV. see the AfD. The best way of showing the true nature of this particular topic is to let its adherents speak for themselves. I didn't believe how ridiculous it was from the heavily censored WP article, under I read their own descriptions. Censorship is counterproductive, here and everywhere. QG, you wish people to read only what will do them good. This is paternalism and directly opposed to the spirit of NPOV and free inquiry. If you wish to express your biases ( a bias which in this case I happen to share quite firmly), it should not be on WP. To make clear my position on the subject, I and most other science editors left Citizendium in large part because those in charge they were insisting that Chiropractic was a valid branch of medicine. Fortunately, at WP nobody is in charge, and I will help defeat all attempts to use it even for the most wholesome promotionalism and propaganda. DGG ( talk ) 20:56, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen in a few places you've mentioned WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES (or the idea behind its practical use) as "the compromise". It sounds like there's some backstory there that I don't have.
To me, just seeing that description, it seems like the opposite of a compromise. In other words, who is it a compromise between? If it's between those who want to apply WP:N to school articles and those who do not -- or between those who believe sources always exist for schools and those who do not -- then it seems to fall squarely on one side. A huge number of AfD debates could go either way depending on participation and tenacity, but we don't say "this side is always right from now on" without there actually being consensus for a guideline to that effect doesn't sit right. Am I missing something? Maybe what I'm missing is just all the drama that led to the rule in the first place -- that if I went through that I, too, would breathe a sigh of relief even if a sort of IAR guideline-not-guideline was required? — Rhododendritestalk \\ 01:49, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
User_talk:Rhododendrites, it is a compromise between those who wanted all schools to be notable, primary schools included, and those who wanted to limit even secondary schools by whether or not there were practically findable references to meet the GNG guideline. Back in the days before the compromise when I was new here (2006-2008) , I and a few others routinely defended every elementary school article, on the basis that it was significant to the community, and that if one had access to the local sources, one could always find references significantly discussing the planning and construction and zoning of the school. Additionally, quite a few of even the primary schools had two or more notable alumni and these would usually lead to coverage also. the arguments over whether the references were substantial were dependent mainly on how hard people argued, and there were at that time some really radical broad inclusionists way beyond anything contemplated nowadays, who were willing to argue very hard indeed. There were, correspondingly, some very radical deletionists (or more exactly, narrow-inclusion proponents), who at times were defining substantial to mean that the subject had to be the main point of the reference, and unless two entire substantial magazine articles or books were written about a subject, we shouldn't cover it. The effort needed for arguing about a single school could mean hours of work for half a dozen people. AfD decisions those days were really erratic.
At that time, I felt WP should be very comprehensive with respect to local notability, partly because of the readers, partly because it was a good place for beginning writers. I changed my mind about this over the last few years, because too many local institution, both non-=profit and business, were being used for promotion, and I came to realize as I became more involved with paid editing problems, that this factor was the most important. (Schools are very easy to remove promotion from, without the need for actual rewriting, and the amount of vandalism there used to be ton those articles is much less with the edit filter.)
You see, Notability is deliberately not a policy, because we can really set the dividing line anywhere we please. We make the encyclopedia , we make the rules, we can include in it what ever there is consensus for. This is a new kind of encyclopedia , and we're not limited by what used to be the limits of paper,or the convention that an encyclopedia was mainly an academic reference. It doesn't much matter if we have articles on relatively trivial subjects, as long as we can keep out the really dangerous content, which is promotionalism and POV writing.
I do feel that using the GNG for a dividing line is absurd--it was a really stupid guideline in the first place, because it made inclusion depend upon the practical availability of certain particular kinds of references to the sort of writers we have. We are limited by Verifiability, and that gives an unavoidable bias in some areas, but we shouldn't add to it. I have always thought any rational meaning of notability is a function of the subject, not of the references.
I also feel that consistency matters: people should be able to predict what they are likely to find in the encyclopedia, both what type of subject, and what type of coverage. This is very difficult to achieve with our method of decision making, but fortunately the range of variation is smaller than it used to be. One of the reasons it matters is to give a impression that the encyclopedia is prepared by serious people who know what they're doing. There are other practical compromises of this sort. One is PROF, which as applied means we cover all full professors (Though rank is not part of the formal guideline, the decisions in practice follow the full vs. associate line very closely.) I think this is the wrong cut-off, and it should include all tenured faculty at universities, including the Associate professors. I could give along argument why, and in my early years here I gave a great many. I usually lost, however, and I decided it was more practical to make sure we did cover the notable full professors at least. And in practice we reached agreement on that, and consequently AfDs on researchers are quite predictable--and quite rare. In other fields too: I would include many more academic journals than we do, but again, I thought better to accept a median position where we predictably kept the ones in major indexes.
It is better to have a clean compromise rule than to argue. This goes at least for everything that is not a fundamental moral principle. The only policy here I consider truly of that nature is NOT CENSORED. DGG ( talk ) 05:15, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In short, Rhododendrites, notability for schools was in fact an idea originally seeded by our founder. Over the years, and even longer than the 7 years I've been a coordinator of the WP:WPSCH, this principle has been loosely applied as documented at OUTCOMES. There have been a geat many debates on the subject and even near-vandalism scale attempts to batch delete school articles through AfD. Neverteless, while not one single one of the debates reached a consensus one way or another, at AfD High Schools continue to be retained and non notable Primary Schools are redirected to their school district article or locality. In the meantime, as this is now supported by literally thousands of such closures, we can assume a tacit consensus for the current practice. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:36, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for taking the time to go into detail. I indeed misread what the "compromise" is/was between. This is a more well reasoned way of framing the position than I've seen lately, when arguments have been dominated by demands that tradition take precedence over notability guidelines without going much further than that. I see granting ~"inherent notability" to a subject as a huge deal -- and if there is consensus for it to be so, then it's crucial it exist in the form of a policy or guideline rather than as informal understanding or tradition (I'm sure we could get into a number of discussions about the merits and problems with rules vs. traditions in the context of Wikipedia...).
While some who were part of the conversations leading to the compromise (and others) take it for granted, many others (myself included) take for granted that notability applies to every article unless modified, qualified, or exempted through some other policy or guideline -- because that's how it works for almost everything else (I can't think of an exemption as broad as secondary schools that is likewise uncodified somewhere). I agree that it's important for notability to remain a guideline. There's too much variability, too much subjectivity, too many other guidelines that modify it, and too great a need for judgment in exceptional cases. But providing a broad, [practically] beyond discussion exemption is just the sort of thing guidelines like the subject-specific criteria are there for.
Having read a great number of arguments on the subject now, I think I'm sufficiently persuaded to fall on the "support" side of adding it to a guideline should it be proposed, but until that happens I still see it as highly problematic to point to a descriptive essay to shut down discussion, asking for it to be treated as a prescriptive guideline. That's why I appreciate your rationale here, because it's not simply presented as WP:OUTCOMES -- a collection of noted trends that perpetuate themselves by their being wielded as an absolute rule.
In other words, your points are well taken. The problem is WP:OUTCOMES. I can't imagine those who support the notability of schools find it an ideal representation of consensus on the subject, either. I feel like I get the compromise, but if good will among the community was part of the reason for it, I think that the further we get from the date of that agreement, the more conflict and confusion the present arrangement will generate. Based on the above, I'd suggest you be one of those involved in drafting whatever RfC would address the problem? (Adding high schools to the gazetteer function of Wikipedia or WP:ORG seems the most straightforward rather than a whole new guideline).
Hi DGG. I wanted to know why you removed the deletion nomination of Draft:De Paul School Brahmapur, Draft:GMERS Medical College and Draft:Government Engineering College Bharatpur. Please expand on what you believe what "notability" is. If there are no reliable sources available for the schools, obviously they aren't notable. Writing "it's the top school in ____" doesn't prove notability, either. I could go ahead and edit something like Steve Jobs and write "He was a good at fishing" but if it doesn't have a reference proving it's real, it doesn't matter whether he was the best at fishing or the absolute worst. I agree with one the essay on schools, where it says:
“
Individual schools are not inherently encyclopedic and there is nothing to distinguish insignificant schools like this one from thousands of nearly identical schools around the world. WP:NOT states "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of items of information. That something is 100% true does not mean it is suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia."
”
I'd like to know what you follow for the notability guidelines on schools. I don't mean to be rude, and you have been here longer than me, but don't remove a CSD G13 from an article which obviously doesn't have any future, unless you, yourself, edit it and fix it. Draft:De Paul School Brahmapur was last edited on 14 April 2013, just under 3 years ago. Draft:GMERS Medical College was last edited on 8 August 2015 or 29 May 2013, depending on what you define an edit being; either way it's been at least 11 months since the last edit. Draft:Government Engineering College Bharatpur was last edited on 2 January 2015, a year and a few months ago.
Thanks for reading all this, I hope I didn't come across harsh at all, I'd just like to know your reasoning. I'll be waiting for a response, I'm watching your talk page so no need to ping me (not stopping you, though). Anarchyte (work | talk)10:43, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
there are several questions here. For the reason why I think all high schools, and most certainly all colleges should be treated as notable ( see my response to Rhododendrites, a little above. Basically, it's to avoid arguing each of them. Similarly I would treat essentially all elementary schools as non-notable-- again, to avoid arguing each one of them.
Second, under G13, the draft is deleted only if nobody is working on it, but we normally define that as nobody being willing to work on it. I am willing to work on school articles, so I removed the G13. And in fact I added some material to all three of them today, though not much, and removed the puffery, as I always do from any article I work on. I do have a rather long list of drafts to work on, but I eventually get to them, or someone else does. But even at MfD, we normally do not drafts if they have any plausible possibility of making an article, unless they are harmful in some such way as being significantly promotional, or if multiple attempts to make an article have failed.
Since in the last five years very few high school or college articles has every been deleted on grounds of notability, I would even be justified in moving them to article space, since the criterion is merely that the article is likely to pass AfD. But I did not do that, because I like most of us at AfC do not move such weak drafts to article space. DGG ( talk ) 00:30, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As one of the most respected editors I know I hope you can take some time to join an important discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention about possibly finding a way to salvage Single-purpose editors and transforming them into positive WP collaborators in the general mainspace. I'm sure you run in to many of them as you wander around WP. I'm also sure that every now and then one of the SPA editors rises above the crowd and seems worthy of more of your time and effort. Your personal insight and experience would be appreciated. WP:WER has a declared mission to retain editors but we have become a relative ghost town (and I may be one of the few ghosts left in town) and User:Robert's idea may be just the boost the Project needs to revitalize. It's an opportunity for the Project to actually do something beyond handing out awards. I think Dennis Brown would like it. Please comment. Buster Seven Talk14:28, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG. I noticed you have been active in the AfD lately. I've proposed a new section to replace the former "accreditation" section on the Talk page, here. I think the proposal threads the needle of the various perspectives, including yours. Would you please have a look and comment there? thx. Jytdog (talk) 07:58, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
the most practical course is to merge to an article on the overall firm. I hope someone other than myself will do it. DGG ( talk ) 03:06, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi David. Just a heads-up that I have begun clean up of this article following the London College of Contemporary Arts discussion. The details are at Talk:London School of Business and Finance. As I imagine my revisions will not escape the notice of the owner's brand managers, you might want to put it on watch. In the end, I also created a separate article on the owner, Global University Systems, which you might also want to put on watch. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 09:51, 8 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
10:04:41, 16 May 2016 review of submission by Gillkay
Thanks DGG for reveiwing my draft. I have done a bit of wikipedia editing in the past, but this is my first article, which hopefully excuses my wordy style. I have edited the draft according to your suggestions. If I resubmit will it go to you? My first version was edited by CookieMonster755 and I thought when I submitted my second draft it would go back to him unless I requested otherwise (which I didn't). I don't really mind either way, but it would make sense that if I make changes according to a reveiwer's advice, that reveiwer would be the one to see if I had solved the problems.Gillkay (talk) 10:04, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Gillkay, WP has very little organization, Whoever wants to & has the necessary experience can review a draft; it usually goes at random--most people simply take the oldest one in the queue, some, like myself, look for specific types of articles (I specialize in academic people and organizations, and certain types of businesses & certain types of problem articles) I also, as in this case, look at any submission another reviewer asks me to check. This does indeed mean that you may get conflicting directions in successive reviews, but it increases the odds that at least one of the reviews will be correct.
The purpose of reviewing is only to screen out or get improved the articles that are unlikely to be accepted by the community after they are brought to article status; accepting an article when reviewing means nothing more than that the reviewer is of the opinion that the article is quite likely to be kept if brought to an WP:AFD discussion; unfortunately once more, the results of AfD discussions are not necessarily consistent or even always reasonable. Just like anyone can write articles, anyone can comment in a discussion. But the principle of WP is that it is not written (or controlled) by experts.
The error rate in reviewing is very high--I would estimate that at least 10% of both the acceptances and rejections are simply wrong; in addition, at least 20% of the reviews seem to concentrate on the wrong issues. Some of the most experienced reviewers, including myself, try to check on ones other people have reviewed, especially when we think a particular reviewer is not doing it right, and then we try to explain to the reviewer. If someone persists in doing things seriously wrong, they can be barred from reviewing. At present, most of the really problematic reviewers have been dealt with. Most of the wrongly accepted articles do get removed at AfD; the wrongly rejected ones where the disappointed authors go away and are lost to us are the real problems.
There is still some cleanup needed, but I will deal with it later today or tomorrow. You don't actually need to resubmit it DGG ( talk ) 16:00, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for explaining DGG. Learning gradually how this all works. Do I understand right that you can see my changes and will be telling me in a day or so about other changes I need to make?Gillkay (talk) 08:42, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
could you please help me with the African Library Project page?
Hi, a while ago you helped with making the African Library Project page more neutral. I made some changes. Then someone else suggested some specific changes, and I requested those edits, but no one has made them. I know you are a volunteer, and I appreciate that, but I am feeling a bit stuck, since it has been a long time. And just as a reminder, I am on the board so can't make the edits myself. Thanks very much.
DeborahWC (talk) 20:16, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that the Bot known as HasteurBot has slated North American Invasive Species Network, in the Articles for Creation queue, for G-13 deletion. Personally, I think this article is worth saving and intend to move it out into the mainspace so it doesn't get deleted.
I am thinking this is somehow a notable organization after perusing their website. The work they are doing is profound.
FYI, I discovered this by accident because I saw a G-13 section on your talk page via my watchlist, and was curious as to what G13 is.
Anyway, from prior experience I know that you can be helpful and flexible when it comes to notability if the subject seems to warrant meriting inclusion. So, if you wish to help in any way it would be much appreciated. Also, if this doesn't work, and the page has to be deleted - well, at least I tried.--- Steve Quinn (talk) 03:06, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Third opinion request
Greetings DGG: I'm writing to request a third opinion about commentary at this AfD discussion. I'm not asking you to !vote in the discussion, but I'd be interested in receiving your viewpoints inre the commentary there about source searching. Thanks again for all of your contributions to Wikipedia, North America100010:24, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion has now closed, but the question referred to the use of deletion rationals that do not include a literature search, where you and Voceditenore were arguing, essentially ( that it was necessary to follow WP:BEFORE, rather that use rationales like obviously not notable. Of course I basically agree--I've been suggesting for 8 years now that WP:BEFORE be made policy in discussing notability. But there are many caveats. Key ones include:
This applies to the overall process of nominating an article, not each individual argument. In a typical discussion some people will concentrate on the number or quality of sources, others on additional factors.
There are other reasons for deletion besides notability -- promotionalism, blp, NOT DIRECTORY, NOT TABLOID, not being a distinct topic from other articles, inherent POV of the topic, etc... In each of these there's the possibility that a literature search may enable us to correct the article, but sometimes the other factors are so strong as to make it unlikely. This is often true for some types of arguments: Borderline notability combined with clear promotionalism is good reason for deletion. Not meeting the special notability standards are good reasons for deletions. Even those can be overcome by really good discoverable sources, but for these types of articles there's no presumption that sources will exist if.
Some subjects are inherently unlikely to have accessible sources. As a matter of form I could do a literature search for saints in Eastern religions, but I know from experience that it is extraordinarily unlikely that there will be any that I am capable of finding. There are similarly unlikely to be sources for a scientist who is still a graduate student, or who has published very little. Exceptions exist, but only rarely. DGG ( talk ) 00:13, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the detailed reply, which is appreciated. Yes, a variety of various factors can come into play at AfD. I was just concerned because it appears that you are perhaps mentoring a user in some manner who participated in that discussion, in which they ping you to various AfD discussions. I've politely pointed out WP:NEXIST to the user before, but they seem to just ignore it. As such, I figured it would be prudent to bring the matter to your attention. Thanks again for your input here, North America100008:38, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! I'm reaching out to you because I know you work well with many people involved with AfD. I am concerned about the lack of WP:BEFORE going on at these AfD discussions ([12], [13], [14]) and others. The thread that seems to tie these together is that they are genre writers or foreign actors/writers. Is there anyway you can intervene and help the nom understand WP:BEFORE? I don't mind improving articles brought to AfD, but there's a lot of pressure involved when it's at AfD instead of just being tagged. Anyway, thank you in advance! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 01:19, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As I just said to the editor "Please in nominating authors and professors for deletion, remember to consider first if they may meet WP:AUTHOR and WP:PROF. It's very easy to use WorldCat to check for the importance of published books. " It is not really enough in these cases to do a cursory search of relevant databases. BEFORE is not a magic formula, but has to be used with clear understanding of where information is likely to be found. And then, if one finds some indication of importance, that should be followed up before nominating.
That said, I too sometimes make guesses, tho I would have to admit that it's an unfortunate shortcut, and I try to avoid the temptation to make them in unfamiliar fields. In the instances here, there does seem to have been a string of wrong guesses. DGG ( talk ) 04:20, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Megalibrarygirl and DGG, i sometimes get annoyed at the number of afds that end up as 'keep' as the subject is notable, especially as WP:AFD encourages nominators to carry out a number of checks before nominating. but as i was informed here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Peter Willcox, WP:BURDEN states "All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution", or in these cases, the article creator should have included approriate references, although we also have WP:CONTN ie. "Article content does not determine notability", it can all be very confusing. kitten stalker - meowr!Coolabahapple (talk) 08:27, 31 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree it can be confusing, Coolabahapple. DGG is right that not all searches are equal. Sometimes I don't find evidence of notability until I hit the right database. And it can be a guessing game where you have to balance a lot of factors. Perhaps itvwouk d help to continue to hold dialogue. I think it's very important for Wikipedia editors to be able to talk to one another. Sometimes AfD becomes a battleground. But we don't have to agree to start tslking and understanding each other. I appreciate your time here and I'll check my email shortly. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 17:04, 31 May 2016 (UTC)\[reply]
Thank you for replying, thank you for being an ArbCom member. I doubt I'll ever summon the courage, yes courage, to serve as an admin, much less an Arb, so there's that. A hero of mine just died, and life is short. Bless you, and yours, always. Jusdafax05:11, 4 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
While I did think on balance Gregory Levey was worth keeping, just, the point about an argument for deleting the other articles was exactly the point I was making. I suspect we are in furious agreement ?
Yes, Aoziwe, we are probably in agreement generally; No matter where we draw the line, there will be disputes about what side of the border something falls, and there are always some articles at afD which could reasonably go either way. Even werewe to make fixed rules, such as $ of revenue, there will still be cases where it would be reasonable to make an exception.
But we may not be in agreement about the relative importance of the different areas. The rule I go by. is that where there are good WPedians working on very detailed articles in a field I have no interest in, I see no reason to disturb them; what I ask is that they let others write detailed articles in fields that concern them,--in, particular, I of course mean fields that interest me. This especially holds with fields where the decisions are made in a rational and reproducible fashion. So for professional athletes, including jockeys , there are fairly good clear and widely accepted criteria; for asteroids also there are good criteria that call for listifying 99% of them; for music groups there's a very widely accepted simple standard of placement on accepted lists that I can accept as rational , even though I'd have placed the necessary level as higher. The problems come when we move from objective criteria like "fully professional team" to the GNG, where most sources can be considered as either substantial & reliable or as more notices and promotional depending on whether or not one wants to delete the article DGG ( talk ) 02:25, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I came across Brunswick Square (East Brunswick, New Jersey) during pages patrol. Looking for sources, there are trivial local news stories about a fire, needing an artist, and so on [16]. There is nothing notable there.
The article references do not appear to be related to the article. The first ref is broken anyway, but is supposed to be connected to "The International Council of Shopping Centers: New Brunswick". And one ref is supposed to be the list of stores at the mall, but it goes here: [17] (its a mix of page 404 and a link to a store). That ref would be really trivial anyway if it worked.
However, my biggest concern is the large template at the bottom of the page entitled: "Shopping malls in the New York metropolitan area". I believe the template is entitled: "New York City Malls", and yes here it is [18]. I count 89 malls - I might be off by a couple, but there it is. What can be done about this? The thing is, this shows that a number of people have no idea what Wikipedia is supposed to be. Steve Quinn (talk) 05:49, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The NY Metropolitan Area has 24 million people. I think the number of malls reasonable. Certainly for the ones in NYC proper, all those listed are clearly notable, except perhaps one, that I just nominated for deletion. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bricktown Center at Charleston If anything, the listing is conservative; O can think of at least one or two more. In the suburbs, I only know a few of the possible regions, so there are probably a few borderline one. As for this particular one, if you think it not notable, list it for afd.
Afds on malls have been toatally inconsistent. Some ears ago I tried to establish a basic standard of 1 million sq ft, (100,0000 sq. meters) for the ordinary type of suburban mall (downtown city ones are harder to specify---they are normally more compact. The proposal was rejected. I think the best way forward is to look for chains of malls, and see if we can combine them. Malls sometimes do define an areas--after all, perhaps the original purpose of a city was to have a protected market square. DGG ( talk ) 06:36, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Some time ago you commented on my article - A. Barkhudar. I tried to follow the comments, also applied for WP:DCM permission(I wrote a letter again and still waiting), but still rejected. It would be important to hear your opinion concerning the improvements. If there is a need I can reason about all the changes and tries to address your comments. Thank you in advance, hope to hear from you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nairabarkhudaryan (talk • contribs) 13:36, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nairabarkhudaryan (talk·contribs), I made a comment there explaining what is needed. I appreciate your efforts, and I will see what I can do myself to deal with the formatting--it may be easier to do it than to explain it. I may need to ask you for help with the Armenian test. Please give me a few days to get to it. DGG ( talk ) 15:08, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Could you please help me with this? I spent considerable time working on the page for Barbera Coffee Company. While I recognize that some of the content might have been the same as previously posted content, I never saw the page, nor did I have any knowledge about it having been discussed and removed previously.
I researched the material and made every effort to meet Wikipedia's requirements for notability. If you research, as I have already requested elsewhere, you would find that I'm not a highly active editor on this platform. I find it very confusing to work in. However, I am a serious writer, who would never waste your time if I could help it.
It begins to feel like Wikipedia editors are not willing to allow this company a page on Wikipedia because someone who came before me didn't know what they were doing--possibly the company themselves, especially as English isn't their first language. Could I please be given access to the previous discussion, so I can know how to resolve the issues and advise Barbera Coffee Company on how to meet your demands and that of other Wikipedia editors (if there are any).Writingasaghost (talk) 17:39, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I realize now, after some help from the help desk, that I broke a major rule when I failed to create a use page with the proper attribution for paid work. I wish someone would have told me this in the beginning when issues arose with the page. I've been floundering like an idiot.
I have rectified the failure to reveal the COI, now that I'm aware of the COI issue. If I read this over six years ago, I had forgotten it. Could I at least get the page back to draft status?Writingasaghost (talk) 05:26, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I notice that you have redirected my page about Belmond Eagle Island Lodge. I would like the chance to improve it, Please could you let me know why you believe it will 'inevitably be deleted' so I can make the appropriate updates to enable to page to be reinstated.
Speedy deletion nomination of Draft:Judith Donovan
Dear Graeme,
I have seen that Judith Donovan’s profile has been described as too promotional. She is an outstanding businesswoman, awarded a CBE (one of the highest Queen’s Honours) and has brought about real change and benefits to small businesses, especially in rural areas. We feel the public would expect her to be on Wikipedia?
Is there any way you could accept the profile if we were to edit with your guidance?
Johnyross00, I see her career on Google, and CBE is in fact considered notability, (but not OBE or MBE.) but I cannot find the draft article or the deleted article on Wikipedia. Were you the author? If I cannot find it to restore, I'll write a sketch myself. DGG ( talk ) 05:27, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Posted in 1 edit, this article is blatantly obviously created as a comissioned work and authored by someone with a perfect in-depth knowledge of article creation. I don't know what to do about it - f indeed anything can be done, but it's the kind of article that makes me want to give up volunteering my time and intelligence for Wikipedia. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:51, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just declined, so I listed it at AfD. If it does stay in, maybe we are helpless under current rules for what canbe investigated regarding COI. DGG ( talk ) 09:50, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I declined the speedy; It may well be a paid editor, but the article isn't unduly spammy, "editor is suspiciously familiar with Wikipedia" isn't a deletion criterion much as some would like it to be, and the notability standards for hotels & resorts on Wikipedia are historically extremely low. I find it hard to imagine any reason anyone would want to pay an editor to create this; I would hope that people looking to buy multi-million dollar houses on private islands aren't basing their decisions on Wikipedia. ‑ Iridescent09:57, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This sort of thing is a matter of judgment (which is why I think we might indeed need a way of investigating) I do agree with you about our standards for hotels, which except for the most famous, seem entirely inconsistent. DGG ( talk ) 10:02, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) You can hope, Iridescent, but I did not join Wikipediand spend literally thousands of hours on it to rub shoulders with this kind of obvious spam. We need to establish a clear policy to condemn this sort of thing, otherwise it will be the 'but other stiff like it exists' defense. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:04, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As you may remember from my getting my fingers burned last time I tried to clean up resortspam (I was accused of "being on a deletion spree" for daring to suggest this might not be notable, and some guy called DGG declined my deletion request for this piece of obvious spam) I have no love for substubs about resorts, but this is a very poor one to choose as a test case. Virgin Gorda only has a population of about 4000, so the construction of this resort is almost certainly the island's largest employer, and once it opens it will probably be the largest populated settlement on the island, since each of those 88 houses and all the shops are also going to require a support staff and if the resort is only accessible by helicopter or ship they're presumably all going to be living in barracks onsite. Thus, either the scheme will succeed and the article will need to be re-created as an article on a significant population centre, or it will fail and undoubtedly be notable as a high-profile ghost town and spectacular bankruptcy. The existing stub isn't unduly spammy and doesn't have any element of "we're great"; if we're going to make "creator has a potential conflict of interest" into a deletion criterion, we'd be deleting half of Wikipedia. ‑ Iridescent10:21, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That was in 2010. My attitude has changed with the growth of paid editing. I'm willing to sacrifice complete coverage to prevent it, because it's a danger to the very purpose of writing a NPOV encyclopedia, and a great discouragement to the volunteers we need to be attracting to survive at all. I don't think WP or any community project can really have static rules. For example, the need for accuracy is much higher now that journalists and other people whom we once relied on now use us as a resource. DGG ( talk ) 22:27, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Are you suggesting DGG that I was paid to start those London hotel stubs? The question is Iridescent, is are there enough sources to validate having those articles. And in most cases, actually, yes, they could be expanded into half decent entries. They should have been start as proper articles initially, I agree, but I think hotels typically get a hard time on wikipedia. There's a huge number of missing notable ones. Me personally, I prefer historic architecturally notable luxury hotels, not generic branches of popular chains, but at the time I felt like I was doing something useful to filling in a gaping hole in wiki's coverage of London hotels, so make no excuses for acting in good faith in starting them. Can San Domenico House be expanded into a better article? Chances are, yes, it could quite easily be expanded into something half credible. So why doesn't anybody do it? By all means, take a load of them to AFD and see how they fare. A quick look in google books tells me that San Domenico House is likely notable.♦ Dr. Blofeld19:42, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As I think you realize, the editor who thought it was spam was someone else. What I think is spam, and therefore suggested deletion, is Oil Nut Bay, which was written by a spa. I was explaining why in the past I might not have even bothered deleting such articles. I agree with you, Dr. Blofeld, that most luxury hotels are probably notable. But many of the current articles being written on such subjects are almost certainly paid editing. Opinion varies on whether we should fix them or delete them, and my attitude has switched to the second solution, for the same reason we usually delete articles by banned editors--as the only practical way to discourage the practice.
More generally, I've said many times that to try to distinguish by guessing from the nature of the article and the edit history is very rough work, and would be done much more precisely if we were able to know is suspicious instances who the editor actually is. How this can be done without compromising some of our basic principles is a very difficult question. DGG ( talk ) 21:03, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The problem we have is that companies and hotels/resort owners don't "own" articles on their subjects. Obviously we need stronger protection against shoddy COI editing and promotional spam as an encyclopedia, but if some PR operative of a firm is trying to get their mits on an article, or start it, I just disagree with the principle that just because the firm and PR are interested in having an article on their subject we must delete or block it at all costs to completely stamp out paid editing and people using wikipedia for commercial gain . There are really a lot of notable firms which are started by PR operatives or CEOs themselves which if started by any neutral editor would never get deleted or be seen as a problem. And the issue is that thse people don't own the articles. Anybody can blast a puff piece written by one of them to smithereens and write it neutrally from scratch and put it on a watchlist. Over time wikipedia is going to increasingly attract the promotional types who just don't get what wikipedia is about. So while I respect your traditionalist view of what an encyclopedia should contain, I don't agree that we should block all article subjects which might have self-interest from companies. What matters is that the article subjects are notable and neutral/reliable. If articles meets GNG and can be written neutrally and sources to reliable publications we should keep them and nurture them. What we really need is a (paid) department of full-time foundation employees here whose job it is to parole company articles, block out the spam from PR operatives and paid editors and edit them neutrally, retaining the articles for the good of knowledge, not because some CEO wants it.♦ Dr. Blofeld21:16, 16 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Opinion, obviously, varies. My own view is that the proportion of decent articles from such sources is so extremely low, that on balance we would improve WP by eliminating altogether if we could find an effective way to do so. But as we have not yet found a way, we have to remove on other grounds. Personally, I do make exceptions if the subject is highly notable and the article is truly satisfactory (which happens one time in a thousand) or the subject is highly notable a& it can be quickly fixed and someone is interested in doing so (one in a hundred) can be quickly fixed & someone is interested in doing it, but otherwise I will use whatever deletion process fits the circumstances. Additionally there is a difference between declared and undeclared COI. Undeclared COI , especially if paid editing, is a violation of the TOU, and according to WMF policy we are all responsible for enforcing it. We do not yet have this as a speedy criterion, possibly because of the difficulty in determining just who is violating it under existing practice. As any reason that has consensus is valid at AfD, and we need just convincing evidence not actual certainty, I would be considering using it as a reason; I know others have, and as a closing admin to accept a consensus to do so. As a first step, I would support retroactive deletion of articles started by blocked coi editors if G4 would be otherwise applicable except they had not yet been blocked. 5 or 6 Years ago I would have supported your view on this, but I think that the proportion of commercial promotionalism was not yet so high, and we had not yet realized the danger. (The key promotionalism problem then was ideological promotionalism)
I am, however, not someone who has a traditionalist view of the encyclopedia. I am very willing to find whatever reason we can to reasonably extend the boundaries for what we cover, to the extent we can write verifiable and useful articles. I am much more willing to do this in areas whichcan be relatively free from promotionalism. DGG ( talk ) 01:57, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
DGG, where are you getting Undeclared COI , especially if paid editing, is a violation of the TOU, and according to WMF policy we are all responsible for enforcing it from? This is not and never has been the case, and it's worrying to see that a sitting Arbcom member appears to think that it is. While undisclosed paid editing is forbidden, neither Wikipedia nor the WMF has ever had a policy against editing with a conflict of interest, and whenever such a thing has been proposed it's been shot down; even the relatively weak guidance at WP:Conflict of interest isn't and never has been Wikipedia policy. (WP:Comment on content, not on the contributor, on the other hand, is a formal Wikipedia policy, which you appear to be wilfully disregarding.) The exact wording of the relevant part of the TOU is These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation., and is explicitly and carefully worded to only relate to people being specifically paid to edit Wikipedia.
In the unlikely event that we did bring in a ban on all undeclared COI editing, Wikipedia would disintegrate into open chaos, given that it would mean bulk deletion of entire sections of the project. (As concrete examples, any article on an educational institution will have been written at least in part by attendees and alumni of that institution; virtually every article on an extant military unit has almost certainly been written at least in part by serving members of that unit; any article on a company has probably been edited at least in part by employees and customers of that company, since in most cases they're the only ones with enough on an interest to do the necessary research.) Much as Jimbo may like it to be otherwise, there is no obligation for employees of the article subject to disclose their affiliations unless they're editing Wikipedia as part of their job, and unless a paid editor admits to it or you can find a paper trail on Elance for the commission being offered and accepted, it's virtually impossible to prove that someone is writing in work time, rather than just writing about their place of work. ‑ Iridescent14:13, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The community – the network of users who are constantly building and using the various sites or Projects – are the principal means through which the goals of the mission are achieved. The community contributes to and helps govern our sites. The community undertakes the critical function of creating and enforcing policies for the specific Project editions...
I interpret this as saying that enforcement responsibility here is the responsibility of enWP, and that out policies must be compatible with the TOU. With respect to paid editing, there's also a statement that and one WP's policies may vary if the variation is approved: we have not (or at least not yet) chosen to do so. Therefore, our Deletion Policy must be interpreted to include at least the restrictions made by the TOU.
The problem, as you correctly state, is how we are to do this. In the absence of specific targeted rules, we do this by enforcing the existing policies and guidelines in such a way as to produce the necessary result. Fortunately, our existing rules are so close to the TOU that this does not usually have to be stated explicitly in a deletion discussion; in those cases where they are inadequate, either we have to guess or we can take no action. In my opinion, since any valid reason is cause for deletion, and NOT ADVOCACY is basic policy, we should at least delete such articles if we reasonably think they have been contributed in violation of the TOU, unless we choose to make an exception, though I would much prefer if there were a more precise method. I continue to think that the community would do well to have some more effective way of directly enforcing them which is compatible with outing policy, and various suggestions have been made. I would support most of them.
As for the college and university articles, some have been written by attendees and alumni--a sort of COI that is not paid editing and which we could deal without most of the university articles have been written by university PR staff in the same style they use for their page in a college guide, and they need to be rewritten. There are indeed other such examples. But since we can not trust any paid editing to be NPOV, you seem to be suggesting we maintain biased articles to maintain our size. DGG ( talk ) 05:00, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you
I appreciate your feedback on my paid work, I've been trying my best to walk the tight rope of neutrality and making the client happy. I'm proud of my non-paid work and I want to ensure that the paid work reflects the same pride and adherence to guidelines. There are quite a few who've balked at the fact that I always reveal my paid status, I've been asked to vote "keep" on like 10-15 AFDs so far and I always tell them that it'd be a waste of money for me to state "Keep - And I was paid to vote". If the client wants to pursue the Born Warriors article in the future I would probably suggest a total rewrite. So thank you I appreciate the feedback. MPJ-DK12:22, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
deletions are underway; but expect to find more of them as we check further.
but this should not surprise you--1/as we improve WP, it increases in importance and people want their professional and business activities to be in it. 2/most of the are not suitable for articles without compromising nOT DIRECTORY and NPOV 3/most people and businesses cannot write their own well enough to get them kept 4/quite a few people think they have the skills to do such articles and offer these services 5/we cannot accurately detect paid contributions with compromising Privacy.
What it comes down to is a choice between NPOV and Privacy, and almost everyone at WP values Privacy higher. There is no solution if this remains the case. DGG ( talk ) 15:54, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG. I wasn't surprised at all, just fed up. But on the bright side, there seems to be a growing consensus for nuking the articles in situations like this rather than wasting everyone's time with AfDs. Of course, most of these people don't get caught red-handed socking as this farm did. I suppose one small step people can take is to check obvious paid articles and look at the contributions of the creator and those who have edited the same articles or supplied images. See, for example User talk:Seostrategists and User talk:Kkc knight, who uploaded the image at Josh Roush and voted "Keep" in the AfD and who created London & Country Mortgages (subsequently taken over by Seostrategists), although I doubt if there's enough to bring an SPI. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 07:09, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Greetings David. I was actually going to make a comment about this subject and ask your opinion on your talk page, prior to your posting. I was mulling it over for the last 24 hours at least. I was (and am) very interested in your thoughts about how the current guidance in academic notability with regard personalities in the humanities could be made more flexible. You will probably disagree, but I believe them to be overly-rigid at this time. I am interested in a new discussion on the appropriate venue that may begin a new dialogue, and new thinking to this aspect of notability as the project currently sees it. I hope I have not made a fool of myself by defending the keep, in my response to your posting. I am trying to interpret the guidance as I see it, with a dash of common sense. I am fairly new to the fascinating topic of AfD and would like to become more engaged in it. I hugely respect your vast experience and insight both in this subject area and in the totality of the project. I must admit though, that I do believe the subject does have good grounds for relisting at least. Regards, Simon. Irondome (talk) 02:05, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
we go by the publications. The key criterion #1, impact, Academic impact in the 20th/21st century is almost always by publications in any field except some of the applied sciences. The current WP standard in practice is essentially the extent of publications that would qualify for a full professorship at a major university. (Myself, I'd just go by the professorship on the grounds that the university is a better judge than we are, but that's not the consensus). (Myself again, a little more radically, I'd support the lower standard of associate professorship, but again, this is definitely not the consensus). The requirements for even associate professorship in a first class research university is two academic books by major publishers known to do peer review--either university presses or the few relevant commercial publishers. Nothing else matters, except that at least the 2nd books should not be based on the thesis. but show an independent line of research capable of attracting graduate students and other faculty. At 2nd rate research universities this has been watered down in recent years to one academic book, and three substantial research articles in major journals. That's not our standard, that's the standard of the field.
there are a number special considerations:
1/the creative arts, but our standard makes special provision for them.
2/people in some humanistic specialties where publications other than books count: the most common one that causes problems here is archeology.
3/people working in research institutes of some sort, who publish in other than academic book or journal format. These can be hard to judge; often we end up using the GNG instead of PROF here. :::4/people in geographic areas that do not fully participate in the US-WEuropean academic system--these can be almost impossible to judge here, as almost nobody has the expertise.
5/people in disadvantaged groups whose actual output is less than would be merited by their actual quality of work--there is no consensus about how much to take this into account. My own view is to take this only slightly into account for 2000+, increasingly more in earlier generations. What happens in any given case depends upon who appears and how hard they fight.
6/people in what are considered here to be weird. These are usually judged nonnotable unless there's a lobby overwhelming the discussion.
7/people in fields not considered rigorous here: education, home economics, library science, etc --fields that often are heavily populated by women at least in past generations. We've been very dismissive in the past, less so now.
8/there's an alternative that sometimes applies : some people who publish relatively non-scholarly books can be foudn notable by WP:AUTHOR.
Actually, the real problem has been the opposite of what you seem to think. People in the humanities can be dealt with quite easily, because they publish books, and the criteria for books & authors is very flexible and exceedingly broad. The difficulty has been with scientists. It took years here to get WP:PROF and citation analysis accepted as a basis for notability. At one point I started saying I might argue on the basis that if someone was cited at all, each citation would be a RS for N. (and the argument would then be on whether each of them had substantial criticism or discussion, which can be a very long argument--if there are 10 papers with 10 refs, each of 100 referring papers would need to be examined in detail.) The net result would be to extend notability down into the assistant professor category. I like to think that this ended the matter, for the people who thought only famous scientists were notable then accepted WP:PROF as a compromise.
It is a very poor idea to take one particular case where the rules don't show notability for someone that you want an article on, and use that as a basis for changing the rule. Argue rather that the particular case should be an exception. WP:IAR is fundamental policy and therefore can over-ride anything that might be provided by any notability guideline. DGG ( talk ) 05:12, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I really appreciate your detailed and informative response DGG, and the brief history of the matter, and the advice at the end of the post. I will take it all very much on board. Thanks for taking the time. Simon Irondome (talk) 11:48, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page watcher)I wonder if point #5 ("people in disadvantaged groups whose actual output is less than would be merited by their actual quality of work") may apply to Romanovski? The 1980s weren't the 1950s, but studying Holocaust in the Soviet Union at that time was definitely a career limiting move. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:31, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This actually occurred to me, but it's not the usual meaning. But there's a limit to how far we can stretch. It would have to be someone who's almost notable, and I don't think he's anywhere near it. DGG ( talk ) 20:38, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
NQ,Kudpung But the normal way of searching in NPP is just article space. I know that's the way I always use, and I suspect its's the way most people do also--Looking at the conventional NP feed with the filter set to "all", I see not just user pages but a great deal of clutter from categories, user talk pages, article talk pages, files, etc. As there is no way of saying "user + article", the unnecessary material cannot be removed. (compare with the flexible namespace choices in the Search function.) Using the Article Curation new pages feed, I see there is no "all" setting -- one can select either mainspace, or user, but , again, not the combination. We should be able to do much better than this.
And, looking at these , I see that article space drafts is a truly horrible morass, and I am beginning to think we should insist that all drafts go in Draft space. DGG ( talk ) 05:04, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Anthony Charles Robinson
In this edit to Anthony Charles Robinson, you tagged the article for speedy deletion as G11: "Unambiguous advertising or promotion". I shouldn't have to remind you that WP:CSD is for pages with no practical chance of surviving discussion. Equally, you surely must be aware of what G11 says?
This applies to pages that are exclusively promotional and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to conform with Wikipedia:NOTFORPROMOTION. If a subject is notable and the content could plausibly be replaced with text that complies with neutral point of view, this is preferable to deletion. Note: Any article that describes its subject from a neutral point of view does not qualify for this criterion. However, "promotion" does not necessarily mean commercial promotion: anything can be promoted, including a person, a non-commercial organization, a point of view, etc.
Are you trying to assert that either (1) the subject is not notable; or (2) that the content could not be plausibly replaced with neutral content? The subject is clearly notable, given the number of articles about him and the awards he's received - not least an OBE. Even if the content were exclusively promotional (which it isn't), with 32 references about him, a monkey with a typewriter could transform it into a neutral article.
I am astonished that an editor of your experience and inclusionist tendencies should make such a fundamental mistake, particularly with the first efforts of a new editor. I see you haven't even noted the CSD nomination in your log yet, so if there is another agenda at play here, I think you should be upfront about it. --RexxS (talk) 13:36, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A bio based mainly on very minor awards & trivial references is promotional; there is no reason for it except to advertise his speaking career--in fact, quite a few of the paid editors use thie trick of adding a great many not very convincing references. To analyze the G11, let's say he were notable, for example it his award were higher than the OBE, It would need to be fundamentally rewritten because almost all the content is trivial awards , & sourced to local notices about his speeches. The potential G11s that should not be tagged are those that do not need to be fundamentally rewritten and can be easily fixed are, for example, where it's just a matter of adjectives, or a specific section that can be removed. Sot notable or not I do consider it a reasonable G11.
Now, G11 is not an exact criterion, and can be interpreted in many ways. The check on the tagger's interpretation is that I don't delete the articles myself, and anyone else can remove the G11. Even if the speedy tag stays there for more than a day, I take it to mean no other admin is comfortable deleting it, & remove the tag. It is true that I have usually been interpreting G11 more broadly in a sort of desperate response to the increasing promotional editing; it is possible that it has been too broad, and I must look to analyze the results of my CSDs. I'm always re-analyzing something or other from my logs, but this month I'm doing my deletion log, to see which recreations are reasonable and which not. I suppose I should check CSDs next. I like everyone else can drift in interpretation, which is why I do regularly look back. And if I do go too far, I;m glad when someone tells me., so I thank you. I will probably AfD as not notable, but not immediately. DGG ( talk ) 15:25, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The whole point of having criteria beyond the WP:GNG is that folks who have, for example, received significant awards are very likely to have press coverage and it becomes a short-circuit for the notability debate. It's not a question of how many awards are given out; it's a question of whether receiving that award would most likely imply significant coverage. Now the OBE is "a well-known and significant award or honour", but you may feel it doesn't guarantee that someone will have received coverage. OK, but even leaving aside the OBE, Robinson has significant coverage in an article in The Guardian - that's not a passing mention - and a whole article on him in the The Press (York), which isn't just some local rag, it covers a large chunk of Yorkshire and has a circulation of 25,000 (that's half the circulation of something like the The Washington Times for comparison). Having read the earlier parts of your talk page, I can appreciate your concerns over paid editing - and personally I'd see it banned if I could - but I'd hate for us to get so paranoid about the problem that we start to catch good-faith editors in the net. Now, I have no clue whether LazyLilac is a paid editor, but I can't see an easy way to determine that, and if there is significant coverage in independent sources, we're probably best off just making sure that the content stays neutral, IMHO, as I'd rather "ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer", don't you agree? --RexxS (talk) 19:00, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page watcher) Interesting statements by LazyLilac at TeaHouse hereI am a freelance virtual assistant, so I am not his employee and the copywriter has been editing the text and I have been updating it on here, he doesn't know how to create pages on Wikipedia, so yes it's just me doing the editing on here. Time to delete and salt? PamD21:05, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
first step is to take it to AfD and get it deleted. Iff it gets sufficiently edited, it is possible that it might pass, despite the paid editing. DGG ( talk ) 21:33, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Thanks, PamD, that clarifies things quite a lot. I'm not sure that's quite enough to block LazyLilac for TOU abuse, but she/he ought to have worked out what COI means by now. As for salting, I think we'd need to run the article through AfD first, and I still think it's more likely to be kept than deleted, given the press coverage. --RexxS (talk) 21:36, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Interesting that none of the Teahouse hosts seem to have picked up on what looks like a declaration of paid editing! PamD21:52, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Montanabw, as I understand it personally, while declared paid editing certainly is judged article by article; undeclared page editing does go by the editor, just as other TOU violations like sockpuppettry. I certainly will ban undeclared page editors until they declare, though so far I have used the related reason of advertising-only account. The question of whether we should remove all contributions of detected undeclared paid editors is still open, but in some cases we have done just that, when the nature of the editing is reasonably certain-just as we do with sockpuppettry. DGG ( talk ) 13:29, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have sympathy with your intent, DGG, but we don't actually "revert on sight" the contributions of sockpuppets, per se. That draconian step is at present reserved for those evading site bans, as it has been agreed that the loss of possibly useful content is outweighed by the message sent to the ban evader that their contributions are not welcome. Nevertheless, I feel that the same message would also be appropriate to send to paid editors deliberately evading TOU. It would really best be agreed via community debate and consensus, rather than one person taking up the campaign, but if you felt up to raising it at VPP, for example, please ping me and I'd be happy to support you there. --RexxS (talk) 14:37, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we ban them first. but we ban on the basis of convincing behavioral and editing evidence, as well as CU. UPE are a little more difficult, because there are a surprising number of good faith new editors who write promotional articles, because that's what they mostly see here in some areas, and they think it's what we want. As discussions at various places have shown, it is quite hard to be sure, unless it's obvious or omitted. But we can and do block people who persist in writing promotional articles, after a warning, and at present the TOU are best used as a supplemental argument--it seems to sound more official. It is rather rare for a paid editor write anything else, though it does happen.
In my personal opinion, the only real reason for trying to identify a UPE is when we reasonably suspect a ring or an extensive commercial operation. DGG ( talk ) 17:21, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG - I saw that you had placed an alert on the John Travis (physician) page regarding the tone, indicating that it came across more like a news release. I'd like to try to rectify this and can see parts that might be at fault, such as the 'Work on parenting' section. However, I wished to check which areas you felt were causing issues?Fbell74 (talk) 06:31, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You are right that the parenting section is altogether inappropriate, as almost all of it is not about his own work. Asides from that , take a closer look at the section on wellness, and the claims to be first or among the first. the claims here contradict the discussion in the WP articles on the subject.
Beyond those generalities, you are writing as a paid editor for the subject. It is my position that anyone doing so should know in advance how to do it properly, That is, if it can be done, for it seems that almost nobody can make satisfactory article with that degree of conflict of interest. I am always glad to give volunteer editors as much help as necessary, even to the point of personally rewriting articles if the subjects are notable, but I cannot be expected to do extensive work for free, but for which someone else will be paid. DGG ( talk ) 03:35, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you - the pointers help and I'll work on those accordingly. Of course, free assistance wouldn't be expected when the contributions aren't of a voluntary nature. I appreciate any help, in light of this.Fbell74 (talk) 03:39, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG - I think I've tackled the areas that were causing issues with the neutrality of tone, mainly by removing some details that might be seen as promotional and also paring down the content to focus on the subject (rather than connected parties). I haven't forgotten what you said about not doing extensive work in this kind of situation. I wondered if you might take a look though, as you had raised the alert originally? I appreciate you're probably quite busy with other Wikipedia work Fbell74 (talk) 05:55, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG - you're probably inundated with other work on Wikipedia. When you have a moment perhaps you can take a look at the article? I haven't made additional changes to it, since the time you were looking at rewriting it. However, if it's easier I can have a go again, with regards to the areas you highlighted in the recent posts on the Talk page Fbell74 (talk) 05:20, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Fbell74 I looked again. I decided to reorganize much further, and I have done so--see my comments on the talk page, which is where this should be continued. Basically, I removed material sourced only to his own site or a blog. I removed claims for first and one of the first. These need good third party documentation, and in any case "one of the first" has no specific meaning.
The connected contributor tag should remain on all paid articles where the paid editor wrote a substantial amount of the material. . I will remove the press release tag after its been sufficiently improved. The problem with paid editing is that a paid editor is typically not willing to make sufficiently radical improvements, because their client would not actually approve of an appropriately length NPOV article--they normally want the article because they want publicity, and this is an inherent conflict with the fundamental policy WP:NOT.
Here's my problem. It is easier for me to rewrite this than to coach someone else how to do it. Six years ago I would routinely rewrite, but I no longer am willing to do work for which other people are being paid. In this case I'm so much involved already that I'm making an exception. (Ideally, a promotional article should be removed, but in practice there's sometimes a choice between rewriting it and having it stay promotional) Most other other editors working with paid articles have no conflict--they simply won't work with a paid editor at all, and generally think that the only solution is to eliminate paid editing entirely. Unfortunately, in a system with anonymous editing permitted, this would simply drive it underground. So an argument can be made for helping the ones who declare, to encourage the undeclared ones to follow the TOU also. DGG ( talk ) 06:17, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A kitten for you!
For your assistance with the recent research mess that I bought to ANI.
Rather than clog up ANI, I'd like to offer some responses to your last post there, specifically the Some things can never be done section: (continued in AfC NPP archive)
All universities are notable, and that's what this is. We can get the necessary details from their web site for the specifics, but w do need an outside source that it isn't imaginary--and, in thiscase, provides some needed NPOV The observatoriodaimprensa is about the head of the university; http://sindipetroalse.org.br has a section about him . "O Grupo Delfin" about 2/3 of the way down; ltimosegundo.ig.com.br is about this university, in para 5; Agência Brasil. is about the withdrawal of its autonomy; http://portal.mec.gov.br is about the withdrawal of its government accreditation
Hi there, I saw you had reviewed my article on Sumeeti Mittal and shared comments on the same. Could we discuss the issues raised by you.
07:13, 17 August 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noopur Anand (talk • contribs)
Hi there, I came across an article Richard B. Hollis that you have contributed to in the past. The article now has COI & POV flags on it. It appears that since the flags have been added, the article has been edited and refined. As a new user I wanted to help clean up the article, but do not know where to start. Since you have vast knowledge of the wiki world and have worked on the article in the past, I was hoping you can take a look at this article and see what needs to be cleaned up before removing the flags. I am just trying to learn the ins and outs of Wiki! Thank you!
first thing I have to ask, is whether you by any chance have a conflict of interest, financial or otherwise. If so, please see WP:COI for out guidelines on how o contribute. And if financial in any way, you will need to declare it: see our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure
second, I need to tell you, that if you are the same person as any other editor who has worked n the article earlier. such as the editor who worked on it earlier his week, you must choose one single account and use it only.
With a COI, the way to add material is is as follows: Add the material to the article's talk page, not the article page itself, and place a {{request edit}} tag on the talk page, after your suggestion. (include the double curly braces on each side)
As for the article, we need dates and exact permissions for the various firms. We also should not be describing their products unless he persona;ly had a role in developing them, and there are goodthird party references for this. Is the patent in his name? Did he sponsor the project within the firm, or did he just invent the improvements himself.
I know I originally accepted the article, but I need to examine it again to see if he actually meets the notability standard--most of the references seem to be aboutthe firms. DGG ( talk ) 20:31, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I cleaned up the sourcing and content so that it is about him and is neutral, in my view. I think it OK and meets notability now. I also removed the POV tag. Jytdog (talk) 01:26, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, I saw you had reviewed my article on Sumeeti Mittal and shared comments on the same. Could we discuss the issues raised by you. 07:13, 17 August 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noopur Anand (talk • contribs)
now at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sumeeti Mittal DGG ( talk ) 00:47, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience and perspective on the AfD process, particularly here. Reading it was so illuminating for me on questions like how best to navigate the discussion process, and the context for policy on nominating for deletion. Greatly appreciated. Innisfree987 (talk) 19:47, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Article deletion - MX1 (media)
Hi DGG. You deleted the article, MX1 (Media), on August 1 citing “Article about a company, corporation or organization, which does not credibly indicate the importance or significance of the subject)”. I did not create this article but did make some contribution to it a few days before deletion. Yesterday I went to add some more to it and found it not there (!) I do believe that MX1 is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia (not least because the company is the result of the merger of two companies which are themselves each the subject of an article) and it was partly to demonstrate this that I was going to add more material to the article.
So, what do I do now? Can you restore the article so I can flesh it out, and so make it more worthy of inclusion? Or should I start from scratch with a new page and new content? Or should I move the article for one of the merged companies from which MX1 is formed to a new title MX1 (media) and add MX1 content to that? Whichever is the solution, could you give me an idea of your criteria for significance of a company so I can make sure a ‘new’ article meets these? Thanks Satbuff (talk) 12:00, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Satbuff, I think the best approach is to consider it a rebranding of SES, taken place as a result of its acquisition of the much smaller company RR media. This is normally the way we handle such situations. The problem with the new article is that at this opint the sources are mere notices describing the acquisition--because, I'd venture, there is nothing much else to say yet.
You might want to take a look at the SES page overall--it would give a less promotional appearance by removal of adjectives and similar rewording. The RR page is much worse, and if you want to attempt to to fix that, please do. (I should mention I'm aware of the the COI discussion on your usertalk, and I recognize that you are a good faith editor.) ' DGG ( talk ) 21:59, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, DGG, for your (unexpectedly) speedy response and apologies for my (sadly) slow reply (- not had a lot of time for Wikipedia recently)! I think you may be confusing SES S.A. with SES Platform Services? The latter is the one rebranded and is owned by the former - SES Platform Services has acquired, and merged with, RR Media and the merged company rebranded as MX1; SES S.A. is unchanged. So, are you suggesting that I move (rename) SES Platform Services to MX1? That makes sense to me, and it would get around the problem you mention of ‘not a lot to say yet’ on the new company.
Incidentally, on the SES S.A. page, I have actually done considerable work to address the ‘reads like an advert’ (and other) template notices placed there in December 2015 and was considering removing them - but your remarks clearly demonstrate I have not got there yet! Satbuff (talk) 12:58, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy deletion of CAWST
Could you clarify why the page CAWST was marked for speedy deletion and not other company history pages like WaterAid and Charity water? If the definition of notability is based on solely on the subset of knowledge and awareness from people in developed countries then yes CAWST may not be known as much as other louder organizations. But CAWST has had 15 years of impact and is changing the water and sanitation sector impacting millions in developing countries. Please advise on the best way to capture this appropriately as an encyclopedia article. Thank you. Oliviermills (talk) 13:30, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oliviermills, considering that essentially your only edits have been in connection with this organization and the devices it promotes, it is very possible that you have some degree of conflict of interest. If so, please see our rules, WP:COI, including our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure . This disclosure is not optional. It ids very difficult for those with a COI to write without promotionalism. And note that by "promotionalism" we include the promotion of any cause at all, however meritorious-- we do not differentiate in this respect between commercial and non-commercial organizations.
The way Wikipedia judges importance is not merit, but the availability of references--specifically, references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements. Essentially all references in all versions of this article from from the firm;s own web site or related pages. If you have them, rewrite the article in Draft space. Avoid promotionalism , and avoid any copying from theorganizations website or other pre-existing material.
The other two articles you mention are interesting examples of how not to write an article: they are highly promotional, designed to appeal to prospective supporters or donors, giving the information that the organization might want to say abiut itself. That's what press releases do, and organization web pages. But encyclopedias tell the general reader what they might want to know about an organization they've heard of. There are several hundred thousand articles in WP accepted in earlier years when the standards were lower that we need to either upgrade or remove, and I have added these to the list. DGG ( talk ) 04:34, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
WorldCat library holdings
In an AfD where you nominated Andrew Peterson, you stated as part of your rationale that - WorldCat shows holdings of between 80 and 150 libraries - and later commented - Worldcat shows a total of less then 80 holdings for all of them together, however my search at WorldCat yielded a different result: 587 library holdings. Seems like a big difference. Nonetheless, I guess my point is moot now that the article has been deleted.--Isaidnoway(talk)18:46, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
there is usually some discrepancy in the counts when you go book by book, and when you go to the authorioverview record , but this is the hsarpest one I have seen--and it goes in the opposite direction--usually the author summary record one is smaller. I will reanalyze and get back to you, If I have made an error & it affects what I would say, I'll consider how to deal with the problem. DGG ( talk ) 00:06, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is a huge CSD backlog which I an slowly working thru. Could you please look at FORM Holdings. It's obviously a comisioned work but in spite of the plethora of sources it's only claim is that it's lised on a stock exchange but I'm not sure if that accords automatic notability. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:30, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
only for he most impt exchanges. We recognize NYSE and London as implying notability , provided their the major boards, not the subsidiary ones. We do not recognize NASDAQ as implying notability , altho many companies there especially technology companies, are quite notable. (notice I am now usually saing "imply" notability instead of the official "presume")
If people patrol properly, there will inevitably be an increased CSD background. We can't limit ourselves to reforming just one aspect of the system. DGG ( talk ) 18:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank You!
David - Just a quick Saturday morning thanks for your thoughtful and helpful feedback! Appreciate it.
Hi DGG, it's been awhile. Hope you're doing well. I am writing today on behalf of Adam Milstein, a client of my company Beutler Ink (in partnership with another PR firm, coincidentally named Miller Ink). My focus is two pages: Adam Milstein and Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation. I have not yet posted on either talk page, but I have disclosed my interest by adding the {{connected contributor}} template to both.
In July you were briefly active on both articles. It looks to me like you undid some promotional edits by an SPA, and appropriately so in my opinion. After restoring each entry, you then also added the {{news release}} tags. What I'd like to find out, on Mr. Milstein's behalf, is what you think should be done in each case so these warning tags are no longer necessary. With your input, it would be my intention to prepare updates to these pages to be guideline-compliant. Please let me know what you think. Thanks, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:59, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I shall take a look. I was planning to look at related pages also. One of the things that concerns me is duplication among articles. DGG ( talk ) 16:36, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks for the quick reply. I haven't looked closely at the duplication issue, though that does sound like it would require rectifying. Please let me know what else you see, and I can start working on improvements. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 21:12, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Could you help me with a draft that I wrote? Its the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Majestic_Hotel_Group and it was declined because "This submission's references do not adequately show the subject's notability. Wikipedia requires significant coverage about the subject in reliable sources". However, on my references, I put well known newspapers such as La Vanguardia and El Mundo and also Review Pro, a company present worldwide. So why these sources are not reliable? Which type of source should I use ? Or the draft was declined because the references were not written in the right way? I sent a message to the person that declined the draft a few days ago but since I havent got a reply and I saw you replying a comment , so thatºs why Im writing to you now. Thanks in advance!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Revmchris (talk • contribs) 09:58, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Revmchris. The part of the firm which is important is the original property, the Majestic Hotel in Barcelona. You need to rewrite the article to emphasize that. Since the hotel dates from 1918, there should be good references available. The rest of the properties belong in a separate section called something like Other properties. DGG ( talk ) 06:02, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG!! I've just seen your comment /advice regarding the page (either have a page concerning the group or just the Majestic Hotel Group). But why only one page, if one is regadirng the hotel and the other, the group? It wouldnt be the first case since Wikipedia has the following pages abou hotels that belong to a chain : Trump International Hotel and Tower (Honolulu) <ref>[21], Mercure Hotel Canberra <ref>[22], Shangri-La Hotel (Dubai) <ref>[23], Grand Hyatt Cannes Hôtel Martinez <ref>[24] and the Dubai Marriot Harbour Hotel &Suites <ref>[25].
Hi DGG, I'm writing as you've assisted in the revision history of the article located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metapress. In my opinion, this was incorrectly nominated for deletion a few days ago. Please review the current conversation, and add to the discussion if possible. Potentially I need to add more references? There are many more that I could add. I truly believe this is a useful, descriptive, and appropriate page for continued inclusion. Please let me know what you think. Thank you! Mark54ems
Hi DGG. Please see the revised version of the Metapress article, as well as my last comment on it's articles for deletion page. Looking forward to your opinions, now that I've clarified more about the topic. Thanks! Mark54ems
Thanks for that David, your input was very helpful, and pretty much what my instincts are. You're so right about the distortions of blindly following GNG, primarily because PR agencies can generate mountains of "press coverage" for utterly inconsequential people, businesses, and (yet to be completed) projects. this discussion was a prime example. The article was eventually deleted, but not without some stubborn resistance. Voceditenore (talk) 07:33, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Inquiry again re: Adam Milstein + Foundation
Hi DGG, I'm creating a new section since I think another reply on the above thread is too likely to be lost. As I asked then, I'd like your input on what you believe would need to be fixed on the pages Adam Milstein and Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation before the {{news release}} tags can be removed. Your initial reply concerned a different page than the either of the two I'm asking about. Please let me know what your concerns are about these two linked pages, and I can begin working on improvements. However, if you are too busy, I may seek another opinion from a volunteer editor next week. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:01, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
the main problem remainsduplication: the Campus Maccabees section is the same in both articles! And there's still promotional wording and promotional sourcing. In the foundation article, article:: 1/section 4 is sourced only to two PR sources. 2/Wording like "to submit personal videos letting the world see the positive things coming out of Israel" is advocacy; this or very similar phrases are used several times. The only reason I haven't fixed this is that since they are your clients, I want to leave it up to you to decide which article to put the duplicated material in--they could actually go either place, since though listed as independent, it's essentially his private foundation, as is shown by the fact that both he and it claim credit for the same things. If there is not major improvement I'm going to propose a merge on that basis to the article on him.
Thanks, I appreciate the more detailed response. But first, absolutely no way is my firm in any way associated with those accounts. I have seen them in the edit history, and I certainly see why you are curious about them, but I don't know anything about them. We've started working with Mr. Milstein in just the past couple of weeks, and my inquiries with you are the extent of our on-wiki efforts so far. I'll begin working on better sourcing and separation of topics. As for a merge, I haven't looked into it and do not have an opinion about that, either. As I start working on it, I expect I'll have some thoughts about that. Also: another editor has made a number of changes to the Milstein biography as of this weekend, and has removed the tag from that page, so you may want to have a look at that. Anyway, more from me soon. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 19:28, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, I hope you don't mind me putting this comment here rather than starting a new thread. It's OK if you don't see it immediately, since I don't really have an update except to say that my firm's involvement has been put on hold. We may resume in the future, but I can't say with certainty. In the meantime, I don't have an opinion about what is best for these pages. I will let you know if that changes for us. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:17, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hey DGG, how are you doing? I have seen you around AfD opposing promotion on Wikipedia. I need your opinion on something. I came across this article that seemed promotional to me. I looked the guy up and found that he is not a saint as his article contend. Naturally, I add a few statements about him in the article, but someone keeps removing anything negative that I add. Someone is actively trying to keep the article very positive. On top of that, the guy is hardly notable. He hasn't had received so much press coverage, no major awards - was once finalist for EY, but I don't know if that makes him notable. I am inclined to taking on AfD, but I need your opinion on this first. Check the history.Susana Hodge (talk) 10:23, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A neutral, centralised discussion area is being currently created for the idle talk where only those who are truly actively concerned with improvements to the way new pages are handled at both AfC and NPP can sign up for the action. A link will shortly be posted. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:47, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm trying to comprehend your statement "The NYT article is a fairly good explanation of that; far from proving the notability of the company, it disproves it."[26] But no matter how many ways I twist my brain, I am unable understand what you are trying to say, nor am I able to put your statement into any valid context relatable to wikipedia policies or guidelines. Could you explain your reasoning when you typed that statement? Thanks! -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 06:01, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The material in that article shows the company is not yet notable. Sometimes a newspaper -- even a very good newspaper -- covers something because of some human interest hook, or because it's a typical example--as, to take an example, the instances selected for coverage in the articles in the NYT Neediest Cases Fund drive. Such coverage is not notability. Here, it overs the firm, and the coverage is directed to saying how completely un-notable the company is, except for the human interest in its founder, along with similar insignificant companies serving similarly as hobbies by wealthy young people. The only meaning of notability in a WP context is what is suitable to be in the encyclopedia. If there's coverage in good sources showing it is not suitable, then it is not notable., just as much as if there were no coverage at all . The GNG is a useful general rule, but has to be used with judgment about what is actually in the source. DGG ( talk ) 06:32, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(For any talk page stalkers, we're discussing this NYT ref[27] and its coverage of the company Appboy) - Thanks DGG, that helps me understand your reasoning a bit more. My first reaction is that your argument is based on WP:Original Research, ie: your personal view of what is the meaning of the text published in the New York Times. I welcome further discussion on this issue in general, might even be essay-worthy. Cheers! -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 08:12, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We can't use OR in writing an article. We certainly can and do in evaluating a source.We evaluate using a source by examining it, not taking it for granted that the headline describes the content. A great deal of our evaluation of sources as RS for content and the more stringent RS for notability or RS for negative content on BLPs is done by OR, and claimed expertise. and sometimes by pure opinion. Or, as in this case, a claim to take a common sense view after reading the source carefully. DGG ( talk ) 15:31, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's a strength. To see the importance of being able to discuss sources in detail see the voluminous archives of the talk p for WP:RS and the RS noticeboard. The GNG if applied without qualifiers would produce truly absurd results. We deal with it by arguing about whether the references are "substantial" "third-party" "independent"and "reliable" and, to be frank, for many disputed cases I could probably make an equally good argument about these criteria in either direction, depending upon what result I wanted to achieve. Other people of course do this also, and the net result is we accept or reject whatever the consensus wants to do for whatever reason which need not be actually stated.
Personally, I consider the entire GNG criterion a failure of notability policy. Notability should be decided on objective criteria. The most important reason we haven't done this is the disputes we would have on just what the criteria are to be. DGG ( talk ) 16:51, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Rohit Khattar
Hi DGG,
Please tell which references are to be removed from page of Rohit Khattar. The page doesn't need to be deleted.
Hi, I wonder if you could help determine if this would considered a notable author? Ronald Smelser. Are there any tips or guidelines on how to evaluate such holdings in general? I've seen holdings mentioned at several AfDs but I'm not sure how to apply them. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:24, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page watcher) Hello K.e.coffman, happening to look, he is certainly notable in that the numbers exceed 8,000 and the largest book of which is at 861 libraries (imaginably, reviews will exist and those would ultimately help of course); usually the best convincing ones are going to be at least 1,000 as that's sufficient to suggest major; it also then varies by what the highest held book is, and whether he was the primary or at least secondary, and also whether that said book is a majorly published and major book, in that case, the person would be notable, yes. Also, closely related, there are some that may still be notable by a special case, for example, one author may have 860 library holdings, and they only published one book, but that one of them is held at, say, 850 libraries, that would be sufficient for notability, especially if reviews exist. Cheers, SwisterTwistertalk04:57, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
K.e.coffman, SwisterTwister, it is not quite that simple. An arbitrary figure makes no sense whatsoever, )(any more than there is a single arbitrary figure for h-index.) Library holdings of books are very field dependent, and very language , date, * country dependent.
First, field dependency: In esoteric fields with a small number of people working, such as notably archeology or linguistics, some aspects of academic religion, even 50 or 60 holdings of a book is quite significant. In other academic fields, such as the study of mainstream literary figures, 300 of so would be needed. I can think of not academic field whatsoever where 800 copies would be needed to indicate notability of the book or the author. In popular non-fiction or fiction, the genre has to be considered--some fields can have very high holdings, such as science fiction or mysteries, or childrens fiction series, or bios about people in popular culture or current politics or about how to succeed in business or current vogues in spirituality-in many of these it would take several hundred to be even mildly significant. But remember that WorldCat figures measure only books in libraries some of these fields, including radical literature or alternate sexuality are rarely held in libraries, even now and almost never before the 21st century.
Second, date: popular and childrens fiction of earlier generations is very rarely kept by public libraries. They concentrate almost entirely upon what people are likely to ask for, which is what has been published in the last few years, and discard them when they no longer circulate--Even important popular or childrens fictions from the first half of the 20th century will have very low library holding.
But the most important variable is country. WorldCat includes essentially all academic and most public libraries in the United States, with somewhat less intense coverage of those in Canada, and only the major ones in the UK. Elsewhere there is a sprinkling of public libraries is Australia/New Zealand, and a few major university of national libraries elsewhere, but essentially no public libraries. A few European countries have good national listings, but I am not familiar with using them. Elsewhere in the world there is for all practical purposes nothing accessible. Therefor even UK fiction is represented less than US, and the most popular childrens book in Italy may have a few dozen WorldCat holdings at most, and one published in India in Hindi, essentially none.
This is relatively little problem in evaluating academic work, as the general rule is that we consider notability under WP:PROF as international (tho this is unfair to fields that are inherently national, such as political science or agriculture of a particular country) . For publicculture in the usual sense, it's critical.
There are also peculiarities in publishing practices,and in WorldCat: Books published in e-book packages are often bought by libraries as a package, just as e-journals are, and even high holdings may indicate little. Worldcat is erratic in combining forms of authors names, even for Western authors. Some books are published in multiple editions or versions, and Worldcat does not do well in combining them.(and earlier eds. of many sorts or works are routinely discarded by libraries) Worldcat counts from the individual book pages and those from the author summaries are often widely divergent even up to ±50, for reasons I do not understand . Libraries in the past have rarely bought textbooks; nowadays if they do, they almost never keep the older eds. So for this genre,they may be a drastic undercount or overcount. I would be very reluctant to sum up holdings of different books in worldcat as a number because of these anomalies. Doing it right for a major author is a research project.
There is a very sensitive bibliographic technique which can be used in some cases:comparing the book with others in the field. (These needs to be done with great care, not just relying on LC subject headings, which, by and large, are much more erratic than even WP categories) .But I have used this to show, for example that a particular dictionary of a very minor language is the most widely held one in that subject. I'll do this sort of analysis on request if i thin it important enough.
And, as Swister Twister mentioned, there is the question of publisher. For academics, only the university presses and the academic societies and the few specialist commercial publishers count at all (this is not just a recent phenomenon--its been true from the 18th century on at least). For popular works, only established publishers count, but there can be confusion with the multiple imprints of major houses, which usually do count, and with the very few fields whee self publishing may occasionally be significant, such as sci-fi.
There is another trick: if you look up the author search page in WorldCat eg. [28] (not the author summary page, eg. [29] at the very end, aftre the books and the journal articles he wrote in JStor and Muse journals --which are the only ones WorldCat sually analyses for articles--, are the book reviews of his books, at least those in the Jsstor and Muse journals
Now, the case you brought up, Ronald Smelser, has multiple books with extremely high counts even considering that the Nazi era is a widely populr topic in modern history. , mostly from academic publishers of importance. There is no question whatsoever that he is notable. Had he even one such book with such high counts, he probably would be, but WP:PROF usually requires two, which is the standard of the highest quality research universities for tenure. This is not the same as showing that his views are widely accepted--that requires other sources. That we have no article on him is incredible. His book The Myth of the Eastern Frontpublished by Cambridge University Press. is a major work, and worth an article. Based on the article, the question is whether his view is the academic consensus. It can not be determined solely fro the reviews, but by other major publication on the subject. (It is not uncommon for reviews in the humanities to be written by other specialists in the field , who are necessarily owe's rivals) But it is certainly enough to qualify him as an expert, if not necessarily the expert. DGG ( talk ) 14:27, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
First, thanks for all your hard work on Wikipedia. You'll probably never get enough praise for all that you do. My question is regarding the curious case of one Samir Becic, who does meet Wikipedia's notability criteria but has one heck of a deletion history.
There appear to be multiple deletions as late as January 2015. However they all rely on a 2012 deletion vote, which was valid, when the subject was on the margin of notability.
There are a bunch of brief mentions from LAT, NYT and so on. Part of the issue is that he's a journalist, really:
- focus.de (biggest German digital daily: weekly columnist, main health expert)
- 89.3 KSBJ Radio Station (weekly appearances)
- Health and Fitness Sports Magazine (contributing writer)
- More Magazine (contributing writer)
- Men's Journal (journalist)
- NBC's Channel 2, "Behind the Headlines"
- WB39 News -Fox 26 "Tips for Houston"
- Radio 96.5, "The Roula and Ryan Show"
- Sunny 99.1 with Dana Tyson
- 104.1 with Sam Malone
DavidWestTSorry for the delay. You need to ask Missvain, who was the admin that protected it. But what I would recommend, is that you first make as good an article as you can in Draft space. Omit minor material. Thne ask for restoration. If it's declined ,ask me to look again. DGG ( talk ) 02:37, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG, I added the proposed page to MissVain's talk page but she declined to respond / archived it. Take a look on your end?
But I will join the work group-- . I;m getting discouraged by my current efforts at deleting promotional articles b he resistance from several editors who think that unimportant, and will even go to the lengths of gratifying the COI promotional editors by rewriting their work even when the subject is not particularly important. The significance of NOT DIRECTORY has escaped them, and they'd rather increase our size than our quality. This goes in cycles, and at the moment they seem to be winning. DGG ( talk ) 04:35, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are degrees of notability. Even WP:GNG is clear that a article having moderate notability does not necessarily justify an article if , for example, it can be combined as part of a more comprehensive article. Determining the degree of notability is very much our job. There are many important topics in missing from WP; in what order shall we work on them? Obviously we're limited by what people are willing to do, but for those of us able to work on a range of topics rather than having some particular interest, which article should we choose? Personally, I think those submitted by promotional and paid editors go to the bottom of the pile, because we want to discourage, not encourage e such editing. But many different choice are compatible with building an encyclopedia like ours. DGG ( talk ) 17:37, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
1Wiki8Q5G7FviTHBac3dx8HhdNYwDVstR, There is one area where we can let our own personal views interfere - at least mine, and that is that I won't lift a finger to help a paid spammer increase his fees and ultimately the turnover of his company or client on the back of my tens of thousands of hours of voluntary work on Wikipedia. No run-of-the-mill company of any kind is so important for an encyclopedia that it has to be included, with or without sources. It's not our job, we're, well, unpaid volunteers, and we choose what we are prepared to do. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:05, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, we all get to pick and choose what areas of wikipedia we want to contribute to. Personal views like you describe above are an absolutely valid reason to not contribute in a certain area. Just like personal views that notability is the prime factor, and neutrality concerning 'how the sausage was made', is an absolutely valid reason to contribute in a certain area. -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 20:24, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It does not make sense to get into multiple debates with on the same general topic. We have to pick one place. As far as I am concerned, this page is good because it is very widely watched. As a preliminary, a question such as 'Proposed: During Articles for deletion debates, a Delete !vote based on a complaint of promotionalism is valid." is not precise enough for a debate. It depends on the meaning of valid--I suppose you mean acceptable as one of the reasons for makig the decision, not as something that trumps all other arguemnts. It is explicit from WP:AFD and WP:NOT that any violation of WP:NOT is suficient to delete an article, not just notability or promotionalism--and any argment based on any such provision is therefore to the point, as distinct from ILIKEIT.
I think you mean more precisely the strength that should be given to such an argument. Even that is hard to answer in the abstract. It obviously depends on the degree of promotionalism. If promotional, it also depends on whether someone is prepared to rewrite the article & fix the problems. It depends on whether the article is satisfactory in other aspects. Andd despite what you say above, if the article is fixable I think it does depends on whether the article is worth fixing. We are limited in editors, and in their time, and by their interests.
I propose a somewhat different question. . Small variations to the notability standard either way do not harm the encyclopedia as much as accepting articles that are part of a promotional campaign. DGG ( talk ) 17:31, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The 'either way' seems imprecise. Shouldn't the proposal take a stance one way or the other: for the variation to keep, OR the variation to delete. For example, I'm going to venture that we agree that an article should NOT get a variation towards keep based simply on the fact that the article is NOT part of a promotional campaign. -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 21:43, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
yes, but a non promotional article should if there is an chance at all of notability be moved to draft space for possible improvement; and, if not, the contributor given assistance in finding a better topic.
Let me try some other wordings: what I meant was that being a little deletionist or inclusionist does not matter as much as promotionalism does. It's ok to be somewhat inclusionist or somewhat deletionist and reject promotionalism entirely; it is not ok to be either somewhat inclusionist or somewhat deletionist and accept promotionalism. You are, for example, considerably more inclusionist than I about companies, and I probably more than you about academics, and I consider that fine, & it's something we should be willing to compromise about; but you are willing to accept promotionalism, and I do consider that wrong, and I think it something I would not compromise about.
Worded another way: the decision to keep or delete an article depends first upon promotionalism , and only if not promotional, about notability. I could word it in a single direction: An article should be rejected if it is promotional (regardless of notability ), and it should be rejected if it is not notable (regardless of promotionalism). I consider all these statements more of less equivalent. DGG ( talk ) 22:41, 3 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Another rewording: there are two positions I could support,and I've gone back and forth between them:
1. Any article edited by a promotional editor should always be deleted. This is the only way to discourge people from using the WP for advertising. If the subject is actually important, someone elsew ill create an article. Rescuing it sends the message that if your write an unacceptable article about yourself, someone will very possibly fix it for you, and therefore you might as well try to advertise here. It furthermore sends the message that if you you hire someone to write an article and they take money for doing this, and they write the usual unacceptable article such peoplewrite, then someone will fix it for you free,, while the guy who wrote the bad article gets the money. DGG ( talk ) 21:22, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I had not finished. I said there were two positions I could support. The second is
2. Promotional articles should always be deleted, unless they are very clearly about an undoubtedly notable subject, and some responsible WPedian is prepared to take responsibility for rewriting them. This would normally be done by moving the article to Draft space. This has the advantage of getting articles about the clearly notable subjects and increasing our coverage, while removing promotionalism and discouraging the bulk of the promotional editors, who are rarely writing about unambiguously notable subjects. DGG ( talk ) 21:22, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
oops! my bad. This one would need some rewording to keep us focused. Perhaps something like Articles with promotional issues should always be deleted if those issues are not fixed by the closing of an AFD discussion. -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 21:32, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
as an alternative, you mean, to always be deleted. But I think everyone would agree on that. The question where we disagree is whether we should even allow them to be fixed unless the subject is very notable. DGG ( talk ) 21:35, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
would it be fair to say the general question is: "Promotionalism Overrides Notability" vs. "Notability Overrides Promotionalism". Where Promotionalism meaning an article with promotional content issues. -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 13:44, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Patrolling
Have you seen this graph made for us by the WMF? No way could anybody properly patrol anyway near that many articles in one day. I dread to think of the actual quality of all those patrolls and it's too ate t check them all. At that rate, no wonder all the other patrollers backed off - they hardly got a look in. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:52, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It depends a little if one concentrates on only the most obvious-- or -- as I do-- primarily on the ones other people don't want to handle. But as far as I can tell all these were unselected, and of course it's far too many at a time. Myself, if I do more than 20 or soata time, I get a little careless; I've seen other people do properly 100 or 200 a day, but 1200 is ridiculous. Other large backlogs have had similar problems--and, in my opinion, also some WP contests where volume is a factor. DGG ( talk ) 03:34, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Kudpung, re-examining this, I am unsure whether the count includes automatic patrols--when we edit a page, it generally marks the page patrolled as well. That certainly seems to be the case for many of the recent ones. DGG ( talk ) 18:04, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Dave! It appears that you have removed the SAGE Encyclopedia of Economics and Society. I understand that text could have benefited from some revisions to avoid copy right complications. I was wondering if you can roll-back the page so I can revise the text. 21:49, 7 October 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bmajlesara (talk • contribs)
Bmajlesara, the entire contents of the article consists word for word of the "abstract " on the publication's web page. You can find it there. But in addition to being copyvio, it was essentially promotional, and you'd do much better to forget about trying to revise it and start over. There are surely reviews of this important publication to use for sources. DGG ( talk ) 23:03, 7 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just a quick note DGG, there are issues of an undisclosed COI here and probable meatpuppetry. The publication is tied to an author who has apparently been trying to add himself to Wikipedia for most of the past year, so I'd recommend that if they do try to recreate the page it should be through AfC at most. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)06:25, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Page patrolling
SwisterTwister has patrolled 219 pages today in just over two hours. This is absolutely not humanly possible. There are instances where he has patrolled at a rate of 7 a minute - that's just blind button mashing. I don't care what our backlog is, no one has time to verify the quality of his edits so he has to stop. I'm going now to tell him to limit his patrolling and AfC reviewing to a total of 50 patrolls/reviews in any 24 hours or I'll block him without further warning and we can hold the ANI debate afterwards to unblock him on condition that he limit his daily reviewing to 50 articles. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:24, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SwisterTwister, am I right that the ed. in question is apparently Prof tpms, with relation to his series of articles on Indian villages and related topics? It is indeed possible to go quite quickly in dealing with these, but I think I would either have indicated for each article or , much better, suggested to him on his user talk page that the articles would have been greatly improved by adding a map, by linking to the articles for nearby towns mentioned, by using inline citations which he has done only sporadically, and by omitting adjectives like "beautiful". All these are common faults of such articles; his are definitely among the better ones of their type, and the editor should be encouraged to do even better. I'm not sure I would have gone into this for an individual article, since they are fundamentally acceptable, but wereI to notice such a large number on the subject--as you did notice--then it's appropriate to contact the editor. NPP does not have to be entirely routine--it can be made much more interesting by following up on important things, such as encouraging promising editors, rather than by aiming for quick cleanup.
I've done a quick check otherwise of some of the more recent. . Not counting the villages, I've looked at about 15: 10 I would have done just the same, 5 differently. Some of the differences are inconsequential, but: for Muhammad Suleman Shaikh, I tagged it for G11. that can be a matter of judgment and I may be wrong, but I would at the very least have tagged as promotional. For Centro Nacional Autónomo de Cinematografía, I added tags for primary sources,insufficient references,and expand Spanish. For Project networks I would have done more, though we have no real standard procedure for this sort of an article: it's basically a term paper. The tag for "essay" is not appropriate, as its message is meant for an opinion essay, which this is not. I added tags for inline refs, additional refs, and tone. I also added a tag for copypaste from an unknown source. It may indeed have been the contributor's own school essay, but this cannot be assumed. More help must be given here,--at least a superficial check for ca source for a copy source, and an appropriate message to the editor about our style. He's never even been welcomed. Of course, doing this right takes time, as that is Kudpung's point. I think you should deal with the suggestions on these articles. (If you were a new reviewer, I'd do this personally now; but you have fully enough experience and skill here to handle it properly by yourself) And then, I think you should go back over the previous article you reviewed and try to see if there is more to be done for each of them.--I'd recommend that you do it before patrolling additional ones. I know you mean to do this right, so her's the time and place to start. DGG ( talk ) 19:02, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Seden4m -- yes, it's better. But these are academic books, so there should be academic reviews available. The simplest way to find them is to use Book Review Index, available in any academic library and some large public libraries. But I've accepted it as is for now. I may revise it a little. DGG ( talk ) 19:31, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Request for some etiquette advice
Hello DGG. I'm contacting you out of the blue hoping for some advice (at your convenience), concerning an ongoing RfC you commented on about two months ago (and in a related arbitration dispute).
My question isn't about your opinion on the RfC itself, actually, but rather your analysis on the bold use of a guideline to re-assert the deletion leading to the RfC. Since we agree on some content points, I'm aware asking your advice might be misconstrued as "canvassing," but that's not at all my intent - just more a question of etiquette, if you don't mind? I can't help but notice you seem very knowledgable on matters of neutrality and the manual of style, so I have a hard time imagining any advice you might give being dismissed for being biased (and if I've crossed a line with this comment, don't hesitate to let me know so I can attempt amends somehow.).
To the question: I've read WP:BLPREQUESTRESTORE several times, and it seems to absolutely support a comment an editor recently made in the side arbitration discussion (that in short, the term under contention should remain out of the lead until consensus clearly supports its addition):
"To ensure that material about living people is written neutrally to a high standard, and based on high-quality reliable sources, the burden of proof is on those who wish to retain, restore, or undelete the disputed material. When material about living persons has been deleted on good-faith BLP objections, any editor wishing to add, restore, or undelete it must ensure it complies with Wikipedia's content policies. If it is to be restored without significant change, consensus must be obtained first. Material that has been repaired to address concerns should be judged on a case-by-case basis."
I absolutely believe my arguments are "good-faith BLP objections," and so I would feel correct again deleting the term myself. That said, though, the topic is contentious, and I'd rather not sully my account's repute by doing something that will get me accused of bias or improper POV pushing. To give you context, while I have plenty of hours conversing in RfCs, I've never closed one or led one myself before this, and so I regret my personal experience here is limited. So in a nutshell, would it be wrong of me (i.e. incredibly rude, as the creator of a contentius ongoing RfC), to use that guideline as my rationale for again asserting my deletion until consensus is met? Thank you in advance. Yvarta (talk) 19:37, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am primarily concerned about content, not procedure; I am concerned about having orderly procedure only so we can deal with content more effectively. I am concerned about the effect of guidelines, not their wording; I am concerned about wording only to the extent it clarifies the intent. I think a considerable part of our guidelines are worded too starkly, omitting the necessary nuance that is needed to lead to effective application of their spirit and purpose, and I think this is particularly true of the BLP guidelines, which were instituted in essentially a moral panic.
As an admin, and as an arb, I follow the rules, but I interpret them to achieve the best we can to equitable and rational solutions, a goal that usually involves some degree of compromise--sometimes, even compromise with injustice.
I can't see any other approach as rational, because Wikipedia rules are not a unified code compiled by experts, but a hodge-podge of empirical attempts at dealing with questions as the arise, and therefore comprise a maze of contradictions. But, we do have one fundament rule to justify my approach to problems: IAR. Without it, I would not attempt to do anything substantial here except as a writer or copyeditor.
Keep to the basics: close in the way that you think will yield the best result for WP. I've already said what I think it to be. DGG ( talk ) 21:17, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the thoughtful advice, DGG. I typically just approach guidelines as set in stone, but as you point out, it would be absurd to assume every case study fits every guideline's wording to a T, or that some interpretation isn't required in many cases. I will consider how to approach the issue in the way that most benefits the project overall, and best meshes with the guidelines' intent. Best, Yvarta (talk) 21:56, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A hotel is a business as well as a building. Some of the worst promotionalism was removed after I tagged it. Just as an exercise, I'm going to restore and clean it, though there will not be much left. Let's see if the promotionalism returns. DGG ( talk ) 22:57, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I get a whiff of puppetry here. There's this article, about a Choice Hotels franchisee, written by an account which had been inactive for over a year. And last week, Richchoice (obvious COI username) created Ascend Hotel Collection & Cambria Hotels & Suites two other Choice franchises. The sudden flurry of activity on Choice Hotels topics, the similarity in username structure (Common English nickname + brand name?), the promotional tone of the articles... it all seems too coincidental, yet not concrete enough to raise an SPI. Cabayi (talk) 06:58, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
what you need for a spi, is to check for identical peculiarities in wording and so on. It might help also to run a careful check for copyvio on the current version of Econo Lodge before it is either cleaned or redirected or, most likely, deleted. DGG ( talk ) 16:58, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy deletion comments
Hi. May I respectfully suggest that you do not attempt to use CSD criteria to delete a 10-year old article (as you did with Conrad Fort Lauderdale)? I appreciate there is no time limit applicable to speedy deletion, but I don't believe that process was ever intended to apply in cases like this. It is for clear-cut uncontroversial deletions which are never going to be suitable for an encyclopedia; A 10-year old article with 100+ revisions is unlikely to be in this category. In this instance you applied G11, but I'm fairly sure that some of those revisions are not "exclusively promotional" and could form the basis for a suitable article. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:30, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It is often possible, but there was no version that was both current and omitted advertising. It is also possible to stubbify to stubbify, but then my experience has been that the promotionalism just gets re-added. I tried constructing a version, and lets see what happens. Though extensively worked on by an editor writing in a promotional manner, the original editor was a responsible WPedian, so you may be basically right. DGG ( talk ) 22:51, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Question on news release tag
Hi, DGG, for Paul T. P. Wong's biographical page, you added the "news release" tag a week ago. In response, I have attempted changing or deleting some wording that may have a promotional tone. Can you give any further guidance on which sentences/sections are promotional? Thanks.
Evelyn Mak (talk) 18:34, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For academics, we usually mention only their 4 or 5 most cited papers, including the number of citations from Google Scholar or the like. We include only major awards. We don't describe the accomplishments of their children.
I have also tagged your other articles as advertisements, as all of them seem designed to promote Wong's theory. Unless you revise them to include criticism, remove promotional praises, remove therapeutic claims that do not have sources that meet the requirements of WP:MEDRS, and remove connections with earlier theories depending only on Wong's works (or change them into statements like "Wong considers that...", I am likely to list them for deletion as promotional.
It is also promotional to make redirects from unlikely search terms that have not been used as alternative names.
As this set of interwoven articles is the only topic you have worked on, it is reasonable that I ask you whether it is possible that you might have some connection with the subject. If you're just a fan, and have no business, professional , or employment connection, you might want to declare it, but you need not be specific. If however there is any financial connection, please see our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure, which require that the specific connection be described. In such circumstances, you would also be well advised to write articles on the subject in Draft space. DGG ( talk ) 18:54, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As a newbie on Wikipedia, I'm thankful for your guidance. I'll be making those edits shortly. Yes, that's completely reasonable. I am Wong's research assistant. Wong has been asked several times by different people to create Wiki pages on these topics, so we're finally getting to it. Appreciate your help in making these of encyclopedic quality. As well, when I have completed the edits, do I refer back to you or undo the tag myself? Thanks. Evelyn Mak (talk) 20:38, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In the meantime, I have done more work on the Meaning Therapy article by adding a section on criticism, removing some external links, and generally looking over wording. Would this be sufficient or would other changes be needed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Evelyn Mak (talk • contribs) 16:10, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG, I have edited Paul T. P. Wong according to your above comments (i.e., removed information about his family, trimmed down list of awards and honours to only reflect major ones, and updated publications list to only reflect top 5 papers, and did some general editing to remove any phrases that from my POV could seem promotional). Please, could you take a look again and give any further direction? Many thanks for your guidance. Evelyn Mak (talk) 18:30, 19 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The way to deal with companies is to write the article for the largest unit that owns all the others, with sections for the individual brands. The brands only need separate articles if they are particularly well known in their own right, more than the parent. It is possible that some of these are, but it is unclear if there is sufficient non-l material available to make good separate articles. The first step in doing this is to improve the content in the main article. DGG ( talk ) 20:26, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The Refresh !vote
Let's consider a new !vote type for AFD:
REFRESH - Likely notable topic with overriding issues. Delete in order to remove the current article content and contributor history from public view. Then re-create with content from Draft:Example
I don't want to add more complexity to the system, or use new terminology. People close this way already . We could put in the instructions an encourage them to do so. But I am very eager to try to find some compromise between our positions, (I should rather say the 2 sides,since we're not the only people) , because the current conflicts are tying up the work at AfD.
In order to use wording that;'s already familiar, I would support adding a button for Delete and encourage re-creation It would still be the understanding that plain delete does not prohibit re-creation or need approval to re-create,and Delete and protect is still available--though quite properly, we use it very little, mainly when there have been numerous hopeless tries. DGG ( talk ) 17:48, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello DGG,
I notice that you recently removed a lot of content from that article as a copyvio. I had expanded that article adding several references a while ago. Can you please email me the deleted content? I will again expand the article being sure to avoid any copyright issues. Thank you. Cullen328Let's discuss it00:03, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You may remember my problems with this user concerning articles on German artists and art historians. See also this edit from Dr Blofeld's talk page. I did not contribute to Wikipedia for several months. Now I added some information to the article on HA Schult, and one or two hours later my old opponent User:Rhode Island Red has reappeared on the scene, removing content from the said article, falsely claiming that major German exhibition catalogs and other publications are not reliable sources and such things (see, for instance, [41]) and now saying that the Washington Post article does not contain the removed information, although he himself included it in the main text of the article some years ago (see [42]). He even changed the wording of some parts of the text, thereby changing the original meaning supported by the given sources (see [43]). He also questions the notabilty of art historian Wolf Tegethoff (see [44]), presumably because I have created this article, and he continues questioning the notablity of articles on other art historians I have created (see [45]). I think it is high time to block the activities of this user. Do you have an idea what we can do? Wikiwiserick (talk) 01:13, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The main thing you can do is avoid getting this personal between the two of you regardless of provocation. Just work on each individual article without mentioning any editor's name at all. As for the issues, I've commented on the talk p. . If I need to go back there, just ask me, but try not to guide me what to do. DGG ( talk ) 05:00, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is now an edit war, as Rhode Island Red is still reverting my edits, though many reliable sources have been provided. What we need is a third opinion concerning the reliability of my sources. Wikiwiserick (talk) 01:33, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Violation of 3RR would require exceeding 3 reverts within 24 h. That is not the case. I regret having had to push it so close to the line but you have clearly violated WP:ONUS, failed to strive for consensus for your additions, and basically ignored the discussion process. This has been a chronic problem. You are also at the bright line of violating 3RR and have now been warned twice. Rhode Island Red (talk) 17:56, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Warned by you on my talk page, yes. I do not understand why Rhode Island Red has now removed all my well-sourced additions to the article on HA Schult (see [46]). Be that as it may, concerning the article on Gotthard Graubner, it is a historical fact that in 1959 Schult, Gonschior and Graubner were the first and only students in Götz's class ("Seine ersten Schüler sind Gotthard Graubner, HA Schult und Kuno Gonschior"). It is therefore self-evident that they knew each other well. As all three students later became well-known German artists of some reputation, they are certainly worth mentioning as classmates in the article on Graubner and elsewhere. Furthermore, in 1958, before moving into Götz's class, both Schult and Graubner had studied under Meistermann. So why has Schult's name been removed from the article on Graubner? Graubner had left Götz's class in 1959 before Richter and Polke began studying in Düsseldorf in 1961. This means that Graubner was not a classmate of Richter and Polke, though they tried, together with Konrad Lueg, to form an artistic collaboration (the Gruppe 63), but "in the end, nothing much came of Lueg's proposal". So they didn't form an artistic colloboration. ("Luegs Vorschlag wird letztlich nicht in die Tat umgesetzt; eine Gruppe 63 nie gegründet"). Some critics only mention Graubner, Richter and Polke because they are the most famous painters who studied in Götz's class. Their painting style differs. Graubner's style is much closer to Gonschior's than to Richter's or Polke's. Even Schult's style in some of his early works (see [47] and [48]) is relatively close to Graubner's (see [49] and [50]). These are the facts. So would you please explain what is wrong with the following sentence:
From 1954 to 1959, Graubner studied painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he became a master pupil of Georg Meistermann. In 1959, when Meistermann left the Academy, Graubner became one of Karl Otto Götz's first students, his fellow students being HA Schult, who also studied under Meistermann, and Kuno Gonschior.
I am now going to ask each of you to think--just think, but not say here--, why the question of just how closely associate the various people were at art school matters to you so much.
There are ways of wording this to avoid the issue, such as A was a student of X, at the same time that B was a student of X. The degree of their relationship can then be left open. It's relevant enough for the relationships of artists to mention, though we do not need to explicitly draw inferences from it. If "in 1959 Schult, Gonschior and Graubner were the first and only students in Götz's class" it is not necessary to actually say that they know each other well. You should be able to compromise on some such wording without my having to write it out for you myself.
I am going to repeat here the one specific opinion that I gave on one of the talk pages: An artist's bio as published as part of the catalog of a sole exhibition in a major museum is a RS for all purposes. Such museum publications are formal publications and are routinely used as reliable. A bio published in a commercial gallery publication or part of a group show may, however, not be reliable. If anyone disagrees with this, please take to WP:RSN which is designed for the purpose. .
I now warn both of you that any mention of each other here or elsewhere will lead to a block. Discuss the edits. I also warn you that in interpreting 3RR, it's the meaning of it, not the exact timing that matters. Some admins may quibble about timing; I care about it being a war. Anyone who pushes it "close to the line" is likely to be blocked.
I now ask both of you to please stop editing these articles for the next 48 hours so I can look at them properly. This is intended as a temporary topic ban and I shall enforce it. DGG ( talk ) 01:15, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I stopped editing the said articles. You are right that it is necessary to discuss the edits. My version of the disputed passage in the article on Gotthard Graubner is the following:
From 1954 to 1959, Graubner studied painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he became a master pupil of Georg Meistermann. In 1959, when Meistermann left the Academy, Graubner became one of Karl Otto Götz's first students, his fellow students being HA Schult, who also studied under Meistermann, and Kuno Gonschior.
This includes only the facts without speculating whether these artists knew each other well. So I do not understand why this has been changed to the following version:
From 1954 to 1959, Graubner studied painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he became a master pupil of Georg Meistermann. In 1959, when Meistermann left the Academy, Graubner became one of Karl Otto Götz's first students.
This current version does not include the full information. The fact that Schult and Gonschior were Graubner's classmates in missing here. However, this information is of importance to art historians who frequently draw comparisons between artists. For instance, in this case it is interesting that Schult, as his early work shows, originally wanted to be a painter (otherwise he would not have moved with Graubner into the painting class of Götz), but later decided to be a performance artist, whereas Graubner und Gonschior remained abstract painters at heart. Furthermore, all three artists later exhibited at the documenta in Kassel and also participated in other group exhibitions. Interestingly, both Graubner's and Schult's art is influenced by the work of Caspar David Friedrich, one of the favorite painters of their professor Götz. So it makes much sense to mention in the Graubner article that Graubner, Schult and Gonschior were classmates in Götz's painting class. Just one sentence presenting all facts without interpretation. However, the article on HA Schult is more problematic, as much more information has been removed here (see [52]). Wikiwiserick (talk) 14:05, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Wikiwiserick, please stop trying to guide my responses. If you do not think I am capable of judging the material for myself, why did you ask my opinion?
Please do not respond further until I have had a chance to re-examine it from the start. DGG ( talk ) 18:23, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't gotten to this one yet--I was planning to do a selective rewriting of the Russian article, not a full translation. If you;d like to add the information from the ruWP, I'd be glad for the help. DGG ( talk ) 20:20, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
David, thank you for your open and honest communication with the issue I had with the Arbitration Committee. Your patience and fairness is greatly appreciated. Sthubbar (talk) 12:31, 22 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Five previous AfDs failed to delete it. With enough tries, anything can be deleted. Not just keep, but since this AfD is less than 6 months after the last one, establish a 2 or 3 year moratorium before another bite at the apple. (The nomination is defective, giving no valid reason for deletion except that it appeals to only a niche audience. So does most of the encyclopedia-- different niches, of course. This is essentially IDONTLIKEIT, in the variant, ITINTERESTSONLYOTHERPEOPLE.
yes, I relisted. Perhaps we need some clearer general understanding of the meaning of "cruft" -- the results of the many AfDs using it over the years shows great variability. DGG ( talk ) 03:27, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Someone got there to do them first. Perhaps it should be in the programming of "undo" but it may not be frequent enough & there may be too many complications.
The real question about "cruft" is how much detail is appropriate in a WP article. The conventional answer in our guidelines, is "as much as supported by the sources." with the unstated understanding "unless it become ridiculous" My own view is that it means or should mean "as much as is appropriate to the importance of the subject and is supported by he sources". I consider that implied by the meaning of "WP is an encyclopedia" because that is what distinguishes encyclopedias from accumulations of information. DGG ( talk ) 04:34, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, could you please restore the [Alpha Academic] page as a draft, so i can make the relevant amendment, as I can now add a reference to confirm it provides vocational education. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Constancelyn (talk • contribs) 14:51, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
does it lead to a degree? do you have any 3rd party RSs that are not PR? Unless you do, there may be not point in claiming it as an educational institution, because it will be nominated by deletion & probably deleted. DGG ( talk ) 16:54, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, If I cannot list it as education institution, can I listed it as a private training provider? I've already forwarded you the link to the awarding body's website where it is listed as an approved centre. Please advise — Preceding unsigned comment added by Constancelyn (talk • contribs) 16:51, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Third,it is not clear whether there is a presumption of notability for this school. We have never fully considered the various levels of UK trade schools, but for US trade schools we have generally thought that the key factor on whether it fits within the group of all high schools and colleges , which are presumed suitable for articles, is a function of the type of institution ms much as the level. But any organization will be considered notable here if it has references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements. I see draft at [:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Alpha_constance/sandbox&oldid=742575223]. It does not have such references. In addition it's not really clear abou the nature of the organization , e.g. "Alpha Academic's main business is proprietary trading and electronic market making, and specialises in providing trading training" -- is its business making markets, or education, or both? The 2nd sentence there talks about it as a market maker for various commodities. The web site is uncear, and I can find no indication of the number of students, etc. or any mention of its notable alumni. It does indicate if read carefully that the first group of students at level 5 has not started quite yet.
I suggest that if--but only if--you have good refereneces as just outlined, that you try in Draft space, and describe the actual institution. DGG ( talk ) 22:35, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
First, I was asked to create a new account because my name were said to have COI with the page. I simply created the username because I liked the word alpha.
Second, I am not being paid to write this article nor have I have COI, i included third party reference such as FOW like OSTC Group did.
Third, the qualification sits on the Qualifications and Credit Framework which is the national credit transfer system for educational qualification in England. Additionally link can be provided.
Could you please kindly restore this to a draft so at least I can have another attempt and send you the draft for review/approval. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Constancelyn (talk • contribs) 19:28, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
I forgot to add that Alpha Academic also has a UKPRN number10061816 which is traceable from the government website https://www.ukrlp.co.uk/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.24.109.137 (talk) 16:28, 9 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Having a government certificate proves nothing . It does not even prove real existence, in the sense of there actually being any students or teachers. . And,from their website "The UKRLP does not quality assure or accredit in any way the learning provision of the provider." Is their ant source of financial information for this firm? Is it now solely a training institution, and ho wcan this be confirmed? DGG ( talk ) 22:33, 9 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
DGG,
Thanks for moving my Whiting article! It is a relief to get it done, and to be able to focus on other things for a while. But hubby and I still plan to attend some meetings and editathons.
See you there!
Mfrm123 (talk) 21:29, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
please could you restore / help me re-draft an article
Hi - I'm getting in touch about an article I wrote on the AO Alliance Foundation that you recently deleted. To give a bit of back-story: I published it directly the first time around, and it was deleted (A7 & G11). I re-worked it and submitted as a draft in the hope that if it still didn't meet requirements for being on Wikipedia, I'd be assisted in making the necessary edits. Thus, it's disappointing to see it deleted again (this time just on G11). I'm struggling to see the difference in tone between the AO Alliance Foundation article and articles on other international NGOs (International Rescue Committee, Open Society Foundations, AO Foundation, etc), and fear that it's being deleted because I'm new to Wikipedia editing and haven't yet hacked writing with an encyclopaedic tone, rather than that the subject matter is intrinsically problematic. Please could you restore the article / advise on how I can re-draft it to ensure it meets Wikipedia's requirements? Many thanks, PetePete.harrison93 (talk) 12:08, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Pete.harrison93, both the draft and the article was indistinguishable from a web page written to promote the group, and most of the content is devoted to saying how great the need is and how good their work is. That's promotionalism As for the other articles you mention, There are several hundred thousand articles in WP accepted in earlier years when the standards were lower that we need to either upgrade or remove. The least we can do is not add to them. Specifically. the IRC article is indeed a problem, and I've tagged it for improvement. The AO article needs checking . The OSF article seems reasonably descriptive for me, and a good deal of it is devoted to criticism.
As for writing a draft, do you have references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements> There are none in the draft. If you do not, there is no chance of an article. Perhaps the best course would be to add a paragraph to the article on the closely related AO Foundation.
I would be obliged if you could restore this article so I can finish it. I don't think it's reasonable to delete a new article at an hours notice. Some of us have other things in our life apart from Wikipedia. Rathfelder (talk) 18:34, 27 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Rathfelder, there was no indication of importance and there seemed unlikely to be any. Normally in a case like this I'd restore to draft space, but since you're an experienced editor, I will restore it, and check again in a week or so. DGG ( talk ) 01:39, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I think any substantial hospital is notable. The difficulty, for commercial ones, is finding information which is not disguised advertising. But lack of information does not mean it isn't notable. And this article is not intended to be advertising.Rathfelder (talk) 15:22, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Notable in the world is different from what we call "notable" in wikipedia. In the past, most medium sized hospital afds have ended up in deletions. I used to defend them. but gave it up as hopeless. What I suggest when possible is combination articles for a chain. In one of its more rational sections, WP:N suggests that for things that are technically notable under its rules but for which there isn't much to say. DGG ( talk ) 15:27, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's actually more than that: When we say a source is a RS for notability, the meaning is that we think it is sufficient to indicate that the subject in question is suitable for an article in an encyclopedia like WP. It depends as much on what you think suitable for an article in WP as on the source. Depending on what you want in WP, so you evaluate the sources for notability.
When I was a novice here, I thought the GNG very clever. But I soon learned how easy it is to use it for arguing in any desired direction. DGG ( talk ) 14:16, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And, very opportunely, I just saw Liz Spayd, "Reviewing Toaster Ovens,and Selling them, Too" (ThePublic Editor) New York Times Pct 26, 2016 [54], from which I quote "The New York Times ... earlier this week ... purchased a popular website called The Wirecutter that recommends a variety of consumer products to its customers....If a visitor to Wirecutter’s site purchases a product by clicking a link to, say, Amazon, then Wirecutter gets a percentage of the profit". So much for the reliability of the NYT as a RS for notability: direct financial COI for the products it writes about. I didn't think things were quite this bad, DGG ( talk ) 16:36, 31 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It was deleted based on the old proposal. The new entry was based on newer sources (check the history of the article before they were removed).--Taeyebar23:14, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Could you reinstate this page as a draft? I had previously edited the page down to just the facts but evidently not enough and I'd like to have another go. Thanks. Josephbeckett (talk) 01:23, 5 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just been checking email history on this. I work at CCF and made the last changes were made by my former colleague, Jess. If we can get the page back we'll start with a severe cut of links and detail, and just stick with the basic facts ie. being mindful of it becoming promotional.Josephbeckett (talk) 03:58, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Josephbeckett, as a general rule, neither you nor anyone else who works at the organization should be working either on the page for the director or the page for the organization. Most people cannot do it objectively, and the state of the article on the Fund makes this obvious. But perhaps you can, so first clean up the article on the fund, and then ask me again. Pay attention to removing adjectives, and unimportant prizes ("finalist" is not an award). Remove material talking about the importance of the problem the charity addresses and similar background. --we want only what it does. DGG ( talk ) 22:54, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
People and orgs not writing about themselves would be ideal but is also not realistic. We've edited the CCF page, could you take a look? If acceptable we'll do similar for Scott's page. Best. 42.115.21.79 (talk) 02:27, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG. We've edited the page and we'll like to follow protocol in relation to having the "advertising and promotion" label removed. Could you or another editor take a look? We'd then like to have a go at the Scott Neeson page. Thanks. Josephbeckett (talk) 07:42, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think what you mean to say is that because Bear Brand is a Nestlé trademark, this indicates it is notable. But see WP:NOTINHERITED--even for the most famous companies, not all of their products are notable. You need references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements discussing it to show it should not simply be listed in their list of products article. DGG ( talk ) 04:26, 6 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have tried to create page on Habib Ullah Afridi, but the name is protected by admin. He is a notable person and I have a perfect source links, kindly allow me to create. Thanks. Wania Khan (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:34, 8 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Wania Khan One of the references that you have used and the information about him being a politician is false. The story refers to another man who's name is similar Hameed Ullah Jan Afridi. Habib Ullah Afridi has never been a member of parliament and the rest of your Wikipedia article does not meet WP:GNG. Please check this story source and this page, member of parliament --Domdeparis (talk) 16:59, 8 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Pending Changes
Hi,
At the recommendation of another user, I am asking if I am eligible for the pending changes perm. Thanks for your time. Pyrusca (talk) 19:44, 8 November 2016 (UTC).
I see no reason why not, but I am almost never involved with patrolled revisions (PCI-), if that's what you mean. It would be better to ask someone else. If you mean new pages patrol,or something else, tell me so. DGG ( talk ) 05:57, 9 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is the serious concern I was discussing, and would like to know how to solve this. The result was keep. As it is very clear, detail copy paste job from non-notable references (Cunard in this case for example) do not even mislead but extremely boring for few who come to AfD for vote. As people even forget what is there even to consider notable. in this case even after clear consensus/ numbers of deletion support as nominated by you and well presented thoughts by others. It is being kept with no significant values added. Now this will take another community time if we discuss it somewhere else. that is how such article are being kept and we are building this platform no different than paid media advertising. or a directory. even this profile has nothing to write for Wikipedia. Just some thoughts about such ongoing practices. Thanks.Light2021 (talk) 21:47, 9 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
at least 1/10 of AfD decisions are probably wrong,with an equal number in both directions. Given the decision making process at WP, we might improve this a little by wider participation, but we are not going to eliminate it. Some people honestly feel that even borderline notability is a more important matter than discouraging promotionalism. People can use the GNG to get whatever result they want. I recommend great caution in using Deletion review in anything that is not an utter blunder, because it can establish an unfortunate precedent. DGG ( talk ) 00:58, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Request for UnDeletion
On 18 September 2016 editor JzG deleted a wikipedia page entry about me (Renee Hobbs) and migrated it to User:Reneehobbs2002 without leaving a redirect. No reason for the deletion was provided nor was I contacted about the action. I do not see any discussion about this decision and it seems like the editor responsible for the decision, JzG, is taking a vacation from Wikipedia for a while. I was unable to find a place to leave a contact message. He suggests that you are the contact person in his absence. I would like to request undeletion. I believe my notability was discussed in 2009 and the decision was made to keep. In his notes, it says (rm. print-on-demand vanity press) but I'm not sure what this refers to as I have never published work with a vanity press. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AArticles_for_deletion%2FRenee_HobbsReneehobbs (talk) 02:28, 10 November 2016 (UTC)Renee Hobbs[reply]
Reneehobbs, that AfD was in 2009, and I am not at all sure that the article would meet current standards. And we are much more stringent than we were then about accepting autobiographies. But, JzG, I do not think the way you removed it was really justified; it would have been much better to nominate it for AfD2 and have a proper discussion. DGG ( talk ) 06:18, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As a trivial autobiography, I always think it is kinder to userfy it than to delete it, per {{nn-userfy}}, but I don't feel especially strongly about this specific case. Guy (Help!) 15:24, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
International Overdose Awareness Day
Recently you deleted this page based upon potential copyright issues. Is there a way to retrieve the entry in order for re-submission with the alleged copyright violation addressed? 103.253.92.96 (talk) 04:07, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
it was deleted for two reasons: being mostly a copyvio from your website, and for being a promotional article intended to encourage interest in your cause. No matter how important the cause,we don't do that. If you have references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements,then try again, in Draft space. If you have any conflict of interest with the organization, remember that you must declare it:see WP:COI DGG ( talk ) 06:23, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also, as a note, your IP talk page in fact noted the concerns about this and how copyvios are unacceptable, and this was also noted to you at WP:UNDELETE, yet you restarted the same copyvio three times again. Regardless of whether you own the contents as I believe you may have noted in the past, it's not acceptable at all, nor will it ever be. Draft:Penington Institute has been locked as a fact, so please bear this in mind. SwisterTwistertalk06:38, 10 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The article didn't make it clear, but Karjee Eduvetures Pvt Ltd provides vocational training. Does that qualify it for the educational institution exemption from A7? —C.Fred (talk) 18:47, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
C.Fred unless they give degrees of some sort, we have not usually considered them as such. And the article was in any case hopeless. After you removed the blatant advertisement (which was probably copyvio as well) , all that was left was a directory entry. Woul,dn;t it have been easier just to delete as G11 in the first place? DGG ( talk ) 05:52, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for clarifying. My experience with A7 has been the broadest possible definition of educational institution: even middle/intermediate schools, which don't give degrees/diplomas, qualify for the A7 exemption, although they usually get merged to the parent district's article.
The original editor pared back the blatant advertisement. That's why I gave the article a chance to survive and didn't delete it outright under G11. —C.Fred (talk) 13:08, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We usually do not keep articles on national subsidiaries of multinational companies. Furthermore, your article had essentially no references. It was also written in the first person "We ..." which means that either you are a representative of the company, or much more likely, copied the material from some of their press releases or web pages. Please see WP:SPAM , WP:COPYVIO and WP:Reliable sources .. DGG ( talk ) 06:38, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins
Hello,
Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG -- I deleted this article under A7 but the author, User:Andrewnpeters, requested an explanation of the deletion. I've given a generic one but thought you might be able to offer more useful advice as you have a lot more experience in this area. Thanks, Espresso Addict (talk) 00:02, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.
It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.
Bookmytrainings is not that promotional at the moment, and would be better dealt with by AfD,since there are references, tho not good ones. The other 2 have been deleted. DGG ( talk ) 20:32, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have eliminated the section describing Dr. Patel's advocacy of early screening for prostate cancer, his honorary titles, some description that may seem subjective and the contributions to textbooks. Although you commented that only the most cited articles should be listed, I am not certain how to handle this because the number of publications is one of the factors establishing his notability. Also, the biography of another surgeon of similar notability in the same field lists a similarly large number of publications (see David B. Samadi)
I've finally returned to your suggestions for improving the WideOrbit page. You were kind enough to offer these to me way back on February 2.
Per your recommendations, I've removed about 50% of the detail and over half of the citations. I agree that it is now simpler to understand this company's notability.
Please advise on whether this passes AfD - and please also my best to your colleague SisterTwister, with whom I worked on an earlier draft.
I wish to retrieve the deleted material for the future improvement. What should we pay attention to in order to improve our article [55]? The article about our web-source plays a vital role for research chemists and their scientific research/activity so as:
1. Our website is the biggest database of Building block (chemistry) (there is a mention about our website in this article).
2. Our website – is a huge source where the research chemists can find an important and unique information about chemical and physical properties of building blocks. Besides they can also find a chemical name of chemical structure and a unique numerical identifier assigned by Chemical Abstracts Service.
3. Research chemists, by conducting structural searches with the help of our resource, will be able to check for substances, which have already been invented, and make the right decisions on which chemicals to synthesize - all this at the stage of chemical creation.
AJ 482, there's a good case for an article. I'm familiar with the usefulness of similar sources in print form, way back when I was a biochemist back in the 70s. However, there were some problems with the submission, including the list of suppliers. It would greatly help to have a few academic papers or textbooks or even methods books that discuss it. I will undelete and revise, but I need you to find some more references. DGG ( talk ) 05:22, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
DGG, Thanks for your help with restructuring of Chemspace page. Ok, I understand - we will find more references, but it can take some time and we will try to do it as quickly as possible. AJ 482 (talk) 11:44, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
DGG, I added a bit of information in article and new reference. If you need PDF of article which is mentioned in references - let me know, I will send you it. AJ 482 (talk) 18:48, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Argument
Sorry, wrong tail, wrong animal. The thing about newspapers in Australia is we actually have them as subjects, and as valuable WP:RS, so we actually do tend to have them as notable in both directions.
The project by Australian libraries and the National Library of Australia, and the Trove project is quite a large project that specifically makes most Australian newspapers, current or dead, as notable items by the very process of digitizing them, you were correct to catch the crap text of that one, but it only takes a few minutes on Trove to work out whether the pr rubbish 'fits'. Some states and some librarians are more hard working than others, and the ones that slip the check (like the one you caught) are getting less in number... If you have any sense of Australia - one of the 'weakest' states when it comes to specific overall wikipedia editing is new south wales - the paradox being List of newspapers in New South Wales is the elephant in the news south wales room. cheers JarrahTree02:45, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am very open to the argument that we should have articles about every journal or newspaper that anyone is in WP is likely to use as a source, so people will know what it is and can have a start at forming some estimate of reliability. I've given up on this, for lack of support, but I'm willing to make another try at it. Basically, it would probably best be handled as a specific exemption to the notability requirement, rather than trying to fit it into the boundaries of WP:N. However, I also strongly feel there is a virtue in having some degree of consistency, so I tend to support the established standards until there is consensus to change them--though I sometimes push a little at the boundaries. We have never had the practice that a newspaper becomes notable by existing, no matter who publishes it. That it's covered by the comprehensive project of the National library is an argument that amounts to INDISCRIMINATE. I'll join you in a general revision of this, but not it making one particular newspaper an exception. DGG ( talk ) 03:34, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your considered response. It is not an easy one, for example the New South Wales List has so many over-laps and crossovers, many titles can be incorporated into one item about a number of newspapers that succeed each other in one location for instance. Like most things here on wp en - your catch of a crap article (it was just recentism and poorly written with no refs) was good and appreciated ! Your boundary pushing was appreciated in this case, as I was able to dip into the regional dynamics and the Trove resource to give - as you say the 'argument'. I would say that the NLA Trove inclusion is not necessarily 'indiscriminate' as where some versions of some newspapers are simply components ( a short run of the same newspaper under a different title for 10 years say) in most cases the persons editing the articles on the major title (not component titles, so to speak) are sufficiently aware that what makes an article about the newspapers in Orange, New South Wales - might actually refer to a number of titles of earlier preceding newspapers in the final amalgamated or successor newspaper. By that level of discrimination I believe Australian newspaper articles that have signs of being part of the projects like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/State_Library_of_Western_Australia in turn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/State_Library_of_Western_Australia/The_Newspaper_Project would be very careful about low levels of the appropriate properties of being in N territory .
I believe that the projects mentioned above can stay well above and away from running into questions of N or otherwise - and the lists in something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheatbelt_newspapers - they dont necessarilyneed or have to all end up as separate discrete articles - in my opinion, some are too low on the level of N regardless of any criterion. Hope that gives you a clue as to the territory that I come from - cheers JarrahTree09:00, 20 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think the template adds any information which could not be better said in text in the article on the main company. If your intention is to make separate articles for each of the national brands,I would advise against it. DGG ( talk ) 21:03, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Dear DGG, I saw your comment on my draft land governance page. You state that land tenure and land governance seem to be the same, so why bother with a land governance page? But there is a difference: the difference between a social(/economic) phenomenon and the policies that try to regulate that phenomenon. In the broad sense of the word, tenure refers to all the paterns of ownership, land concentration and land use that are actually the case; land governance is the whole of policies, legislation and procedures that are in place to regulate access to land and settle competing claims. See for instance the FAO website: they speak of the (much-hyped) 'Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, ...'. In other words, tenure is the object of governance.
Can the above convince you (and/or Zppix - I don't know why you made the comment, since Zppix was the reviewer that declined my submission) to accept my submission, after all?
Jur Schuurman, Just as nobody owns a page, no one controls review of a page. In fact, it's generally better for subsequent reviews to be done by different people, because the purpose of reviewing is to try to ensure that articles accepted into the encyclopedia will not be challenged--or, at least, not successfully challenged. I don't see that the FAO title is decisive, because if taken as a definition, it would cause the article to be titled Governance of Land Tenure. If I were to try to make a distinction based on the material in the two articles I would say that Tenure is the legal system, and Governance the economic and social basis for it, which seems to be the meaning of the boxed material "Statutory vs. customary systems" in your article, and seems to be the opposite of what you said above. I think you need to clear up this confusion before the article would make sense in an encyclopedia . DGG ( talk ) 21:01, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG, thanks for your valuable suggestions for the draft article Freshdesk. I have made the changes accordingly. Thank you. (Barath Rajendran (talk)
Barath Rajendran, I made some additional improvements, which give it a chance of passing afd. Personally, I am very skeptical of the independence of the sources, which are mostly based on Press Releases, but others may feel differently. What I am going to do is accept it, and then send it for a community discussion at WP:AFD. DGG ( talk ) 22:04, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
DGG, Thanks for your feedback, can you guide me on how the resources should be, so that instead of getting deleted, we can improve the article. Also, i generally take examples of other company pages for reference before writing it. In general, i too always except the best articles to be in wiki, i need support from you all to make it an effective one rather deleting it. I took this as example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zendesk . Also i dont have any connection with any of these companies, i just want to contribute to the wiki effectively. User:Barath Rajendran ( talk ) 11:15, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are several hundred thousand articles in WP accepted in earlier years when the standards were lower that we need to either upgrade or remove. The least we can do is not add to them. As you have found, this an create quite a problem for those who are looking for models for their own articles. The only way I know that we can avoid it is to more quickly improve or delete the articles. There is also a problem for subjects in fields where there are no or few truly reliable sources. INmany field, not justof business but of non-rofits and the arts, almost all the sources are based on press releases--leaving only the organizations that are truly amous to have actually good sources. There are two schools of thought here--one is to lower our standards to include every medium sized company, and one to maintain or raise them. The fundamental principle at issue is WP:NOTDIRECTORY, which is basic policy. All the details in the notability standards ate just guidelines based on this, aoften with no fixed interpretation.
But consider Zendesk. That firm is on the main board of the NY Stick Exchange, the accepted standard for truly notable US businesses. Even so, it needs improvment: the company name is used too much, and there is too much detail about funding. It needs work also, but not deletion. DGG ( talk ) 07:32, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
DGG, Thanks for the explanation DGG, it was really helpful. I go with your words of maintaining or raising the standards. I Saw now the article was deleted before raising it to the standards, so what is the solution here to restore the page, because i feel writing it again wouldnt be the best solution. I need your guidance for the best articles to be on Wiki. User:Barath Rajendran ( talk ) 16:25, 16 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
10:18:24, 24 November 2016 review of submission by Jrbleprg
Hi DGG, thank you for your feedback on my draft article Draft:Coop@home. It is my first article to try to create from scratch and I appreciate your feedback regarding the article's lack of substance. Would it be possible to let me know if you think each individual point should be fleshed out more or if more points should be added instead? Thanks again! Jrbleprg (talk) 10:18, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Jrbleprg, I fundamentally do not think a separate article from the one on the parent Coop (Switzerland) is warranted. I just checked the German, French , and Italian WPs; the German and French do not give it its own article but mention it in one line in the main article; the Italian WP doesn't even mention it. The enWP has a paragraph on it already, and a redirect from Coopathome.ch. I will make another redirect from the alternate form. DGG ( talk ) 02:28, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG, I respectfully disagree. Online sites are very different from the brick and mortar companies that they have evolved from. A standard brick and mortar grocery business is conservative compared to what you see in online groceries (with their grocery walls, multi-lingual aspects (so important for a non-native speaker in a foreign country), and even food delivery on Sundays. Also, just considering the specific notability of coop@home, the top two countries in Europe with successful online grocery stores are the UK with Tesco.com, Ocado, mySupermarket, etc and then Switzerland with LeShop.ch and coop@home. I'd also like to mention a larger list of online stores which are listed at List of online grocers. I added coop@home today, but I suspect it will not stay on this list long, as periodically people do remove all the unlinked sites. If language is an issue, would it help if I were to add a German and French version? (The site isn’t in Italian, which is most likely why it is not mentioned in the Italian version of the coop article). Thank you for your thoughts on this. Jrbleprg (talk) 12:27, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
aapparently the editors at all 3 WPs for the countries in serves think otherwise. I will look at the other entries you mention. DGG ( talk ) 15:05, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It has now been deleted 3 times by three separate experienced administrators. It is your autobiography, and it is essentially a job application letter, and you are apparently still a trainee. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia , and when you become famous, someone else will write an article about you. DGG ( talk ) 07:42, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
1Face
I am the person who created the page 1Face. I went to look for it today and noticed it is no longer in Wikipedia. I see that you are the person who deleted the page but I never received any type of notification that it was going to be deleted. I would have liked the chance to address any concerns but was unaware there were any. I would request that the page be restored. Please let me know the specific concerns about the page as I do not fully understand the "concern reason" posted on the deleted page. Thanks. --Penniesloafers (talk) 20:43, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Penniesloafers To answer your concerns, I'm the one who suggested deletion because it was in fact an advertisement and only advertised the company as they would themselves, and the history showed this, thus it violated our policies of having it; Wikipedia is not a business listing or a PR webhost for companies or groups, and any materials when found will be deleted if found to be unsuitable. Simply because a company exists or has influenced in its field is not a convincing improvement. See WP:What Wikipedia is not. For companies to be notable, they need actual independent news publications, and never press releases, trivial passing mentions, interviews or simply funding and company announcements. SwisterTwistertalk18:56, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
listed it for speedy as a duplicate of the correct title, Jakarta Maghrib, which is now, appropriately, listed for AfD. It is difficult to tell if the film might be notable if it is impossible to decipher the article. DGG ( talk ) 07:49, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
on the cut and paste item, I was quite taken with delight to see we have a tag This article may require copy editing for horrendous grammar - there is hope yet... JarrahTree07:50, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I know this was deleted under G5, but do you think you can grab it and put it in a draft instead? I want to work on it and don't want to work from scratch. Pyrusca (talk) 14:34, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I recently made an appeal to all the new holders of the New Page Reviewer right to address the monumental backlog. As I feared, some have decided that machine gun reviewing is the answer. I've just warned one for reviewing many articles at a cadence of one every 4.28 seconds. I'll warn them a couple of times and if they still don't slow down I'll take the tool off them again. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:35, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've started at the back of the queue where things can go fairly fast, although not every 5 seconds. However, as always, one seemingly simple review task often leads to yet more time-consuming issues. Observe Suraj Pancholi. A "new" editor had removed the redirect to leave a blank page [56]. A check of their other edits found they had pulled this with multiple other redirects related to the same person [57], [58], [59]. Then I discover that the editor is almost surely a sock. See the recently re-opened Sockpuppet investigations/AdnanAliAfzal. UGH! Voceditenore (talk) 11:03, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Voceditenore, that's precisely what hppens when page patrolling is done correctly - one thing leads to another and it's possible to discover all sorts of nasty things. Problem is getting patrollers to do anything other than just click on the 'Reviewed' button. I've spent 12 hours today on Page Curation and I'm finding that the quality of patrolling is just the same as it was before we handed out the new user right. Perhaps we should be supporting the WMF development of ORES - but that's a solution that's probably still light years ahead.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:46, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I know, Kudpung. I was just having a moan . However, the time-consuming nature of reviewing properly means that many of us NPRs who are primarily content editors simply cannot afford to tackle more than a few of these per week—otherwise, we'd have no time for anything else. The NPRs who aren't significant content editors or administrators generally don't have the experience (or inclination, I suspect) to do the more detailed, laborious stuff. I'm not sure what the solution is. Voceditenore (talk) 15:08, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think I reviewed about 11 articles in an hour and a half a couple of hours back, from the back of the queue - including finding ISBN, downloading a book cover illustration, and linking from author name, for a novel; adding redirects from abbreviations for several; challenging a COI Username;, fixing a weird home-made infobox (well, half-fixing and then asking at Helpdesk for more info); adding entries to dab pages;, creating at least one new dab page; etc etc. All quite fun but takes a lot of time. Perhaps I should review more minimally, but that would be less satisfying, though it would hit the backlog better. PamD15:35, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, indeed, Pam, I also do about 10 an hour. I think that's the way most of us 'oldies' go about page patrolling. Like vandalism patrolling though, many patrollers, appear to think NPP is just another whack-a-mole. It's anything but. But that's what the community does not recognise each time we try to introduce measures to regulate it. I think DGG's suggestion of an edit filter might not go amiss. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:48, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I went over the article in question, and sourced all statements to apparently reliable sources, while removing anything that sounded promotional. I would appreciate it if you would take another look at the article. Edison (talk) 23:21, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, David -- Thanks for the feedback. In light of your comments, I substantially cut and condensed the Matt Rizai entry. Thanks for having another look. Please let me know if I've addressed the issues you raised. Please note that the sources cited are independent, reliable and published. - Sam
Update: I'm adding more sourcing. I'll repost when I'm done. My apologies!
I'm sorry, but I am having difficulty in understanding you. Do you want me to do something, and if so what,? (Or can anyone reading this help me here?). And, Cyrus noto3at bulaga, what exactly is your connection to the company, if any? DGG ( talk ) 21:14, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG, I guess this has something to do with your edit here where you removed excessive detail, but it's still not clear what the poster is after! S/he seems to specialise in editing articles on brand names. PamD22:10, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The user who started the article was one of a group of sockpuppets writing promotional articles both for their own books, and for a number of companies, almost certainly in violation of our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure . If you think the firm is notable, and if you have no WP:Conflict of Interest, you could start an article, preferably in Draft space using WP:Articles for Creation. Buyt be sure you have references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements; in the dleted article, the references are either things the principal has written himself, or write-ups from unreliable blogs-- not single one was from a major newspaper or magazine. Regarless of who created it, it would have been deleted. DGG ( talk ) 01:28, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Totally understand on the sockpuppets − I realize the impact these users have on the veracity of WP. However, all of the references therein are relevant, prominent publications within the niche industry at hand, option trading; e.g. Investing.com, SmartPassiveIncome.com, OptionsOdds.com. To my knowledge none of the references are written by the principal (one Kirk Du Plessis). Alternately, the competing educational services − which provides very similar trading resources − has a presumably non-problematic WP page (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TradeKing).
Banner user aside, the Option Alpha wiki provides valid, user-friendly content and pulls from legitimate sources. I would still maintain that this is cause for reconsideration of speedy deletion.
I will not restore promotional articles by sockpupetts. If you think the references will hold up, you can try to write an article. DGG ( talk ) 04:26, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There's a fairly-new editor - User :Usman Khalil - who is trying his best to follow WP's rules & guidelines about doing some paid-editing. He has been very open to adjusting his editing and placing the proper COI notices onto his edits etc. I came across his edits on Frederick Achom a while back and have been mentoring him from time to time. I would appreciate it muchly if you could maybe keep an eye on his edits & his talk page. I am concerned that he will inadvertently run afoul of some rule and get blocked or whatever. My most recent thread on his talk page is User talk:Usman Khalil#WP: PAID - I posted how I thought he should proceed going forward and just wanted to make sure that this was correct. Thanks & cheers - Shearonink (talk) 19:38, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Related to this, see here. DGG, I'd be interested to hear your views on this - I think this is the most coverage an edit-a-thon has ever had. Reviewing the articles created would be an interesting exercise. Though many are being created on other language Wikipedias. Carcharoth (talk) 13:14, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are more. Not sure how many in en-Wikipedia, but the claims were 400+ across all Wikipedias. I added 11 more and someone just added another one. See here. There will be more. 138 pages here. Some haven't had the BLP category added. Carcharoth (talk) 15:46, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A late follow-up. It looks like the total number for en-Wikipedia was around 200 articles and drafts here. Surely enough there to consider now and to draw some new conclusions of some sort? Carcharoth (talk) 03:08, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes please! Can you believe Wikipedia was declaring that a journal was notable because it had an impact factor of 1?!?! jps (talk) 19:08, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
closed as non-consensus on Dec23.
A kitten for you!
Your help with our Black Lunch Table editathon was very much appreciated! Thanks!
So, you can improve the article due the lack of notability. -- cyɾʋsɴɵtɵ3atBULAGA!!! 09:17, December 13, 2016
Biocentric Universe merge - procedural question
Hi, I was involved in the AfD discussion of biocentric universe. The result was Merge to Robert Lanza. One of the other editors, who was arguing for Delete, blanked the page and made it a redirect to Robert Lanza, which I understand. However, since the AfD result was Merge, not Delete, today I chose a greatly reduced selection of material from the article and incorporated it into Robert Lanza to create this version: [60]. This included eight additional references, including adding references that are critical of the biocentric-universe hypothesis. Nine minutes later, the same editor reverted my addition, citing UNDUE. (Please note that a subsequent re-addition by an IP user was not me, which I encourage you to check.)
Is this how a Merge is supposed to work? It seems like this editor took it upon him/herself to change your Merge decision to a straight Delete decision, and having already reverted the IP editor's re-addition, is now edit-warring. You wrote in the AfD decision, "The opinions are irreconcilable, and further discussion will not clarify anything. In such a case, the compromise solution has advantages." This editor is refusing to compromise. Any clarification on this case would be appreciated. -Jordgette[talk]21:51, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
no , it is not how it is supposed to work., but it's been known to happen. It happens frequently enough that it has a name "smerge" (for "submerge") The closing admin unfortunately has no right to actually control content in such cases, no moe than any other editor--it's one of the gaps of the system. But I'll see what I can do. DGG ( talk ) 23:17, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
hey. at the AfD you said you think there is a way to edit the article that will make clear how flakey it is; something about listing the titles of the top-cited article or something. I would be interested to see what that would like if you would be interesting in doing that. Jytdog (talk) 00:09, 16 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The silly thing is, I would really like to have a neutral article on this. People keep citing it on Wikipedia (not often, but enough that I have to check every couple of weeks) and a properly neutral article that made clear just how fringe it is - as if a glance at the cover were not enough - would be a boon. The problem is that I simply cannot find the sources. Science, in the main, simply ignores obvious bollocks. Guy (Help!) 12:10, 17 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would just like to say how genuinely pleased I am that your services have been retained again. I just hope that another 2 years in that irrenhaus won't drive you bonkers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:51, 17 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
AfC
Hi. Have just gotten back to reviewing articles at AfC. Is there a new process for checking for copyvios? When I was last reviewing, Earwig's program had become unreliable. Onel5969TT me23:04, 17 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Deletion with no explanaiton. Re-doing page. What must I do?
Hello,
Yesterday I wrote an article for "John D. Chisholm" and it was marked for speedy deletion. I tried to contest the deletion and make modifications to the article. I also left messages on the talk page requesting information on how the article should be changed. I didn't hear anything back before the article was deleted.
I am going to write the article again, making absolutely certain list only facts that can be corroborated from a verifiable online source. I would please like some feedback before it is marked for deletion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clkndggr (talk • contribs) 19:40, 19 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Your current version is better, but you need to emphasize the key factor in showing him notable , which is his book. Find some reviews, and add them as references. don't quote from the reviews, though. Just list them. The patents are only significant if they have been substantially exploited. As for style, try replacing most of the "Chisholm"s with "he". Try to avoid constructions like "would receive" or the like. Put references in the form specified by WP:REFBEGIN. If it has been published in a publication like a journal, use cite journal, not cite web. Include vol., year, and page when possible.
When ready, enter it as a Draft, using the WP:Article Wizard, and it will be reviewed before going into main space. That will give it a better chance. DGG ( talk ) 01:00, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Transition Design deletion
Hello DGG, I am the originator of the Transition Design wiki page, which I believe you deleted a few weeks ago. The article was, I think, originally posted in 2013 and required many additions/updates, I have now completely rewritten it and reorganised into a draft version. I have been a bit remiss in not keeping it updated to reflect activities and developments over the last few years. I hope to repost the article in the next few days, but am unsure if it is better (and indeed possible) to repost the original Transition Design article, or whether to create a new entry for this updated version. Please could you advise.
I have, I hope, addressed the various arguments that were made in favour of the article's deletion, although, not being an experienced Wikipedia user, I am now having difficulty in tracking down these comments and ensuring they have all been addressed. Contrary to some of the comments, to mention just a few things (which will be given more detail in the article) Transition Design is not simply a Phd strand in a design school developed by a single professor, it is an idea that originated in 2005 in Ireland, and in recent years has become a major part of all levels of the Carnegie Mellon design curriculum, where it is being taught and researched by multiple professors; it has now been incorporated into multiple design curriculums and research labs all over the world; several partnerships have been made between universities for the research and development of Transition Design; there have been two international Transition Design symposiums, one in Pittsburgh and one in Devon, UK, involving academics from many universities as well as practitioners and researchers, and there will be a third symposium in a few months in Barcelona; many keynote talks on the subject have been given at conferences organized by universities and professional and research associations; dozens of invited lectures and workshops have been given all over the world; many papers by different people have been published on the subject, including multiple peer reviewed papers; and it is also finding its way into design practice having been taken up by the AIGA, the largest organization for professional designers in the USA with 26,0000 members (here is a link to their page the AIGA 'A Complete Primer on Transition Design, http://www.aiga.org/what-is-transition-design )
The deletion of the article has created a good opportunity for completely reworking it and bringing it up to date, and I hope this version meets Wikipedia criteria. Neodig (talk) 22:36, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
An article might be m=possible,but what you have written in your user space is advocacy, not neutral description. You need to say what it is, not why it is important. As a start, I'd suggest aiming at 1/3 the current length. My experience here is that articles on new intellectual movements iare much more likely to suceed in proportion to the brevity.
More particularly 1/ most of the history section belongs, much abbreviated, at the end, in a section on "Education in transition design". the only part that really belongs in "history" is the section on initial development. And do not list the speakers or speaker affiliations at a conference. 2/ don't use jargon,neither educational jargon in general nor jargon specific to the field.3/ Write in plain descriptive prose, not the sort of rhetoric suitable for an argument. There are a number of use of the construction "not only" or the equivalent. These should be taken as warning signs that the surrounding material is argument. Watch out also for phrases like "Transition Design argues...." or "Transition design identifies ..." Try to omit introductory phrases and get right to the topic. 4./ the "Transition Design Framework ("section is inappropriate repletion and over-detai. I know you like it, but it's the sort of prose that would go into a graduate program description or the introduction to a textbook. 5./ There's too much about the Carnegie Mellon University program. Its detailed description belongs in its program description on its own web site. 6/ Try not to use sentence fragments in a bulleted list. That's powerpoint style, not encyclopedic writing. 7/ See WP:REFBEGIN for our standard reference format. While other forms are accepted, they give the impression that it is material from elsewhere re-purposed for WP. 7/Do not repeat references as external links.They belong as one or the other. 8/Try not to refer to unpublished material such as lecture notes. 8/ Do not use strings of references at the end ofg a sentence. That's appropriate for academic writing, not a general encyclopedia. 9./ If you have any professional relationship to the topic or CMU, declare it on your user page and the article talk page.
Hello DGG, I am the originator of the Transition Design wiki page, which I believe you deleted a few weeks ago. The article was, I think, originally posted in 2013 and required many additions/updates, I have now completely rewritten it and reorganised into a draft version. I have been a bit remiss in not keeping it updated to reflect activities and developments over the last few years. I hope to repost the article in the next few days, but am unsure if it is better (and indeed possible) to repost the original Transition Design article, or whether to create a new entry for this updated version. Please could you advise.
I have, I hope, addressed the various arguments that were made in favour of the article's deletion, although, not being an experienced wikipedia user, I am now having difficulty in tracking down these comments and ensuring they have all been addressed. Contrary to some of the comments, to mention just a few things (which will be given more detail in the article) Transition Design is not simply a Phd strand in a design school developed by a single professor, it is an idea that originated in 2005 in Ireland, and in recent years has become a major part of all levels of the Carnegie Mellon design curriculum, where it is being taught and researched by multiple professors; it has now been incorporated into multiple design curriculums and research labs all over the world; several partnerships have been made between universities for the research and development of Transition Design; there have been two international Transition Design symposiums, one in Pittsburgh and one in Devon, UK, involving academics from many universities as well as practioners and researchers, and there will be a third symposium in a few months in Barcelona; many keynote talks on the subject have been given at conferences organized by universities and professional and research associations; dozens of invited lectures and workshops have been given all over the world; have been many papers by different people have been published on the subject, including multiple peer reviewed papers; and it is also finding its way into design practice having been taken up by the AIGA, the largest organization for professional designers in the USA with 26,0000 members (here is a link to their page A Complete Primer on Transition Design, http://www.aiga.org/what-is-transition-design )
The deletion of the article has created a good opportunity for completely reworking it and bringing it up to date, and I hope this version meets Wikipedia criteria. Neodig (talk) 14:27, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
…what more I can say to be allowed the chance to review. It seems I am being judged before solid evidence is in place. I not ignorant of the things suggested, nor do I harbour designs for things, outside the pale, as suggested. I was, as I have repeatedly said, drawn to the possibility of AfC work, by Robert's example. Have you seen his work, and his comments made in reviewing? This is the model being rejected, as much as anything else. Leprof 7272 (talk) 16:55, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I already advised you, that what you should do is participate in AfD and Deletion Review discussion. This will enable you to se by example what the actual standards are for accepting articles, based on the fundamental WP:NO DEADLINE-- that WP is a work in progress, and that articles are expected to be less than satisfactory at the beginning, but to be able to be improved--the rule for deletion is deliberately worded unsourceable, rather than currently unsourced. This will also give you the opportunity to explain your desire for higher standards, and you might be able to convince people enough to change the consensus. You can also continue to indicate problems with articles--it is important to indicate articles that need improvement, so people will be able to identify them and work on them. Most important, you yourself can work on adding sources to articles that need it, and clarifying footnotes where there are only general references. The development of the encyclopedia depends upon people who are willing to fix problems even more than it does on people who indicate them. I and many other try to always make at least some minor improvement when we look at an article for whatever reason.
Over the years, I have often held different positions than the consensus, sometimes very sharply different, but I have always stated them as opinions, as in an AfD discussion. I think it would be altogether wrong to use them as a judgement. When I encounter a situation where I am called on to make a decision, and I disagree so sharply with what I know to be the standard view that I consider it hypocritical to state it, I pass over that item and let someone else judge.
Nor am I going to give quick judgements here about other people's work. But it is customary in all human groups for established people to sometimes be able to do exceptional things that less established people cannot. DGG ( talk ) 02:22, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect, I am not interested in AfD and Deletion Review, and it is no one's place but mine to determine where I expend effort. I am pushing for a final, fair decision to work with Robert at AfC. Please rejoin that discussion, at that page. If rejecting me, you are also rejecting the example of those I have indicated as literal role models and mentors (including Robert, yourself, and Primefac). If rejecting my joining, please making clear the reasons for rejection within the accepted Criteria for Participants. Thank you. Cheers, and happy holiday. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 17:03, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
the reasons are that you have been applying improperly rigid standards. It is entirely my role as an experienced WPedian to make suggestions about where you (or anyone) can learn the standards here--its the same advice I have given dozens of other editors.It is possible that my advice is wrong, and that you are not in practice willing to follow our standards even when you learn them, but I give you athe benefit of the doubt, just as I do with others. I am puzzled that you suggest that you work with me asa mentor if you challenge my right to give advice. I have given my opinion about your working at RfC, which is that you are not ready, and your attitude here proves it. DGG ( talk ) 17:36, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that I do not accept your redirect regarding working on a different Project is immaterial to whether I will ping you, to ask you the proper course of action in a review situation. Apples and oranges. Robert first, but also you and Primefac. (You are all that I know there.) Regarding the "you have been applying improperly rigid standards," you are arguing from facts not in evidence. This is precognitive conjecture frankly, as (i) every indication I have given in reviewing contexts, places me shoulder to shoulder, or even a bit more liberal, than Robert, and (ii) Iyou have no evidence from reviewing, because all of this unprecedented, microscopic conjectural character microanalysis, is just that—conjecture; I have not yet reviewed a single submission! Bottom line, I know the standards and will apply them, have argued I will, and give every evidence that I will. (Have you even looked at the Steelism draft, to the other examples given?) This is prejudice, in the formal, literal, technical meaning to the word, andI am tired of it. Please reply with any further comments at the page where the decision is being made. Happy holidays. I am done. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 02:30, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
User:Leprof 7272 - Apples and oranges, maybe, and they are not that different, for which reason I don't like the expression. They are both fruit, and are about the same size. A really irrelevant comparison would be apples and eggs or apples and chalk. It is my understanding that you have been applying improperly high standards in the review of pages in article space. It is reasonable to infer from that that you will apply similarly high standards to pages waiting to get into article space. What is the difference? Why do you so much want to do AFC, when your review standards have been criticized, and when doing AFD or DRV has been suggested? (Alternatively, have you considered doing NPP? With NPP, the pages are already halfway into article space, and you have to decide whether they are mosquitoes that need to be crushed.) User:DGG - I am inclined to say to give him rope, let him do AFC, and see whether he hangs himself, brings in a few goats, snares a Sasquatch, or scales Mount Mitchell (which is normally a walk-up). Robert McClenon (talk) 03:10, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
When someone asks my opinion, I give it. What I say is based not on my personal view of what WP ought to be like, or my personal opinion of the individuals involved. or of the subject; it is rather conservative mainstream advice designed to give people the safest path to proceed with the greatest benefit to Wikipedia. People may follow it or not as they choose. Similarly. when I am asked to perform an action, I do so according not to my own personal views, but according to my understanding of the mainstream consensus. There is a particular difficulty when I am asked to predict what someone is likely to do: I can only judge by experience of similar cases in and off WP, and whatI can guess about the individuals from their current actions; in doing this I must to some extent consult my feelings as well as my reason--it can never be an entirely rationally-founded judgement. In the last two years, I have been particularly aware of it because the work of Arb Com consists almost entirely of questions of this nature.
It is my opinion , Leprof 7272, that your current approach to WP is suitable to neither NPP or AfC. This is based upon several factors, most of which have been discussed, and I am not going to repeat myself--if I have been unable to get you to understand twice, a third time won't help. Some haver not yet been discussed here, such as your view of what constitutes appropriate sourcing as shown in your tagging--others have discussed it, and since it is continuing, I will probably join in at the appropriate place.
As another issue, NPP and AfC are very similar, and it is my hope that the procedures will be combined. There are some interesting differences: at AfC, people are at least pretending to play by the rules. We do not have to make a yes/no decision, but rather a decision to accept it now or defer -- but only in a few circumstances actually delete. People do not take decisions not to accept anywhere as unhappily as they take decisions to delete, so it is easier to give advice. Errors are less consequential. I think beginners are therefore safer at AfC, as presently constituted.
Robert McClenon, you have the same authority as I in this issue. As is almost always the case among admins, here and everywhere else, the two of us do not want to place ourselves in a situation of attempting to over-rule each other. We also --as is unfortunately not always the case among admins--are both people who know we make mistakes, and we both are generally willing to consider other viewpoints. I have only a few times in WP insisted on my opinion over the objections of others , and those have almost always been in situations otherwise impossible of resolution. If you want to go ahead and give the right, I will not contradict you, but I advise you not to do so. Further bad work at NPP will make the situation worse, and marginal work is not going to be helpful. DGG ( talk ) 06:10, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Transition Design
Hello DGG, this is a copy of a message sent a few days ago, to what I think may have been an incorrect discussion page, apologies if you have received it twice.
I am the originator of the Transition Design wiki page, which I believe you deleted a few weeks ago. The article was, I think, originally posted in 2013 and required many additions/updates, I have now completely rewritten it and reorganised into a draft version. We have been a bit remiss in not keeping it updated to reflect activities and developments over the last few years. I hope to repost the article in the next few days, but am unsure if it is better (and indeed possible) to repost the original Transition Design article, or whether to create a new entry for this updated version. Please could you advise.
I have, I hope, addressed the various arguments that were made in favour of the article's deletion, although, not being an experienced wikipedia user, I am now having difficulty in tracking down these comments and ensuring they have all been addressed. Contrary to some of the comments, to mention just a few things (which will be given more detail in the article) Transition Design is not simply a Phd strand in a design school developed by a single professor, it is an idea that originated in 2005 in Ireland, and in recent years has become a major part of all levels of the Carnegie Mellon design curriculum, where it is being taught and researched by multiple professors; it has now been incorporated into multiple design curriculums and research labs all over the world; several partnerships have been made between universities for the research and development of Transition Design; there have been two international Transition Design symposiums, one in Pittsburgh and one in Devon, UK, involving academics from many universities as well as practioners and researchers, and there will be a third symposium in a few months in Barcelona; many keynote talks on the subject have been given at conferences organized by universities and professional and research associations; dozens of invited lectures and workshops have been given all over the world; have been many papers by different people have been published on the subject, including multiple peer reviewed papers; and it is also finding its way into design practice having been taken up by the AIGA, the largest organization for professional designers in the USA with 26,0000 members (here is a link to their page a complete primer on Transition Design, http://www.aiga.org/what-is-transition-design )
The deletion of the article has created a good opportunity for completely reworking it and bringing it up to date, and I hope this version meets Wikipedia criteria. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neodig (talk • contribs) 20:47, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Various problems: 1/The comparison with uber--see WP:EINSTEIN 2/ wordings like "at any time between 8am and 10 pm to suit their convenience, whether they are in the UK or abroad" 3/the claim to 100,000 members-- does this means people in plans for which this serves as a backup, people who have ever paid the fee, or people who regularly pay the fee, or people who have used the service. 4/the extraordinary claim of delivering prescriptions worldwide -- each country has local laws relevant to this--I know it's in the source, but it indicates to me the source is unreliable 5/but especially the last paragraph which is essentially intended to show the need or the company--it does not--it rather implies the need for companies such as this, of which there are many,
There are also other problems:: The Telegraph website says Synergix acquired or is about to acquire the company, not that it is "supported" by Synergix. There is no statement of the actual financials or contracting physicians or number of services provided. And there's one essential thing missing: the corporate website.
Thank you. Perfectly legit points. The sources look to me to be largely based on company press releases, and don't answer all your points. I will see what I can do.Rathfelder (talk) 18:46, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Jeffrey Collé
Recently this Draft was removed from the Wiki. I was going to contest, but like the section said it was subject to be removed at any point after that flag was put on it. I was wondering if you would be able to provide the material as it was deleted, and I would like to completely rewrite the content. If it sounded too advertisey (if that's even a word) it was not the intention so I would like to clean it up. Thanks! Lmarotz (talk) 17:00, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Lmarotz, you asked me about this a few weeks ago, but I didn't see it, ecause it was on the wrong place. Looking first at your article on René Dekker , it too is promotional, and I would not have accepted it. The most important thing it needs is the removal of puffery--adjectives of praise do not add anything; just state the accomplishments. I'll look again in a little while to see the improvements. Colle has the same problem., along with being too personal, e.g. "to help achieve the appeal of his specialty homes, Collé uses... He also prefers to... He says that this is in order to ... " That sort of wording is what would belong on his website, not an encyclopedia article. It did not help that the references were written in such a way that one could not easily see just where they were published--try using cite journal or cite web, not cite web. If you want to try again, first fix the Dekker article, and make another draft. , . DGG ( talk ) 05:24, 28 December 2016 (UTC) .
Looking in, I must first suggest WP:PAID in case you are an employee or otherwise involved with them. This has been deleted several times now and Advertising and what's currently at the article is classic signs of it. First of all, their PR awards (of which are listed) mean nothing to us and it's clear they're only existing as shoehorned information. Next, the sources are simply published and republished PR, company announcements, intervirws and mentions (this is obviously simply by hovering over them). What we specifically need is actual substance in major news, nto something they either influenced or co-published. There's no automatic inherited notability from anything or anyone. To be blunt, carefully examining this finds nothing to suggest independent notability in an article yet. SwisterTwistertalk21:27, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You asked me some questions about your editing. Here's the reply I also poted on you talk page
As has just been said, the first question is whether you are following our our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure Considering that you are working on only on Indian companies in a number of different fields, the most logical assumption is that you are indeed an undeclared paid editor. This opinion is reinforced by several types of unacceptable editing behavior.
(1)The content is promotional: encyclopedias ive information a general reader might want to know. This does not include the names of all the executives. Nor do they want a list of minor specialized prizes.
(2)Re-creating a deleted article under a variant title in the apparent hope of avoiding page protection
(3)Creating an article in your sandbox and then moving it to mainspace in the apparent hope of avoiding new page patrol
(4)Creating articles in a pattern typical of promotional editors by adding entirely unnecessary and obvious see also's in the apparent hope that it will show up in additional searches.
(5)creating un-necessaey and improper redirects, apparently o ive the impression of increased exposure.
(6)and finally, re-creating articles previously created by an editor who has already been banned for being an entirely promotional editor, leading to the reasonable suggestion that you are the same person (or conceivably, a different person undertaking the same job for the company--which is proof of undeclared paid editing) .
I await an explanation--and a chance to look at your other articles. Since WP does not include advertising or promotion, entirely promotional editors are always blocked rom participation, as are editor who violate the terms of use. DGG ( talk ) 01:54, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
Articles about businesspeople?
Hi DGG: Back in January of 2012 you posted this on my talkpage: Come back, please, you've let yourself bye chased away by people who are opposed on principle to articles on businesspeople. Since you posted this message almost five years ago, I wonder if you have changed your mind since? I would appreciate a response on my talk page. Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 00:46, 29 December 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]
On a more mundane note: perhaps you can have another look at this article. As you'll see on its talk page, things got rather acrimonious between me and the principal editor of that article and I'd rather not interact with that person again... --Randykitty (talk) 23:52, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG and Happy New Year. Just wondering if you've got any time to look again at the draft for Non-Standard Finance. Many thanks. HOgilvy (talk) 09:22, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
It'salmost there . I made a few style adjustments. Two questions: Is Loans4You a provider of what we in the US would call "subprime mortgages" or of standard mortgages for those with good credit? Since the term is used generically also, can you write a sentence saying :This is about the loa ncompany; The term " non-standard finance" is also a synonym for subpar credit provision in general) with a reference? DGG ( talk ) 09:40, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi – Loans at Home (previously Loansathome4u) isn't to do with mortgages, it's home credit – i.e. personal loans (actually one of the largest providers of unsecured personal loans in the UK's home credit market) so in the UK we'd just use 'home credit' as the easiest term to describe it. If that doesn't mean much in the US then 'personal loans' or 'unsecured personal loans' would be a better fit than 'subprime'. As for a sentence to distinguish the company from the generic term, it might not be necessary since we've taken any generic use of it out of the article – while it is used generically it's not used particularly widely as a Google search will show (such a search just returns results about the company). So I'd argue we don't need one but if you feel strongly about it then we could have: "This article is about the UK-based, non-standard consumer finance company. The term ‘non-standard finance’ is also used to describe the subprime lending sector in general." [This] could serve as a reference perhaps. Lastly, I noticed you changed 'the company was formed' to 'initial financing was formed' – do we need that change? 'Initial financing was formed with £48m backing' sounds a bit odd. If it needs to change, maybe '£48m of initial financing was provided by a group of investors'? Thanks. HOgilvy (talk) 10:58, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You must distinguish in some manner to avoid confusion, probably as a parenthesis after the lede sentence). . What is the difference between Loansathome4u, and Everyday Loans--are they 2 brands in the same market. What is the meaning of " home credit " as constrsted to "personal loans" if they mean the same thing, why use different words. Just fix these up and I'll accept it. DGG ( talk ) 02:34, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
'Home credit' is a standard industry term in the UK, meaning small personal loans for which payments are collected at the customer's home. I linked to Moneylender with the first mention of it, as that article redirects from 'home credit' and covers what the industry is well enough. 'Personal loans' is a broader term so doesn't really capture what Loans at Home does. It's a UK firm and UK readers will know what home credit it is, however to clarify I've put 'home-collected personal loans' in brackets after the first instance of 'home credit'. Everyday Loans is slightly different in that it covers a broader market, i.e. consumer loans, and I also linked to the consumer credit section of Credit (finance) as the first couple of sentences there also capture that well enough. I hope that's enough to make it clear what these two businesses do and to distinguish between them. Thanks. HOgilvy (talk) 17:59, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
HOgilvy, I accepted it, as I think you have improved it sufficiently that it would probably pass an AfD discussion. That of course doesn't mean that any other editor can't challenge it. DGG ( talk ) 09:50, 26 January 2017 (UTC) .[reply]
I recently learned that I was occasionally locking an OTRS ticket with the intention of following up on it later, then failing to follow up. I'm not the only one who does this. although, at the moment, I have an embarrassingly long list of tickets to address. Why am I telling you this? Because while looking into it with one of the other OTRS admins, we started looking at other tickets in the same situation, such as
ticket:2014111710019831 and ticket:2014112610027751. I don't know whether you did the same thing I did (locked it with the intention on later follow-up) or something else has occurred but I'd like to figure out what we do next. I do know you have a lot on your plate now that you are part of Arb Com. One possibility is that you identified these two tickets because you had some good thoughts on how to handle them and you still want to handle them. Another option is that they should be unlocked and dumped back in the general pool. Or maybe there's another option I haven't considered.--S Philbrick(Talk)18:17, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure it has happened a number of times; I will check these two . What OTRS needs is a total rewrite. I know it's not in-house software, but I don't know where we got it. DGG ( talk ) 21:51, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! I just noticed that you deleted Kevin Pho by invoking G11. I checked out a version of the page here http://web.archive.org/web/20151128223554/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Pho and do not agree with your assessment and action. The article was written from a neutral point of view, which disqualifies it from G11 speedy deletion. Here are some lines for reference:
"Kevin Pho is a physician of internal medicine with influence in social media on the subject of health care.[1]"
"Pho is on USA Today’s board of contributors.[2] He is also a contributor to The New York Times’ “Room for Debate” and CNN.[3][4][5]"
"Pho has appeared as a keynote speaker and panel member for the Massachusetts Medical Society, New England Journal of Medicine, Texas Medical Association, BlogWorld, and New Media Expo. He has been interviewed by CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and the Wall Street Journal.[6][7]"
"In January 2012, Pho was listed on Klout as the #1 healthcare social media influencer and #1 social media influencer in medicine.[13]"
One problem with the article I noticed is that the references seemed pretty barren. I did a quick Google search for more and turned up numerous sources that clearly establish his notability.
Can I ask you to take a look at the discussion on the article talk page and weigh in if necessary. It has descended into the bureacratic stupidity of claiming that the name decided on at AFD has to be reverted because it did not go through RM. SpinningSpark17:11, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Heard your lightning talk just now. I support both the "Radical solutions to promotional paid editing" proposals you announced on notability and restrictions on anon editors around companies newer than 1999 foundation. Are there some written proposals to refer to? - Brianhe (talk) 20:43, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
there will be--one of the reasons I gave the talk was to get some feedback about just what to propose, and I am already getting some. Watch this space tomorrow. DGG ( talk ) 20:55, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Video from the lightning talks is now available via Commons. DGG's lightning talk is the first one, proposal #1 is detailed at 2:15 and #2 at 3:00. - Brianhe (talk) 06:31, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
TravelKhana
This article is headed for deletion. As creator of the current version I would not be heartbroken to see it go, but I would appreciate a response to the concerns I raise at the AfD discussion.
If it is asserted that the press coverage is not significant enough, then this is obviously open to judgement and different interpretations. But the arguments there seem to go beyond that and imply that any press coverage at all, even in national papers, is invalid as support for notability, being taken as merely "press releases or self-published ... republishing the company's PR". If accepted this would appear to have wide implications for our whole approach to assessing notability for commercial topics, where newspaper reports have normally been admissible. Have I misunderstood?: Noyster (talk),15:57, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It depends on the actual content. No source in always reliable, and it is impossible to analyze sources mechanically. the significance is judged by the people at the AfD. As a result, our determination there tend to be quite erratic, the inevitable fault of the vague specifications in the GNG. You are totally right that it does in practice decrease the validity of our system for determining notability. But if we did not evaluate sources, we would be accepting blindly material that is utterly inconsequential, which would altogether destroy the usefulness of our GNG. I learned this my first years here, when I realized I could use arguments based on the GNG to support either keeping or deletion of almost any article at afd, depending on the result that I thought best. As a consequence, I have strongly favored objectivem methods of deciding on the inclusion of articles. The consensus has unfortunately continued to support the primary use of the GNG. I consider this a naive or at least obutmoded view, that was only workable when sources of some sort were less easy to find.
Why do people continue to support it? First,, there's the desire to keep open the opportunity to find a way of rejecting content about important subjects that one does not wish to recognize, or include content about trivia that one wishes to think important. Second, there's the propensity of many WPedians to rather argue than to write content. Writing good content is much more difficult than arguing details, or writing poor uncritical directory content. DGG ( talk ) 03:34, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Village Capital page -- checking back in (connected contributor)
Hi David -- I'm checking back on the Village Capital page, which has been flagged for a few years. I work for Village Capital (http://vilcap.com/person/ben-wrobel/).
You spoke with a colleague of mine in May 2015. From the colleague:
Hi DGG, could you help me remove the advert flagged banner on the Village Capital page? It's been flagged for a while now, and the page seems like it's been improved. I'd love an opinion on whether or not it meets Wikipedia's standards, and if not, what I can do to fix this to remove the banner as soon as possible. — Preceding unsignedcomment added by Dahlerbattle (talk • contribs) 14:36, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
From you:
as a start, remove the adjectives of praise. the substitute ordinary english for jargon like "across", and decrease the amount of dupllciation. Then I will take another look. DGG ( talk ) 19:04, 16 June 2015 (UTC) Still needed
I have spent time marking up the document offline, and have a number of suggested changes to get rid of jargon, decrease duplication, remove non-neutral adjectives and also update the information -- we have changed/grown a lot over the past 18 months. Before I do anything, I'd like to check with you -- should I make the suggested changes directly on the page?
Thanks,
Ben
yes, go ahead and make these changes, if they will obviously improve the article. Be sure to indicate on the edit summary your connection with theo organization. Then ask me to look at it again. DGG ( talk ) 06:38, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
thanks. I made a number of changes. Ultimately, I want to do what needs to be done in order to get rid of the flag at the top of the page. Open to feedback and suggestions.
Also: much of the information on our results is outdated. We're currently preparing a document that we will put on our website with the most up-to-date information on number of companies that have gone through our program, number of investments, etc. Setting aside the question of what information is too promotional, I'm guessing that some of that is relevant. What is the best way to update those numbers? Thanks for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Benwrobel (talk • contribs) 04:50, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
First thing I noticed is that you can't really use Fprbes as a reference for the success figures. But 1st, he Forbes article is written by one of the outside correspondent (tho a reputable one), and 2nd, she ascribes it " According to Baird". So you'll need to say according to the company, and this is the sort of claim which really needs a fully independent source. and 3rd, that was in 2013, which must be stated, as it may not represent the current status. It's almost 4 years later.
". For example, a 2016 program supported businesses targeting 68 million adults in America that are currently disconnected from the financial system" is not NPOV, because it promotes the company by saying the problem it has to solve is important, and tends to give the impression that they've helped all 68 million. Reading the source, there is no indication how many people are actually being targeted with the actual program--and certainly not how many have been actually helped. The link with PayPal is worth including.
Appreciate it David. Will work on this in the next few days. The Businessweek article just came out last week (http://vilcap.tl/2jmFGXr), so that should be helpful for context on up-to-date, reputable numbers. Makes sense to add "according to the company" when appropriate -- and we definitely don't help all 68 million all at once! -- will clarify. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.185.26.146 (talk) 16:15, 27 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The 1001 Inventions page was speedy deleted by JzG for "Unambiguous advertising or promotion". However, my reading of it was that it was a dispassionately written article about an internationally well-known media company that produces popular films, educational publications and exhibitions. The deletion has meant that lots of other articles are affected too because they reference the now-deleted 1001 Inventions page. There seems to have been no discussions about this on the article Talk page beforehand that I'm aware of. The PROD process was not carried out before deletion of this article, which I feel would have been a more appropriate course of action. From JzG's talk page, he states that he's not online much and that you have his permission to undelete articles in his stead. I would like to request that the 1001 Inventions article is undeleted and, if appropriate, the matter is discussed on the Talk page for the article to discuss ways of improving the content as the first step. Then if no consensus can be reached then the PROD process should be initiated. Brownchamcha (talk) 15:10, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's been deleted as blatant advertising three times by three separate admins. Most additions of content were by a handful of editors with almost no other interests on Wikipedia. Odd, that... Guy (Help!) 15:29, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Guy. The first two deletions were back in 2008. At that time perhaps it could be argued the article didn't belong on Wikipedia. I do not know as I didn't read about it at the time. However, the subject has been talked about thousands of times by the media since 2008. So I would argue the issue is not whether it should be on wikipedia or not. The subject is definitely notable. If your issue is that the article is written in a way that should be less promotional then should that not be discussed first and attempts made to improve the article? From what I remember, I would also say the article was written with a neutral POV as it included criticisms of the subject as well as presenting the information factually and dispassionately. I think an arbitrary speedy deletion, without any discussion, was the incorrect decision. A discussion about improving the article would have been a better first step.Brownchamcha (talk) 15:43, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Being talked about in the media does not stop an article form being egregiously promotional. Promotional articles tend to be the result of editors who have a close interest in the subject, and are more aligned with the subject than with Wikipedia. Guy (Help!) 12:51, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've loked at it. When an article about a clearly notable subject contains some promotional elements, we delete that part or ask the contributor to do so. When an article is entirely or almost entirely an advertisement, we delete the entire article regardless of the notability of the subject . In this case, it's the second category. Almost all the article about this somewhat notable subject is an enthusiastic list of presentations of the program, and equally enthusiastic reviews quoted out of context from mostly unreliable sources. At the end, there'a superficial description of the criticism, which does not even remotely offer the necessary proportionate coverage.
Hey DGG, what do we do about them? This fellow, JAGG102502Group has written Jaros, Baum & Bolles (JB&B) in their sandbox, and has moved into articlespace themselves using the AfC wizard. The built up seven random edits before writing about this company. I can trim the article of its cruft, etc., no problem, but the broader picture- any views? Seems completely against the spirit of community oversight, if nothing else. O Fortuna!...Imperatrix mundi.13:45, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker)This is an odd one, he claims to be a PR person but only sorta kinda here on his own time to write about the same topics that he's paid to do, not these particular articles. Hard to understand (or explain). I just left a username warning. More concerning is a possible-to-probable copyvio hosting of a book published by the corp written about [61]. Naturally, copyvio issues about materials provided by the client are a frequent problem with UPEs. - Brianhe (talk) 17:21, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page stalker)#3. "JAGG" leads straight here. That's probably not a co-incidence. Something has to be done before we suffocate under the weight of this. My only thought so far (and that doesn't mean it's a good one!) is to try to modify the G11 criterion to include any page created by an UPE – which by its very nature must perforce be an advertisement. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:55, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. I apologize for my lack of familiarity with the conventions of Wikipedia, but I am a relatively new user and publishing an article has proven to be more of a challenge than I thought it would be. "Clueless" is probably a fair assessment. To clarify, I am a professional writer, editor and consultant. Most of my work involves architecture, engineering, environmental consulting and construction companies, though it is not limited to these professions. (AECInsight is my blog; I'm clearly not trying to hide this fact.) I became familiar with JB&B through a client who does some work for them. They are a notable firm in that they are more than a century old and have worked on some of the most celebrated buildings in the world. I also find them similar to a company that I recently left -- Fay, Spofford & Thorndike -- which was also a prominent engineering firm that lasted more than 100 years before being acquired by a much larger firm (Stantec). FST never had a Wikipedia page as far as I know. However, several other major firms in the industry do -- AECOM, Stantec, Arup and many others. So, when I decided to do a page on JB&B, I modeled it after the better (and less promotional) of these. I also looked at some direct competitors such as Cosentini, Weidlinger and DLR Group. One I focused on, in particular, was Syska Hennessy, which is slightly larger, but otherwise very similar to JB&B. With this draft, I believe I have written an encyclopedia article about a noteworthy company that just presents the facts and doesn't promote the company. No logo, sales language, direct passages from the website or marketing literature, etc.). I tried to be sure that everything I wrote was supportable by an external, reliable source, which is why there is such a high number of citations. As for any breaches of protocol -- such as the listing of partners -- I appreciate any help in resolving these (though I included this listing because many other companies have them). I hope we can resolve any problems with this article because JB&B clearly deserves to be here, as evidenced by the high number of references to other Wikipedia pages. It is one of the 20 largest MEP firms in the U.S. and has worked on such a range of recognizable buildings for such a long time. This page is the reason I joined as a Wikipedia editor (and I did try out a few edits first before jumping in, as someone astutely noted). Honestly, though, I'm a bit hooked and look forward to contributing more. As for JB&B, I appreciate any assistance you can offer in getting the page acceptable for publication and to help me get better at this. Thank you. JAGG102502 (talk) 21:32, 25 January 2017 (UTC)JAGG102502[reply]
JAGG102502 (talk·contribs) we interpret promotionalism quite broadly--it means much more than downright advertising. The distinction I usually make is that if it is aimed at a potential client, customer, donor, or associate rather than the general reader, it's promotionalism, but there are other forms also. Excess detail can be promotionalism, because it can have the effect of showing the subject more important that it is in actuality. By that standard, the article is promotional. The firm designs infrastructure, and has designed the infrastructure of many notable buildings with WP articles. It is enough to make a link to those articles, not describe the building in detail for its general aspects. It has collaborated with most notable architecture firms: a list might be appropriate, but not describing the firms in detail.
With respect to notability: This is a firm that designs building infrastructure, not overall structure. Its work affects how well buildings function, not how well they appear. It will therefore be relatively difficult to show notability, for infrastructure is not the basis of most architecture awards. The awards section in the article deals with awards not familiar to most of us--in general it is much more important to win a first prize than any lesser prize; in general a prize must be at a national, not local level. As far as I can tell from its website, not even the ACEC "Diamond Award" is highest level: several dozen are awarded each year. The highest level seems to be their Grand Concept Award, which the firm has never won.
Justlettersandnumbers, I would approve of a speedy deletion criterion for undeclared paid editing. It should however be a separate criterion, because of the difficult of proof--this does not actually appear to be paid editing according to the current rules, though there might possibly be some conflict of interest. DGG ( talk ) 02:43, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
DGG (talk·contribs) Interesting. I mistakenly assumed that providing more detail, and the associated references, would lend credibility. Instead, it raised red flags. I could have saved time and trouble by ratcheting it back substantially. I really appreciate the explanation and completely understand. You are correct about the Grand Conceptor being the top prize in the industry and, to my knowledge, they have never won it. Your point about architecture is noted as well, though MEP engineers often share the credit for the aesthetics of a building (as do structural engineers and others). For this reason, I believe that the reference to the NYT best of architecture is relevant in this case. I will take a stab at applying the changes you suggest and hope I can get the article to a point where it meets all requirements. Thank you again. I really am enjoying participating in the editing process and hope to continue contributing across a variety of subject areas.JAGG102502 (talk)
DGG (talk·contribs) I've changed this article substantially, keeping in mind the spirit of this discussion (Is this notable? Will this inform the reader?) I'm probably still a little heavy on references, but I've seen it done both ways and chose to err on the side of too many as it's easier for someone to cut than add in this case. My dilemma is, what is the next step? Move it to article status again and hope for the best? I'd submit it for review, but there clearly was no shortage of reviewers last time. (I also added detail to my user page to give a better sense of what I do and why I do it.) Thanks again for the guidance.JAGG102502 (talk) 12:07, 30 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
DGG (talk·contribs)I moved it back to article status, figuring you have a lot of other issues to deal with and assuming enough are watching that it should get a quick review. Hoping it wasn't a colossal waste of time. (Which it apparently was because Help! promptly deleted it. I don't think I'll write here any more because the unfounded accusation in the title is probably not helping my cause.) Thanks again. JAGG102502 (talk) 12:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I did some cleanup on Fay, Spofford & Thorndike and marked it patrolled. The sourcing is awfully weak and it's a legit candidate for redirection to the parent company. DGG likes to have "first dibs" on his talkpage so I'll stop with that and reply later if it seems appropriate. - Brianhe (talk) 17:58, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
שוחרת/Corinna Hasofferett
I don't know how I have become asked on this matter, but it is outside my competency alone to get involved. Due to its special BLP nature could you please take a moment to investigate? The pages are:
You recently flagged How (book) as reading like an advertisement. I wrote that article, which I submitted to AfC for independent review, before it was published. I'd be glad to work further on it but I wonder if you could give me some guidance. There's no puffery that I can find; every fact is sourced. There are many sources. But I'd be glad to look at the article again - I just need some guidance.
You also changed the name of the article from How (philosophy) to How {book). The reason I chose How philosophy is because after publication of the book, the philosophy continued to be developed in various other publications - it evolved. I cited a few and could cite more. The point being that the article is broader than the book. Thanks, Ed BC1278 (talk) 10:51, 1 February 2017 (UTC)BC1278[reply]
Víctor M. Marroquín
Hi DGG. We briefly discussed Víctor M. Marroquín on Tokyogirl79 user talk at User talk:Tokyogirl79#Víctor M. Marroquín a little more than a week ago. I tried to find some better sourcing, but have not had any luck. The article has been drastically trimmed by other editors in the meantime, so I am wondering if it might be inappropriate to bring this to AfD at the moment since there may be others now watching it and working on it. Any suggestions on what might be the best thing to do here? Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:49, 2 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
iGrad Deletion
Hello Mr. Goodman,
In November of 2016 you "speedily deleted" a page about iGrad. I was hoping to gain access to the deleted article in an attempt to reframe it and try again. Can you help?
I'd like to discuss this deletion further. Your finding at the end was that there was "sufficient consensus;" but this was despite the fact that there were two objections noted.
The other point that I'd like to discuss was whether some of the arguments against the page, were actually about the page's existence, rather than the page's content. The discussion seemed to lose the distinction between "criteria for deletion" rather than "criteria for edit."
Admittedly, I'm somewhat new and un-experienced, I'd like to ask your advice on the matter to reach a fair and informed conclusion. This was my first page and I was proud of it--I'd like to understand why it was deleted.
My comments to the arguments:
Deletion: there were two sub-arguments: (i) notability and (ii) Self-promotion.
Notability: I addressed in the discussion page for deletion; this point was never argued against... only that some articles were quoting, rather than about, the subject. That may be true, but it doesn't reveal any argument against notability. I feel that the point of notability is established.
Self-promotion: As an argument for deletion, it must meet the standard of "unambiguous self promotion." Which I would personally refute, as I'm not Mr. Langley--however I have met him, being in the foreign community in Tokyo. I know him to have helped several of my colleagues. I see in your previous discussions that you are concerned about COI, I do not have any problem with stating that there is no COI here.
Consensus: I am not quite clear on why you'd consider there to be sufficient consensus when there were two noted objections to it. Can you please clarify this?
Editing: About the relevance/appropriateness of certain links in the article, we can very much discuss whether (and which, in unambiguous terms) links could/would/should be edited. This very discussion--about editing--presupposed that the page exists.
Please address the above points, and please advise what next steps are appropriate.
First of all, I ask again whether you have any conflict of interest with the subject? I ask, because the article is indistinguishable from a Who's Who entry, full of utterly irrelevant and pretentious detail. Most of the item's listed in accomplishments, such as "Founder, Rolls-Royce & Bentley Owners’ Club of Japan" do not belong in an encyclopedia article; none of the "honours and awards belong---are you perhaps not aware of the insignificance of "Kentucky Colonel."? Frankly, I cannot see any other motivation except COI for including such material. The basic policy at issue is NOT PROMOTION. As a part of the fundamental policy WP:NOT, it makes questions of `notabiity secondary. But with respect to notability , the conclusion of those in the discussion was that the interviews and newspaper notices were essentially Press releases, I agree; the best of them ended with "Naturally enough, this legal mover and shaker extraordinaire is known as the American who can get the impossible done in Japan". DGG ( talk ) 09:57, 5 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your thoughtful response--albeit a bit harsh, IMHO. I see you've done your homework and I sincerely aim to reach a constructive dialogue.
"I ask again whether you have any conflict of interest with the subject?":
As I've stated before, my answer is no. Feel free to ask again.
"the article is indistinguishable from a Who's Who entry, full of utterly irrelevant and pretentious detail":
While I would have appreciated a more constructive form of criticism to my writing, this is still arguing for editing, not deletion. As I've stated before, I'm perfectly happy to discuss editing.
"Most of the item's listed in accomplishments, such as "Founder, Rolls-Royce & Bentley Owners’ Club of Japan" do not belong in an encyclopedia article":
I may be swayed by this argument within the frame of a discussion for editing the page, not for deletion of the page.
"none of the "honours and awards belong":
Frankly this feels unfair, that none of them are appropriate. As I cannot see the page any longer, I can't point them all out, but I would imagine at least some of them belong.... wouldn't his book belong? Wouldn't his Law Degrees? All I'm asking for here is a level of reasonableness of this subject. Again, this feels like an appropriate discussion for editing, not deletion.
"are you perhaps not aware of the insignificance of "Kentucky Colonel."?":
Again, this is frankly unfair and debatably inappropriate. But since you brought it up, please refer to Kentucky_colonel, and the fact that other notable sources mention it as well; e.g. Stephen_Fry as his second (of many) title.
"I cannot see any other motivation except COI for including such material.":
Well, we're both within our rights to have our opinions. I myself cannot fathom how/why you cannot see *any* other motivation. This feels presumptuous of you to assert that you understand my motivations.
"Yhr basic policy at issue is NOT PROMOTION. As a part of the fundamental policy WP:NOT, it makes questions of `notabiity secondary.":
Ok, so we're getting somewhere worth discussing. As I mentioned, this is a learning experience. I now understand your interpretation of the 'notability secondary' having read the rules closely. So I'll concede happily on the point of notability not being the be-all-end-all. But if we continue in this line of thought, let's please examine the WP:NOT-PROMOTION point. I don't see any of these points being a fair description of the page in question either. Can you please state your case as to why this would meet any of the 5 Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox_or_means_of_promotion criteria?
"But with respect to notability , the conclusion of those in the discussion was that the interviews and newspaper notices were essentially Press releases, I agree;":
That's fine that you agree with the last poster, but you've ignored the previous two--hardly a consensus, in my opinion.
Which leaves my original post's point #2, which you did not address: consensus; I'd refer you to Wikipedia:Consensus to frame this discussion.
I can accept that we may never agree on all of the previous points, but may all be made moot, considering the deletion discussion page shows objections that were ignored.
@Sam Bourque: I will answer briefly for DGG on #3 as he seems to be engaged elsewhere. He doesn't usually allow WP:REFUNDs of promotional content, but you can request it using the link. Please sign your talk comments with four tildes (this → ~). - Brianhe (talk) 20:18, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Brianhe, thank you for your reply. I appreciate your help--however, I'm still concerned by the presumption of "promotional content;" as it stands, DGG has yet to make the case for either consensus nor PROMOTION.
DGG appears to have abandoned this discussion. If I don't have a reasonably timely and appropriate response, I'll disappointingly have to take this discussion to another forum.
If you have no COI, try to make a special effort to avoid writing in the style of those who do. don't exaggerate. A law degree is not an honour--its a routine part of a career. Writing a book can be significant, but it's not an honor. A book to which a major prize has been awarded is an honor. Frankly, I continue to interpret this as showing the likelihood of a coi.
I determine consensus from the policy based arguments of editors who commented. The people at the AfD did not feel notability was established according to our rules. Notability is a term with special meaning in WP, and is interpreted however the people in the have consensus decide to interpret it. In closing, I accept what they say unless I think it's really perverse. This way of working by rough consensus may or may not be a good way of making decisions, but it's the way we do it. Using a more common-sense definition, I do not agree with your argument that being the first non-Japanese legislative assistant is likely to be notable--it's not a policy making position.
As for promotionalism, it does not have to be self-promotion, we do not at WP promote anything. Promotionalism is partly a matter of tone, and in judging tone, again I follow the consensus unless its absurd, in which case the accepted thing is to relist in the hope of a wider consensus. Whether an article should be fixed or deleted is also a matter of interpretation, and depends a good deal about the perceived importance of the subject. The consensus was to delete it.
But yes, I will email you a copy. It is possible that the subject is notable, and that you can show it: try again in Draft space, taking heed of what I've said is or is not considered appropriate. DGG ( talk ) 03:11, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your thoughtful and courteous answer. We may yet disagree on the procedural matters, but you've given me enough constructive feedback to explain how I could approach things better. Your comments on COI-like exaggeration, honours, and notability gave me some pause. I'll work on something that works better considering your feedback. Thanks again, Sam Bourque (talk) 12:37, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
article Institute for New Culture Technologies-t0 marked as considered for deletion
Becomingx7, since fortunately nobody had commented yet, I replaced the deletion tag with an "underconstruction tag". If you intend to actively work on it, it can wait a week or so. If it is likely to take longer, it can be moved to draft space. As advice: I suggested earlier cutting to half length--most people in trying to shorten an article of this sort do it insufficiently. I made suggestions there about what to omit--and I think i'd also omit the list of publications, which like the lists of participants at the events, belongs on its website. If one or two have attracted general interest and been reviewed substantially, that's the ones to leave in. DGG ( talk ) 19:17, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
dear DGG, i just edited the article and it is a lot shorter now. i omitted all the lists of speakers in 2.3.; and in 2.2. i deleted all the sub-chapters and condensed the info to one paragraph. if possible, i think it would be good to keep the list of publications. - i compiled the list because i could not find a list of publications on their websites, so it is not possible to replace it by a link to some other source. could you please have a look at the article? thanks! Becomingx7 (talk) 19:29, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
dear DGG, did you have a chance to take a look at the article? the deletion process seems to proceed quickly and a bot has removed the under construction template in the meantime. thanks! Becomingx7 (talk) 09:30, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Since you didn't provide a rationale for your close on that AfD, would you mind telling me why you came to that decision? The discussion had 12 keeps, four deletes, and five "move to draft" responses based on my count. Simple vote counts aren't everything, but it's important to note that during the time the AfD was open, the date of April 22 was chosen, making this a much more "real" event, and that came with a stream of new sources and a stream of late keeps. Should not those keeps have gotten more weight in your decision? As it is, I figure I can improve the draft in a few hours and put it in as a submission to be approved for moving back to article space as early as today, if I have the time. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:27, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG, I noticed a wave of combative deletion rebuttals on your page lately and wondered if this is a new phenomenon. Would you like me to answer them as able, or just leave them alone? - Brianhe (talk) 18:17, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In the past, most paid or other promotional editors, when their articles have been deleted, have simply gone away and tried again, generally under another username. For a while now, an increasing number of them have been adopting the practice of arguing. Many admins ignore them; my response unless they are ridiculous altogether is to explain why, sometimes in detail. If they are a good faith but promotional editor who simply has not realized, they usually understand, though it sometimes take a second round of explanation. . If they are professional paid editor with any sense, they realise they;re not going to get anywhere, and go away--and try again usually under another name. Zealots with a unpaid COI have very often continued to argue, sometimes indefinitely. The best thing for us to do here is the traditional remedy, to ignore them. Some paid editors are now doing the same, hoping to wear people down. The best technique here is to block them. If they show up for the same purpose again, they can and should be summarily blocked as behavioral meatpuppets--though we usually run a checkuser for possibly helpful additional information. The danger, as has become clear, is catching a good faith but imitative editor. There are only 3 solutions: accept promotionalism , be able to investigate who people actually are, or accept there will be occasional injustice. I will oppose the first as long as I work here, I will continue trying to change consensus to permit the second, and , alas, be forced to accept the third.
There are of course other factors. I have lately been taking a larger role at AfD, and as I didbefore, I tend to close the ones that nobody is eager to close and present some possible ambiguities. It is therefore natural that there should be exceptions taken to them. ,Unless I were to do only the obvious, it's part of the structure, and I will make an effort to address what I think are reasonable objections. And, unlike some admins who just refer people to DelRev hoping few will brave that extremely specialized process, I will revert a close if I think it may have been in error.,
Hey DCG, I don't agree with your decision & deletion of the article via Faisal Farooqui via this AFD. It was inappropriate for making my, also an admin, comment as 'obviously irrelevant'. I am not the creator of the article, but when I noticed the AFD, I tried to improve the article understanding that the subject is clearly notable person from India. Added more references from notable Indian mainstream media as well. Request to kindly revert the deletion. -- TinuCherian - 10:43, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The two keep comments were "The subject is well known personality." and "The subject has presented and spoken at many seminars where I have moderated" There were 2 other comment without a bolded !vote, "There have been many entrepreneurs who have been inspired by him." and "I feel when so many entrepreneurs are listed on Wikipedia, we need more from India too.--" None of these are reasons for keeping. I agree with you that an article is possible; tThe most important comment was the one at the end, to start it again in draft space. That would be my advice also. When you do, emphasize the person; we already have an article on the company, and do not include such non-informative sentences as "He has been invited to speak on entrepreneurship, technology, social media and marketing seminars worldwide. Besides he has been guest lecturer at colleges" and minor awards. Awards for "Young Leaders" in particular are usually nowadays considered euphemisms for "not yet notable". You also might want to remove some of the promotional statements from the company article. DGG ( talk ) 15:53, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Tinu Cherian, I do, or decline to do , a lot of things here. Once a month or so I end up feeling that I may have made a mistake--sometimes on my own, sometimes when someone write to me. I've learned to wait until the next day, and at that point, if I'm still thinking about it, I often conclude I should have done it differently. I've reread the afd ,and I see that some of the responses I though were negative were not all that negative. One of the dangers of dealing so much of the time with true promotionalism , is that there's a tendency to look at everything that way. Some of it is inevitable: almost anyone who does a lot of work here and thinks they're perfect is deceiving themselves (I say "almost" because I do know one exception who has never to my knowledge been wrong when we disagreed) . I'm going to move the article to Draft: Faisal Farooqui--after you've emoved the puffery, andalsotaken a look at the company article to avoid duplication, submit it, If I think it's significantly improved, I won't nominate for deletion again, but of course anyone else can. DGG ( talk ) 00:53, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, David - I've been making my rounds as a NPR and came across an article that has raised a few questions for me. When I asked Kudpung, he suggested I ask a real expert, so here I am per his advice. The article in question is Kilimall International which was created by User:FrankMwenda. My initial reaction when I first investigated the article was to tag it for deletion, primarily because of questionable notability and my added concern of a potential COI involving its creator. Your advice would be very much appreciated. Atsme📞📧14:45, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
when it doubt whether or not something should be deleted, the best course is to ask for a decision at AfD. At NPP, we only need ourselves decide on the obvious. DGG ( talk ) 03:34, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Back in the day (Nov. 2013), you stated in an AfC comment that the subject is notable and that the page needed cleanup (diff). So, I cleaned it up and published it in main namespace just now. Feel free to improve the article further. North America100016:19, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
all it needs now is 1/removal of some adjectives and phrases that constitute puffery, 2/or that could be seen as espousing a political view, 3/removing inserting some links to relevant WP articles, 4/Clarifying 4.1, which implies but does not say that the first generation parents resisted or wanted to resist, 5/ clarifying section 4.2 by saying in the text as coming from the California oral history project & making it an indented quote, 6/ removing or sourcing multiple sentences of opinion and 7/Finding some references that come from other sources than Omura and Toland.
It makes no difference how strongly you or I agree with the his political viewpoint. If we used WP to advocate our own beliefs,we'd end up the same as Conservapedia. You may possibly think that in the current political situation in the US and some other countries, all honest citizens should feel themselves called upon to undertake action, or at least write polemics. I would probably support this as a valid position, but the polemics do not belong on WP. But the role of WP in fighting actual or potential tyranny is now and always to write objective articles in purely dispassionate language. At WP we present the facts, trusting the readers to themselves draw the proper conclusions, not to tell the reader what conclusions they ought to draw.
To avoid misunderstanding, I think the WMF, as distinct from the encyclopedia, can appropriately play a political role in defense of its values, and I support its past and present actions and statements. And, also to avoid misunderstanding, there may indeed come a time when dispassionate reporting is hopeless, and direct opposition is the only possible course. But the two should not be confused. DGG ( talk ) 21:24, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the detailed reply. I cannot guarantee that I will improve the article more; perhaps you could post the content of your first paragraph above on the article's talk page so others will see your suggestions. North America100003:23, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I commented there, to the effect that this did not need deletion review. I also said it had the same problem as the article mentioned just above: advocacy; and if it is advocacy for a position I might agree with it, this does not make it the less advocacy. DGG ( talk ) 03:51, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Addition of un-redirected pages to Special:NewPages and Special:NewPagesFeed
I'm contacting you because you participated in this proposal discussion. While the proposal was approved, it has not received developer action. The request is now under consideration as part of the 2017 Developer Wishlist, with voting open through the end of day on Tuesday (23:59 UTC). The latter link describes the voting process, if you are interested. —swpbT18:02, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello DGG,
I am writing you again). Some time ago you commented on my article - A. Barkhudar. I tried to follow all the comments, also I applied for WP:DCM permission (has been long time I do not have any response from them). On July 2016, you wrote me about formatting the article. I am very thankful for that. Concerning Armenian text, I am ready to work on it whenever there is a need for. Dear DGG, I can understand your busyness, but I need your help again. The article has been deleted, since it has been over six months there were no changes done on it. I have already applied for undeletion, hope to get my article back again soon. Thank you in advance, looking forward to hearing from you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nairabarkhudaryan (talk • contribs) 10:30, 16 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
RECHECK
Thank you for help on editing my father's bio page.
Hello DGG,
Thank you for your offer to help. I am working with my mother to compose what I want to post on my father's page (complete with source references), and then what should I do?
I think you advised I should post it on the TALK page of his bio, rather than "edit source" tab.
Is that correct?
I will alert you when I do it, I know you said you were only available before the weekend. Hopefully I can complete it tonight.
OK, 10:21pm, Feb 16th, I have posted on the Talk page of Thomas H. Stix, all that I wish to include. And I tried to organize it showing my sources --which are NY Times, etc. Nothing personal -- so being his daughter should not raise the issue of "conflict of interest" for anyone reading my edits.
Best wishes. And if there is a way to inform me of other Wikipedia events in NYC, I would like to attend.
SF — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nyc2cents (talk • contribs) 03:25, 17 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't forget me. I added some very substantiated edits under TALK, citing sources including NY Times Obit, Physics Today and Encyclopedia Britannica. It is outlined very clearly where my facts can be validated. NO personal opinions. And when I checked up on it, saw this notice:
The user below has requested that an edit be made to this article for which that user has an actual or apparent conflict of interest.
The requested edits list is backlogged. Please be patient. There are currently 122 requests waiting for review."
As his daughter, I do have a vested interest in expanding the bio, but not a conflict of interest. I am giving FACTS, not opinions nor any information that is controversial. Can you please review? It's harder to get facts added to his page than the proverbial "camel through the eye of a needle."
Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nyc2cents (talk • contribs) 18:40, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
RECHECK
Centipede Press
Much obliged, DGG, for the time given and discerning ideas that improve the entry "Centipede Press," and making its move to "publishing accepted" status.
It currently has a request at top, "Please help by rewriting this article from a neutral point of view."
I have just red the excellent section on "neutral point of view" at WikiHelp, and have adjusted the entry in some ways, hopefully removing some slant, bias, or promo-loaded diction.
But maybe in trying to show whatever distinguishes the nature of this press, its history, and its contributions, still there are slanted lines or arrangement. While the entry is still fresh in your mind, do you see any words or arguments in it that you might sense should be dropped or adjusted?
Also, right now the body of writers/artists that this press publishes is edited out. Could there be advantage in me putting them back in, to show who they publish and from what eras, etc.? What might be the advantages and disadvantages to this in your view? Appreciate your expertise!
I shall take another llook, but remember, that those associated with an organization are not the best judge of what is appropriate in the article about it. I did indeed remove the list of writers and the like, just as we have done for every publishing house. The place for this is on you own web site. Imagine , please, the nature of the articles that would otherwise result from the famous presses which have prospered for centuries? (If there are a very few especially distinguished of international fame, such as winner of Nobel prizes, they could be included, but that's as much as we include in articles of this sort. After all, you have your own website.) DGG ( talk ) 04:46, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have unreviewed a page you curated
Hi, I'm Dan Koehl. I wanted to let you know that I saw the page you reviewed, Vinos Sofka, and have un-reviewed it again. If you have any questions, please ask them on my talk page. Thank you.
It will be better to fix the tone than to remove the template indicating there's a problem. Another editor put it back, and the article really needs condensing , and decreasing the amount of rhetoric. A plain, dull style works best here. Anything else starts raising the possibilities that the writer is over- committed, or has COI of some sort, or is an uncritical admirer, and even that it might be copied from somewhere. DGG ( talk ) 17:53, 19 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
RECHECK
World Café
Hi DGG - there was a discussion on merging the World Café and Knowledge Café articles, which has now been concluded and resulted in the latter being merged into the World Café. I was a bit late to the discussion about this (although I wouldn’t have disagreed with the consensus).
Since then I’ve been taking a crack at editing the article to take out the promotional elements. There are two sections (‘Features’ and ‘Design principles’), which I thought might be coming across as promotional and I wanted to get your take. There’s probably a balance to be struck between explaining how a World Café event works and having it come across like advertising. Do you think these should be removed? (I brought this up with you because you put the news alert on the page). Fbell74 (talk) 06:36, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG - I know you're probably busy with lots of different things at the moment. When you get a moment perhaps you can have a look at the article and see what you think. Sorry to press youFbell74 (talk) 03:39, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding this diff A WP:POVFORK is a justification for speedy deletion.
The below talk discussions confirm that the article is a POV fork. My understanding was that if the assertion is to be challenged then an editor must open a talk page section at the article with the justification to keep it.
request to consider draft of article about John Cabot University
Dear DGG,
I have been trying unsuccessfully for a long time to update the information about John Cabot University, whose current article is just a stub. Perhaps you recall that you had expressed willingness to review the draft some time ago? I would greatly appreciate it if you could find time to take a look at it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:John_Cabot_University
I tried making edits directly in order to correct false and misleading information, but the changes were immediately reverted because I am considered a COI editor. I then suggested changes on the Talk page, but they have been ignored. I recently tried resubmitting the article but it was rejected on the grounds that an article exists already. Please help me since I just want to improve the page and don't know what else to do.
Am interested in your thoughts on this AfD, and specifically on the issue I have raised. I have no idea how you are going to !vote on this, and am curious. Jytdog (talk) 19:44, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of naive discussions of citations from others, but the actual analysis speaks for itself. You did of very good job of editing, btw. For someone of his importance I would have done if it needed, but its great to have such competent help. DGG ( talk ) 04:36, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your kind words but all I did was clear away the most fetid of the promotionalism. The remaining directory entry ( i will not it an "article") is promotional; this person cannot have an actual WP article as there no sources from which to write one. The directory entry exists because someone is trying to promote this guy. So I have just polished a turd. It should not exist in WP per NOTDIRECTORY and PROMO.
I am going to try to raise N standards around WP. I am trying because a bunch of people seem to think we should and more importantly they undercut efforts to make meaningful changes by pointing to things like changing N.
But everybody has pet projects and is willing to fight to the death to protect notability guidelines and essays that allow fake "articles" to exist in WP, that are really directory entries or worse. The journals people do it, the academic people do it, the radio people do it, the music people do it, etc. It will be a waste of time, but I will try. So it goes. Jytdog (talk) 05:27, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'm willing to go to some trouble to maintain proper standards of notability based upon objective evidence that shows someone is a leader in their field. WP:PROF is one of the very few guidelines we have that follows a rational approach to inclusion policy. I fell so strongly about objective guidelines that I support them even when I think them overly broad (as for sports) or much too narrow (as for politicians).
I can and will argue as I think appropriate & necessary using the GNG in either direction, but it's a totally useless intellectual activity that I think detracts from the encyclopedia . You may possibly have a case about directory entries (though we have about 2 million directory articles), ut I don't see how the article is PROMO. Anyway, looking at it from your direction, even so you're attacking articles that we do have in a field where we do not have anywhere near enough coverage--if you want to attack directory entries--why not do it a field where e have overcoverage. Or do you really think academics unimportant?
Of course we have information to write an article we have what's important about academics: their position and their published work. In each case that's third party information based on the university authorities and the editor of the journals and the citing authors. The decisions of peer reviewers and peer authors in the aggregate are much sounder basis for an article than the uninformed comments of journalists in most current day newspapers.
one of the differences in what I and most others do here, is that I'm willing to fight even for what other people consider important. Tolerating and supporting each other is the basis of a cooperative encyclopedia. There's real promotionalism in WP that's much more dangerous and compromising than even the original version of this article. You're losing perspective. DGG ( talk ) 05:58, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your thoughts. I know that lots of people have identified various fields in WP that they think are particularly .... bad. Some people focus on where they believe there is lots of "paid editing", some people focus on where there is lots of COI, other people on various forms of POV or bias, systemic and otherwise. I know people think that what I care about is COI/paid editing. They are wrong but I let myself get trapped too often in that box.
My work is primarily about NPOV - ensuring that articles summarize high quality sources.
NPOV is what my entire Userpage is focused on, and has been focused on, for a long time. (it comes down to finding high quality sources and accurately summarizing them)
Lots of people have said we should address the paid editing problem at least in part (and in some quarters, primarily) by raising N standards.
I agree with that. It would solve lots of other problems too.
I don't understand -- at all -- how anybody can support raising N standards, and at the same time support any guideline that allows automatic green-lighting, even when we cannot actually write a WP article about something because there are not multiple independent sources with significant discussion of it. (In other words, it isn't possible to write an NPOV article about it)
I mean it - this completely baffles me and in my view comes down to special pleading. And each Wikiproject points to the special pleading that other Wikiprojects do. Which means we will never succeed in raising N standards for any field in WP.
If, on the other hand, Guy is correct and NOTDIRECTORY has been effectively abandoned, I need to rethink what a "WP article" is and my approach to NPOV.
But as it stands, in my view, the approach to N that allows PROF and JOURNALs and RADIO to create and keep directory entries, is what allows crap articles about business executives to exist.
(and what is promotional about the article about the guy who is subject of the AfD, is its very existence in WP. It was created as part of a promotional campaign, and upon examination it fails GNG and should not exist in WP at all. It is no different than artIcle about some business executive that gets created, gets looked at, and should get deleted.)
So what do people mean when they say "raise N standards"? How is it coherent and consistent? I really don't understand (obviously). Please explain how this makes sense to you. Please. Jytdog (talk) 22:05, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
yes, they are, and I've made no secret about it. Besides what I do on wiki, I've talked about this at many events. This has been my general approach for about 7 years now--the main difference from then is that 7 years ago the problem of using WP to advertise was not as widespread, and I was much more willing to rewrite such articles than I am now. Under current conditions, I'm very much more concerned about fighting promotional editing than about disagreements on the level or criteria of notability. DGG ( talk ) 04:43, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
But in making arguments in actual cases here I always give an argument based on the conventional rules. I will then sometimes supplement it with additional reasons. I use my own concepts in deciding which articles I'm going to argue about. I will not personally defend an article that clearly meets WP:N and which I do not think appropriate unless I can find some other policy-based reason. DGG ( talk ) 08:21, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Fashionista: COI/spambot
Greetings, DGG. You've nominated a number of Fashionista's creations for CSD G11. I'm working through deleting some of these, and was considering an advertising-only block for the creator, but wanted a second opinion before I pulled the trigger. What are your thoughts on this? Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 07:12, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It was not Slashme asking about the block, but thanks anyhow: that's a good point. And perhaps the various deletion processes will make the editor change their ways, though I am not particularly hopeful. Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 06:39, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me as if the closer (or closers) here has ben lulled into believing that peripheral discussions that are not part of the RfC statement, can be summed into the conclusion in order to create a consensus. Not only do I belive the 'consensus' - if that's what it is, is ridiculous in the extreme, but I'm half a mind to challenge the closure. But Im a bit busy this week in RL.
You made an issue over schools notability on my RfA 6 years ago. I wouldn't say though that I have a COI, but I've been a coord of WPWPSCH even longer and and don't need an inconclusive RfC to prove the obvious: a tacit agreement to to keep certain types of schools as evidenced by thousands of AfD closures.
If that was a consensus, well, considering that some RfC consensus gets thrown out for being only 60%, if the strength of the arguments had been properly taken into consideration, I see a very different result. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:15, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My view is that all articles written by this group should be deleted regardless of notability. The TOU are foundation policy. Our COI policy is based both on that and WP:NOT, which supersedes all consideration of notability. Attempting to advertise someone highly notable, is still advertising, just as advocating the worthiest of causes is still `advocacy. Some of the people being written about are so notable, however, that an article ought to be written. I considered whether to rewrite the existing articles, but decided not to, because it would take rewriting from scratch. I think the only way we can enforce our rules and deter promotionalism is to first delete, and then wait a bit and communicate with the subjects to make sure the lesson is learned, and then rewrite. DGG ( talk ) 01:55, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Talk page stalker here, with a minor point. The PROD template might benefit from a special-purpose parameter. As it is now, the wording is unfortunate. I quote: "If you created the article, please don't be offended. Instead, consider improving the article so that it is acceptable according to the deletion policy." Of course contradicting the reason for deletion. (And of course I have no objection to the idea of deleting this article or those like it. Just a matter of wording.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:04, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there is a way a undeclared paid editor can actually save the article, which is by declaring and then rewriting. I do not think there's an actual guideline, but so far we have generally granted amnesty retrospectively, in order to encourage people to do things properly. Of course, it a situation like this there would be considerable explanation needed. Anyway, I was thinking of using speedy in analogy with G12. I know it would be to IAR, and IAR is rarely used in connection with speedy. We could have another speedy criterion, but I don't want to propose it until consensus about the tou is more firmly established. It's cases like this which will show the need for it. DGG ( talk ) 03:58, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I came across 501 7th Avenue, SeaRise Office Tower, and 111 West 33rd Street and originally thought that it was a paid promotional editor and so put a paid editing notice on the creator's user talk page. Looking a bit closer at the user's created articles, it seems that they might actually be trying to spread information about Qatari owned businesses that have terrorist funding connections, and have created several BLPs/recent deaths that make terrorist funding/terrorism claims too: Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, Ismail al-Salabi, Mohammed bin Hashim al-Awadhy. I'm not sure how great the sourcing is on the BLPs, but given the sensitive nature of the topic and a near laser focus on it, it raised my eyebrows. You deleted Pamodzi Sports Marketing as G11, and since that was the last deletion on the talk page, and I know you have experience with COI type subjects, I thought I would get your thoughts. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:45, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have generally thought most large buildings in major cities notable, though it is difficult to say an exact size, and t will depend on the city.
Searise & W33rd St are I thing large enough; 7th Ave isn't but it was built by a famous architect. But what we really need is an article for the company that owns them (and the Empire State Building), Empire State Partners (fpr,er;y Empire State Realty Trust), which is mentioned in the Emp[pire State building article); it is a NUYSE company and has an interesting history. None of this of course answers the question of whether we should keep articles on notable subjects by undeclared paid promotional editors. I've been arguing that we should not--for those that are so notable as to be essential, someone else can rewrite them -- after a gap, because there is no other way to convince people that it is not helpful to pay for an article. If your suggestion is correct, it's still by a promotional editor, because it's advocacy which is considered as promotionalism , but that isn't considered nough reason for deletion, if the subject is notable just for revision im;ess it's so bad revision is hopeless and it falls under G11.
I am an archivist/researcher and have been asked by Holiday Extras to ensure that their entry complies with your guidelines (I also uploaded your Jim Phelan entry). I fully understand your notability requirements and I will put it right. Holiday Extras is a great company with a wonderful environmental, community and employee philosophy so I know it will make a worthy addition to Wikipedia.
If I was to resubmit the entry as it is would you let it go live give me seven days (by Friday 17th March at 17:00 BMT) to make it compliant and the end of which you can delete it if it doesn't?
I hope you can agree to my request.
Best wishes
David
david@davidcowell.net
08:27:02, 10 March 2017 review of submission by 86.166.71.210
I have started working on the content of the Holiday Extras entry and notice that in the first 37 references , 30 are genuine third party articles and certainly meets your verifiability criteria.
Hm, just to be sure, even with the growing Kidmoto Technologies, would he still not be notable? I don't know if you can see the page I edited, [63] would it still not be worth publishing? --SamRHeartron15:50, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
SamRHeartron In this case, no, because since all subjects like these are evaluated and based separately, his company is not a convincing factor and, also, the sources are all simply announcements, press releases (or highly suggestive of it), notices and similar; altogether or separately, there's not the significance in notability and only appears as a business profile. SwisterTwistertalk23:02, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the deleted article, which I can do but ST unfortunately cannot, the deleted article was written in 2013/2014 at an earlier stage in the individuals career. It was a valid A7 speedy, because it made no claim other than that he had founded a company. which is not by itself a rational claim to enough significance for a WP article. The current article draft is more substantial, because it dies have some reference, but the same problems apply. I am unable to find a reliable source for the sba award. If this draft were moved to mainspace, it would be quickly deleted. Incidentally, have you ever edited WP under another name, such as that of the editor of the deleted article, and are you ware of WP:COI and our our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure DGG ( talk ) 10:21, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I would probably support a CSD criterion modeled after G5, for undeclared paid editing, but we do not currently have one, and using G11 for the purpose is stretching it very far. This is especially true when the actual article was probably not written as promotionalism or advocacy, but as a unfortunately misguided good faith approach to improving WP. JzG is very much around, and I do not intend to do this without notifying him, especially because I entirely respect and totally agree with his desire to rid WP of blatantly improper editing. I consider the speedies to be misjudgment, not absolute error. I will undelete them tomorrow unless there are arguments otherwise., and they can then be taken to AfD I fully understand why the deleting admin did this, and I totally sympathize with his views on this sort of editing. But G11 is really not the appropriate method. These need to be taken to Afd if they are to be deleted, because this is a disputed situation and requies explicit consensus. Speedy is not appropriate when the consensus will be debated, only when the deleting admin can be reasonably sure that the consensus would certainly support him. I do not think there's the case here. and the best course would be for JzG to do that himself. My own suggestion would instead be a merge, and therefore I will not personally take it to afd after it has been restored, for AfD is not needed to do a merge.. DGG ( talk ) 07:49, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
So, first of all, I already proposed a speedy criterion for material created in violation of the terms of use, and it was rejected. Getting any kind of broad community consensus on what to do with paid advertorial is difficult, not least because there is a group of people who for whatever reason seek to make it impossible. Not all of these are associated with the Sangerites and their fawning over Kohs. Some have a genuine, if in my view misguided, belief, that Wikipedia's need for articles overwhelms the problems of people subverting Wikipedia for profit.
That's why I only removed a small number of articles. There are several medical timelines, for example, all paid for by the same pyramid scheme, which I did not touch.
The articles I did remove are promotional in intent and designed, in my view, purely for SEO. They are timelines of commercial entities, paid for by Vipul (who engages in SEO as well as his Wikipedia editing pyramid scheme), replete with numerous links to other commercial entities, several of which are owned by Vipul. And that's what pushes them over the line. Guy (Help!) 09:02, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
JzG, You may be right, but you shouldn't be making this decision by yourself, especially because there is disagreement about the nature of Vipul's motivations. Please undelete and send them to AfD. This particular case very much needs discussion, and preferably not just between the two of us. . As for the speedy criterion, the main problem I see is exactly what is presented here--the difficulty in determining motivations (and identity, usually, though not in this case). DGG ( talk ) 15:01, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
JzG is free to hold whatever views they want to hold about paid editors. They shouldn't be calling all of them as "vermin", "dogs" and "parasites" - that is at least a gross violation of WP:NPA, and a BLP violation as well, if anyone cares. But, the least they can do is not to delete stuff bypassing consensus. Feel free to AfD the articles, but don't act unilaterally. Kingsindian♝♚19:02, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Read again for comprehension. I did not call them dogs. Parasites, of course, is entirely accurate according to the definition of the term. Guy (Help!) 00:18, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@JzG: I am not that interested in the dehumanizing language you use for people you don't like. But is someone (you or anyone else) going to undelete the "Timeline of..." pages? The deletion under CSD deletion G11 is clearly not applicable because it is not an unambiguous case of blatant advertising; indeed DGG agrees on that point. The CSD process is meant to deal with clear-cut cases with minimum of WP:BURO, not a method to shortcut consensus on an issue on which reasonable people may differ. Kingsindian♝♚02:26, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@JzG: You also keep repeating that Vipul is running an SEO spamming operation (despite them denying it) and a pyramid scheme. Might I remind you that pyramid schemes are illegal in the US? This is as blatant a personal attack as can be imagined. Just because you think you're right doesn't mean that you can go around flouting rules with impunity. If you can't keep your head while dealing with the subject, let other people deal with it. Kingsindian♝♚02:38, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:COIN. They were offering to pay people, and allow those people to recruit downline and pass the money on. That's a pyramid scheme. The SEO is also proven to my satisfaction, people have checked the records of sites he admits to operating. I actually think he did not consider how this would be perceived. I originally offered him some advice on how to support Wikipedia articles in his area of interest without these problems, but it's since become apparent that this has been going on for a long time and his responses do not look to be entirely straight. I've not been involved in much of the cleanup, I mainly reviewed sourcing on a series of articles on immigration-related topics where Vipul and his paid editors had added large numbers of links to sites selling visa services. Again, I am not sure this was intentional spamming, but there is a conflict between the claim that they are experienced editors and the use of poor quality promotional sources.
You also appear to be under a misapprehension about my views on spammers. They are not people I dislike. I dislike the behaviour, not the people. I strongly suspect that Vipul and I would share broad agreement on a number of issues, and several of his paid editors seem to be nice people caught up in a nasty situation. Paid editing is predatory, a parasitic abuse of a charitable project for personal gain. It is reprehensible and, I would argue, morally indefensible. But you can see why Vipul did this. The critical point is what happens when the user is confronted. In this case the response was obfuscation. That is not cool. There have been many cases where the response is genuine remorse, the user not having even considered how the community might view paid editing. I can write that down to mistakes born of ignorance. That certainly applies to a lot of Vipul's paid editors. But not, I think, to Vipul himself, based on current evidence. Guy (Help!) 10:14, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
JzG You are accusing someone on Wikipedia of doing something illegal. And just because you think you're right and you have the correct opinions about paid editing, that makes it ok. Even if you were right (and you aren't), this kind of behaviour would be wildly out of line. Referrals are not necessarily pyramid schemes; they need to have a structure where people get most of their income through referrals and not through direct work. There are many other factors which go into pyramid schemes (see this page, for instance). You are totally incompetent to make such a determination (as am I), but you go around making these outrageous accusations. I would suggest that you're unable to think rationally about this topic. Please get some outside advice on this matter (from someone on WP) you trust. Preferably in private. Kingsindian♝♚15:27, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@JzG: Are you going to undelete the "Timeline of ..." articles? DGG says clearly above that G11 doesn't apply and you shouldn't be making this decision by yourself. Your failure to answer this question is rather annoying. Kingsindian♝♚23:33, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I am not good at answering questions when they are framed as overblown rhetorical statements, Am I goin to u delete the paid-for SEO adverts? Um, I will leave that to DRV because I remain convinced they are spam. Guy (Help!) 09:40, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, DGG. I have a few questions ... When you refer to point #3 from your previous comments, this point had talked about the boxed quotations. The boxed quotations are now gone, but I do include one quotation from Frank Moore, which seemed appropriate since it is his basic definition of Eroplay. So I wanted to confirm that you are referring to the one quotation from Moore, and are you suggesting that it be removed?
Also, you refer to point #4, which was about the photos. So I wanted to clarify that you still think the one remaining photo could be problematic?
Finally, when you say, "the question for acceptance is whether this is notable separately from the artist and in any other context", how is that determined? User:Aleximalenky ( talk ) 21:59, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
RECHECK
Touche!
Hi DGG, I just wanted to thank you for having a spirited but civil discussion at AfD. Your points are good, as I believe are mine. Your good demeanor is refreshing. I didn't want to clutter the AfD page up with this, but wanted to say "Thanks!" Jacona (talk) 02:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Commenting on Vipul/Riceissa related matters
Hi DGG, do you think I should refrain from commenting on Vipul/Riceissa related matters? I decided to leave the following note on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Riceissa/Spokes (replication system): "Note: I was a part of the same paid editing ring as User:Riceissa, so that is a COI I hold; I am not getting paid for any of my comments related to the Vipul/Riceissa ordeal, they are of my own accord. I was not asked by Vipul or Riceissa or anyone else to make any of the comments below." If you think I should stop, I'll stop; I don't want to get blocked for paid MEATing or whatnot. Sincerely, Ethanbas(talk)07:25, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I will not comment on any thread any longer; however, I reserve the right to comment on talk pages of users involved in this mess (making sure they know I was part of Vipul's project) Ethanbas(talk)02:48, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Indexing
Here, you say "About reusing drafts: the unlikelihood of anyone else reusing a draft is one of the faults of our current system. I think there are at most 4 people (including myself) who rescue old drafts. I generally only do them in my primary field of interest (academic faculty and related), but even so I have a very long list, and very rarely have time to do one. We do not even have a system where when someone starts an article, it shows whether there is a pre-existing draft on the topic. The default Wikipedia search does not pick them up, and even if set to Everything only finds them if spelled the same way. Kudpung, you know this system best--is there any reasonable solution?". Maybe INDEXing the drafts is the solution? Ethanbas(talk)02:41, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
this has been proposed, and decisively rejected. Drafts contain unverified material, including copyvios and advertising nd possible BLP violations. The whole idea for drafts is that they are not yet reasd to have a prominent position in external indexes. They do show up in our internal search, if one knows the title and specifies a customs search.T
the solution that has been suggested several times and could have been adopted years ago, is to categorize them in at least rough categories, so people could at least scan them. The objection has been raised that there are not people willing to do this manually, but there are two other methods: a simple weighted keyword approach, which, however inexact, is at least a start, and more recently an AI system. There has historically been a dichotomy--at least a perceived dichotomy--between the people who work with the WP infrastructure and the people who work with articles. Fortunately, under the current Executive Director, there seems to be a possibility of some improvement. DGG ( talk ) 02:52, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's interesting that Vipul did not mention he is associated with Caplan when he added so many primary-sourced references to Caplan's blogging into articles. Funny how that goes, eh? Guy (Help!) 00:03, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
JzG, there are two alternative approaches to COI problems: one is to simply judge the subject for notability in the usual way; the other, for which you have been arguing, is to judge the intent. I certainly understand the point of your way of doing it: I would support a rule that undeclared paid editing be deleted rather than fixed on the same principle as we delete articles from banned editors (otherwise the prohibition is toothless), and I would probably also support a rule that grossly COI articles also be deleted rather than fixed unless someone actually rewrites them, as we do for copyvio. There are also arguments against either proposition, and I think the strongest two are that usually we cannot tell, so it will remain toothless, and that is that paid editors can be persuaded to declare, and COI editors taught to write properly (though both seem to be quite rare occurrences).
But at present the community supports neither rule. I doubt we could get the necessary support to explicitly change either of them, and I am very reluctant to propose that until there is some chance ofsucceeding in the argument Another way to change the rule is to change what we actually do at AfD, because the rules here are what we actually do, rather than just what we say; this is the method you;ve been pursuing. I've been doign the same thing, but I am trying to concentrate on the individuals without significant notability, not clearly notable people like him DGG ( talk ) 04:03, 28 March 2017 (UTC) response[reply]
Global Action Platform
Hello. I recently posted on this page and it seems to have been deleted. I am new to this forum, so please bear with me. I have spent a lot of time researching sources for Global Action Platform, and I would be very interested to know your thoughts. I posted almost 30 or more sources to prove it's notability, including opening statements by the General Secretary of the UN. I don't know what it more notable than that... Thank you for your review!
Labadvocate, still there, at March 23. I apparently removed several weeks worth of material in error. Thanks to your notice, I figured out what went wrong, and I have now restored it. I will reply to you tomorrow. My apologies for the confusion. DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked again at the deleted article again. As I said, it is essentially an advertisement, and that is why it was deleted. (Examples: " the cousin of the famed American businessman and philanthropist ..." ;"the leading university-business alliance" ; "in the heart of the American Health care industry" ; " engages the world’s top experts and leaders" ; "most notably at" ; " to allow global leaders to converge their ideas". All of these are hallmarks of press releases, not of encyclopedic writing. That's why I asked you if you had any connection, because nobody write that way unless they're a PR agent, or copying a press release, or imitating PR style--perhaps under the impression that's what we want in WP). In addition, the sources there, and in the comment above, on March 23, are most of them press releases or minor notices of particular projects, not discussions of the organization. There is no point in trying to explain here why the organization should be regarded as important. It probably is sufficiently notable to be worth an article, but there are two requirements: The most basic one is NOT PROMOTION. Besides not being promotional, there must be references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements/ Do not rely on of local newspapers, or on anything from biz journals and similar press release sources, or campus web sites. DGG ( talk ) 03:21, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for taking time to review. I see all your points and they makes great sense. When I wrote the first version it definitely was filled with their own language. I got it from their website and other places like that. And do have some "marketing" in my not so distant career background, so it makes sense it read like that. I have never written an encyclopedia article, still learning... I wrote it because Scott is a great guy, and I wanted to honor him. He gave me a great opportunity a few years ago, and I was searching after their new website came out and realized they didn't have a wiki article. I thought since its their 5 year in review, and they are starting to get really serious about action, not just think tanking, I would write one for them. I think there are a few good sources above that fit the requirement, including some from the diplomatic courier. There are also articles about their projects that I could further source, and articles about scott and fareed.
How should I proceed? Should I try again now that I have a better idea what this is all about? I would welcome any help you or anyone someone you know might offer me in getting this wonderful org the credit they deserve in the zeitgeist. They are curing the world in so many beautiful ways. Labadvocate (talk) 10:18, 2 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the reply! I do believe that this publication is notable and will attempt to work on my sourcing to improve the article. Where can I find the contents of what I wrote? I believe on a page "Why was my article deleted?" it says I need to ask the administrator to send me the source for the page as it was before deletion.
My name is David Alves (User:Horadrim~usurped), and I'm an Wikipedian in Residence at RIDC NeuroMat (User:Horadrim). I've reach your contact through the == Wikimedian in Residence BoF at Wikimania 2017 ==outreach:WIR|Wikimedian in residence page]] in Outreach. As you may know, Wikimania 2017 is coming! I am here because, as a fellow WiR, I believe this would be a great opportunity for us to share experiences, discuss difficulties and exchange solutions, creating a community among us capable of supporting in other projects that would benefit from residents.
In that sense, I have submitted a proposal of a Birds of a Feather activity to Wikimania that you can check out here. I hope to count with your support in this project and would like to invite you to join us if you participate in Wikimania. In case of any doubts, please feel free to contact me, either in my talk pages or by e-mail at david.alvesoutlook.com.
I just wanted to comment and say I really appreciate your User page. Thanks for writing that up because I have always felt the same way and couldn't say it better myself. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 04:00, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A7 Speedy deletion
Hi DGG. I just noticed the page 'Confident Airlines (India) Private Limited' has been deleted recently. Since there was no notification, I wonder and wish to know if it was deleted by mistake or unintentionally! Bilingual2000 (talk) 12:20, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have now added an answer (and further questions) to that discussion on the other talk page for the whole thread to be there. Thanks, —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░18:03, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
They are both what we call promotional interviews--interviews that allow the company representative to say whatever they please--and I notice they are both by-lined by the same person. This counts as PR. There is nothing wrong with PR--it is a necessary part of getting a business started. It doesn't show notability . I could restore the articles to Draft space, but the chances of getting and keeping an actual article in WP at this stage are essentially zero. The last thing a new company needs is a judgment in a discussion here -- a judgment that will remain visible on the internet --that your firm is not yet notable. It would be in your interest to wait until there is some really independent material. Incidentally, if you hired someone to write the article, they did not make the necessary declarations according to our our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure , and the article could probably be deleted on that basis also. Very few of the firms offering to write WP articles actually do so in accordance with the rules, and wea re engaged in a continuing effort to get rid of them--and of the articles they write. DGG ( talk ) 08:51, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi David, thanks for your response to me on this. Question, what does it mean to restore the articles to Draft space? I would like to be able to see the "Talk" that happened before deletion as well as the code for the page if possible
About what you said in regard to notability and independent material, I think I sort of understand what you mean. However in addition to CNBC, we also had coverage from NYTimes, Travel+Leisure, Business Insider and others. Would those sources not count as reliable independent sources?
About notability, is coverage from CNBC not relevant as a criteria? It was not a paid PR attempt on our end, the reporter reached out to us because they felt there was notability/newsworthiness in our story
I noticed another company in the industry also has a Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MunchPak. I bring them up because I'm wondering what is it about their page that allows it to stay up, versus ours, so I can understand what it is about the content of the Treats page that needs to be improved - Aisinempresario — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aisinempresario (talk • contribs) 21:44, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Please see WP:COI- those associated with an organization or its communications staff are perhaps the least appropriate people to judge whether an article from their organization is suitable for an encyclopedia. But you are right that there are many very weak articles in Wikipedia on people or organizations that were accepted in earlier years when standards are lower, and some similar articles still get through our screening. It will take us a long time to remove the all, but we do make an effort to avoid adding to their number. The particular article you mention is already in the process of being deleted.
When I am asked about the acceptability of an article, or references, or specific content, I try to explain as exactly as I can the standards and procedures according to my understanding of the accepted consensus here. Sometimes my own view is slightly different, but it would not be fair to give advice that would not help people in practice. Whether or not I think this firm should have an article is irrelevant. On the basis of what actually is accepted in discussions here, the interviews is not likely to be considered truly third party, because it is almost entirely in the voice of the firm's executive, and the other references will be considered trivial. DGG ( talk ) 23:41, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Andrew Radford draft
hi DGG. you mentioned that you would like to see <andrew radford> draft before i submit and that you would accept it.
photo is a family photo and i have permission from radford to use it freely.
thanks so much for any feedback. i could submit next week if it looks ok.
josephJosephgalasso (talk) 20:48, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
even if you have permission, you need to follow the formal procedures at WP:DCM. The copyright permission must be made by the copyright owner, and it must be for CC-BY, which permits use not just in WP, but use anywhere by anyone for any purpose, even commercial. And we normally list doctoral students only if they are notable themselves. We usually don't mention editorial board membership, only editor-in chief. Otherwise it seems OK. DGG ( talk ) 08:41, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Studied subjective nature of the article
Hello. Removed the 'POV' and 'peacock' template on Malvika Iyer after researching on the subject matter and the neutrality of the article. Changed the subjective nature of the article. Added new factual details and new citations. Thank you.
Frankly, you've made it worse, adding yet more subjective material: [64]. I think it needs a fairly drastic edit to remove sentimentalism. I may get to it, but perhaps someone else will get there first. DGG ( talk ) 07:57, 23 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@CambridgeBayWeather: In the essay - "All replies are directed to the point that was made, and not to the editor making that point. It is not appropriate to precede them with @Someone, or name an editor, unless the editor is the topic of that discussion." :) --NeilNtalk to me01:12, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Which browser and OS, Jo-Jo? Given a lengthy talk page here, with Safari on an iPad I have no problems reading or posting here. With Windows 10 and IE 11 attempting to go directly to a section from my watchlist hangs—but going to User talk:DGG works OK. Surely there should be a computer based solution. Fifty years ago (when I started programming) maybe no, but now? — Neonorange (Phil) 20:42, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If I may butt in; I'm using Safari on iPhone, and when I first tried to load this page I got an error message saying something like "An error occurred. Attempting to reload page." I've never gotten that message before. This is quite possibly the most popular talk page on Wikipedia. Lizard (talk) 20:51, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
actually, it's slowing down even for me, with Safari and 16GB memory. It's my own fault, because I ambitiously set up a system of subject archives instead of doing like everyone else. I will make another try this weekend. DGG ( talk ) 21:23, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Windows 10 64-bit system and the 80 Mbit/sec Internet connection I use is way overkill for editing and browsing. Your talk page, as it is the moment of my sig time stamp, loads in less than a second when I go to User talk:DGG. When I go to a specific section of the page (from my watchlist) the browser busy pointer appears and after five minutes is still busy. I must reload Wikipedia in the browser to continue, as the page cannot be recovered. Computers should allow a person to be as productive as that person wishes, not the reverse. — — Neonorange (Phil) 00:02, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The policy on whether we keep an article is not WP:N. The policy is WP:NOT. The guideline WP:N is the explanation for how we decide on one part of that policy, NOT INDISCRIMINATE. An article might meet that, but fail other parts of NOT. If something is effectually promotion, it fails NOTADVOCACY, and that's enough to rule it out as encyclopedia content, because we do not advertise anything, no matter how notable. There's no justification for keeping advertising in Wikipedia any more than there is copyvio. Unless there is a NPOV version to revert to, or unless it is immediately fixed, it should be deleted, whether by speedy G11 or at AfD. It shouldn't be moved to draft or userified in the hope of improvement, as we might for something lacking in sources for notability but where there's a good chance of finding them. We wouldn't do that for copyvio. We wouldn't do that for BLP violations. Using WP for advertising is just as harmful. "fixable" applies in many circumstances, but not for any of these. DGG ( talk ) 20:27, 29 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
HM. Hm. Set brain to churning with all kinds of things clicking. Two questions:
Is that true, historically? I mean, was N created to flesh out NOT, explicitly?
Is this widely seen as true in your view? (I have never heard of it or thought about it this way.... it makes total sense however) Jytdog (talk) 19:57, 1 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Based on several sections What Wikipedia Is Not, it is generally agreed that topics in most areas must have a certain notability in order to have an article in Wikipedia. Several guidelines have been created, or are under discussion, to indicate what is and is not notable by {{|Radiant!}}. (but at that point several of the proposed specific guidelines had developed to approximately their present form, with varying degrees of acceptance). The first appearance of a GNG was in Nov, 2006. by UncleG
(2) This my understand of the necessary implications of WP:NOT. It is my interpretation, & I think reflects the trend of decisions at AfD. It is not universally accepted; the alternate interpretation is for keeping promotional articles even if borderline notable, if it is at all possible to fix the promotionalism. In choosing how to interpret, we should follow logic & consistency, but also practical considerations. My view is that accepting even temporarily promotionalism plays into the hands of paid editors and other spammers, and that such editing has the real potential to destroy the usefulness of WP as an encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 03:47, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I mrely judged the consensus atthe AfD--this is not my field. But the impression I get from every one of them ==& I looked at every one--is that even though they may be PR, and certainly use extravagant terms of praise, they're all forced to admit he's still a novice. There is nothing to prevent you from trying again in draft space, but if this were like any subject I do understand, I would advise you to wait till he is better known. Otherwise you risk another decision that he is not yet notable,--and those discussions, tho not visible on google, are on the permanent record and anyone who searches within WP can find them. But please feel free to ask any other admin --perhaps someone who does understand what's important in electronic dance music will comment here. DGG ( talk ) 07:18, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi DGG, this is regarding review of KartRocket which was deleted due to not providing sufficient evidence of notability. It has been a year now and it has gained some in-depth coverage by indepenedent sources. Can you please check if following sources are good for this article. [76][77][78][79][80]Raghavhere (talk) 04:46, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Except for Inc42, I read all the refs, and they all are basically PR release announcing the hiringa a staff member, alongwith associate priase of the company's prospects. I consider the Inc42 PR based, but it is much more substantial than the others. As I understand it, the firm is sitill very small, if it finds raising $8 million worthy of publicity. I'd wait till ithe firm becomes more substantial, and the refs will follow. DGG ( talk ) 08:33, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
12:54:00, 2 May 2017 review of submission by IpsenGesche
Hi,
I've edited the article in view of your comments. Can you please re-review it, and let me know if you need anything else to be changed? I think it reads fine now.
Best wishes,
Gesche
needed further rewriting to not sound like an advertisement. I've done it, and accepted it. Still needs the exact refs for the Times added, both print and (if available) on line. DGG ( talk ) 00:43, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(my argument at a recent deletion review in popular music)
Consistent practice at WP has been that meeting the SNG is enough in this field. Guidelines are what we do, not just what we say, and if there is conflict between the two, it's what we do that matters. WP is not run primarily by rules, but primarily by consensus--rules are attempts to codify the usual consensus, and are valid only to the extent the community in practice supports them. re ambiguous, The rule on charting has an enormous advantage: it produces unambiguous results. Except for the need to define just what charts it is that count, there's not much room for dispute and decisions can be easily made,. Following the GNG is another matter entirely:the specifications that coverage by ""reliable"", significant coverage, independent and secondary and in sufficient number, can be endlessly debated, and in all fields where we rely on the GNG they are endlessly debated-in most cases that reach AfD they can be plausibly debated in every direction, and people in practice pick what side to argue by some sort of global judgement about whether the article should belong in WP. Thus our hundred or so FaDs a day where the main discussion is the opportunity to show skill in quibbling, and the result depends on just which skilled quibblers appear at the discussion. I don't care about the individual results in this subject field, but I do care they our decisions be consistent and rational. The SNG does that--the GNG guarantees the opposite.
Perhaps its odd that with some degree of reputation as a skilled quibbler, and years of experience quibbling on both sides of AfDs, I want to do away with those discussions. I've experience in a lot of unnecessary things, and I'd much rather use my skills at something substantial at RSN or the like, and in figuring how to fix articles. I came here because I thought I could use quite different skills in finding refs to fix articles, but I've never had a chance to use them much. Debating as we do it is just a game. Sourcing is real. DGG ( talk ) 22:32, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Eliyahu Leon Levi
Hi DGG, I noticed you struck the listing for Eliyahu Leon Levi at WP:AN/CXT No. 9 with the comment that it is in adequate English; but how's the translation? The quality of English in the article isn't really that important; any copyeditor can do that. What we are mostly concerned with, is the accuracy of the translation, as most of the pages in this list were script-generated due to a misconfig in ContentTranslation and are either pure MT, or MT+monolingual copyedit, so don't worry too much about the English quality.
If you can vouch for accuracy of articles translated from Hebrew, the following ones in the list could use your help, if you have the time: #106, 197, 1627, 1680, and 1907. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 02:04, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this is a questionable reach for me , as I do not read the language at all. I cannot vouch for accuracy; I can vouch for the English making sense and being consistent and the facts reported being likely. Like most bios, the article is extremely straightforward and leaves little to be misinterpreted. I know the cultural significance of what's reported, and it makes sense. I would not have looked at anything more complex or where I understood nothing of the subject. It's no worse that way than were it to have been written directly into the enWP using Hebrew sources, and certainly had it been an unacknowledged machine translation. The only reason these articles are any different is we know instead of guess that they used machine translation. So I shall ask a wikifriend to verify.
And I did likewise with a Chinese article on a straightforward political career. Again, it makes sense, but it is a language where machine translation to English is notable awful. It could be imaginary, but so could any article using Chinese sources. I'll ask for verification.
The other languages I've worked with I do know how to read at least somewhat, best for French and German. How well I can deal with them depends upon how simple they are. I've done translations in both from scratch, but I do not attempt deWP articles on history with their usual complicated German syntax--this is one case where it is easily possible to get mixed up. However, some types of articles are extremely formulaic. I'm most likely to run into an uncertainty regarding the equivalence of positions in different countries, tho as a librarian I know a lot of organizational equivalents. (There's a very nice large book A manual of European languages for librarians by CG Allen. Invaluable for the Soviet era in particular.) And if I come across anything I'm unsure about, or where I do not know the cultural equivalent, or where the original seems confused, I leave that part out. I see from the comments that other do similarly.
But this raises some more general questions. I was going to post on the project talk p.and I will in some more detail tomorrow:
How many of the articles I accept at NPP or AfC can I really vouch for the accuracy? That's an unrealistically high standard for any new page patroller--all we really check is basic verifiability. That a translation is not quite accurate is no worse than in the English from a non-native speaker is not quite accurate, or if the sources don't actually verify what they say they do, or are unavailable. The only time we really check an article in depth is when an article is challenged at AfD or analyzed for GA or FA. What we're looking for is basic correctness, not detail.
of the first 100 articles, we're accepting or redirecting almost all of them that are worth working on. Some that I could read perfectly well I am not marking for acceptance because I do not consider it worth the work, and I see others are deciding similarly. My intent is to rescue everything worth rescuing if I can do enough work. The project would be enormously simplifyied if we simply accepted translations from the Scandinavian languages. The machine translation does very well with them, because the syntax is almost identical. It also does very well with straightforward German.(as distinct from the professional level German in their longer articles) In other languages , the most serious inaccuracy is the sequence of events because of the difference in tense use which are very often messed up by the machine translation, and the original is often a little unclear here also. But I'm particularly concerned the project did not screen out those articles that used the machine translation as a base, and then edited manually by the contributor or a good editor. There's no reason to assume they're incompetent.
Our role should be to screen out the ones that are incapably done, and not worth fixing. There are fewer than I anticipated--perhaps 25% not 50%. I also consider it our role to produce readable though not necessarily high quality English. :::I am not going to let something that can barely be deciphered pass no matter where I see it. How far it's worth fixing depends on how easy it is to fix, and it's importance.
If this standard is not acceptable, I might challenge the entire project using the experience I now have as the basis. The goal of all we do here is, after all, to get articles worth keeping, not to reject all problematic ones out of hand. But in any case I do understand your advice, and will work more conservatively. DGG ( talk ) 04:31, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for this very thoughtful and detailed response. You raise a lot of interesting issues regarding translation, verifiability, accuracy, quality, and others that go beyond the narrow issue here that sparked the original comment. I hang out at WP:PNT and think about translation there and in other venues (both on, and off-wiki) and I've been thinking about how to better organize this in a way to improve the encyclopedia generally, and capitalize on all the talent and interested people we have here and assemble a group of those who are interested to discuss that. I know there's a WikiProject Translation, but for what I have in mind, I'm not sure if that's the right place for it, as I think this is something else, but anyway (sorry, I'm rambling; it's late!) let's keep in touch about this, if you would like to.
Back to the original topic: I understand your PoV, and in a pool of 3600 articles, it's not so important if one article more or less gets kept or not (with the exception that I hate to nuke ones that editors have worked long and hard on, unless policy really requires it) so if you want to restrike to keep this one it's fine by me, or tell me and I'll do it. Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 08:19, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My confusion; no need to restrike E L Levi, it's still struck as you left it; I've been doing so many of these lately, can't remember which way is up! Mathglot (talk) 08:29, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Librarians -- especially academic librarians -- have the distinctive requirement to be able to deal with material about which they have only the scantiest knowledge--there were about 100 professional librarians at my university, and we were expected to be able to understand the requirements of about 1000 faculty, all of whom had a world-class specialized knowledge that we could not hope to match--even those of us who became librarians after a research career had only mastered one special field, not 10 of them. This is obviously a good background for working at WP. Publishers have a similar skill, and so do reporters. This included the need to work with a range of languages--some of the faculty had an extremely impressive range indeed, but still we collected in more languages than was presently represented. But librarians do not have to truly understand the details of a book in order to catalog it, just understand it well enough to figure out what it is about and the level of the analysis. I've taught librarians also, and though no one can actually teach these abilities, I did explain to my students that if they were to win the respect of faculty, they had to at least know how to pronounce properly the words of their various specialties. (Thus I can spell and pronounce chemical and biological names much better than I can ordinary English) The same is of course true of many non-academic fields--you have to at least know the talk. So I will boldly attempt anything unless I know by experience I will make a fool of myself.
There's a difference among the various WPs. deWP is known for insisting on a solid university level of German, and we don't expect anything more than high school level literacy. We deal more than any other WP with people who cannot really write the language, and within limits, we encourage them. Fortunately, we have a very wide range of language and other specialists, and there is very little we cannot find someone to deal with. (The problem in that in some fields and languages there are very few of them, and they may not be representative of the range of POVs) By experience, I've learned some fields where I can , and cannot, trust the available WPedians, both here and at their own language WPs. I am very reluctant to delete anything the de or fr WPs consider notable --but this does not hold at all for some of the other European language WPs.
I see the Chad Robichaux page has been nominated for deletion. You stated that, "promotional bio. full of puffery and uncited praise. The athletic career does not seem to meet the requirements,and there is nothing else substantial. I would not have accepted this from AfC."
Thank you for your feedback on the article. I made some edits to the page to remove any puffery. It don't understand, however, your other reasons for this being deleted. Can you help me? As I read the biography for living person page this seems to fall in line with the requirements and the coverage fall under "routine coverage" as described.
You are the expert, so however I can learn and make this page better I will gladly hear.
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jews_and_Communism_(2nd_nomination). Thanks. MarkBernstein (talk) 21:59, 9 May 2014 (UTC)Template:Z48
Done
If it's ok with you, I'm going to copy your list of what still needs to be done over to the article TP with hopes of recruiting some help. I'm currently helping prepare another article for FA promotion, and as soon as I've completed that chore, I will start back on this one. Atsme📞📧 22:36, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Coolabahapple (talk) 08:27, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
. However, the time-consuming nature of reviewing properly means that many of us NPRs who are primarily content editors simply cannot afford to tackle more than a few of these per week—otherwise, we'd have no time for anything else. The NPRs who aren't significant content editors or administrators generally don't have the experience (or inclination, I suspect) to do the more detailed, laborious stuff. I'm not sure what the solution is. Voceditenore (talk) 15:08, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
Fixed: I corrected the article by changing the em dashes to en dashes (diff). Cheers, North America1000 12:39, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
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Ethanbas (talk) 02:41, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
outlook.com.
