User talk:SoWhy

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Edit summaries on talk pages...

Sincere confusion here. I honestly don't see the point of using edit summaries on talk or discussion pages. What am I going to say - "reply to (x)"? "answered question"? Those are empty and devoid of information. Copying the comment to the edit summary? Those types of edits really stand much better in context (and it's, as you said, a pain to do on mobile, from which I edit a majority of the time); I don't see why having to review the edits is a bad thing given the places where I don't tend to leave edit summaries are in active conversations. I agree that it's useful on articles and other non-discussion pages, but I'm having trouble comprehending the rest. ansh 666 08:22, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Ansh666: As I said, communication is key. Edit summaries, even just a small "reply" or similar, allow people to understand why you edited a page without having to check the diff. Did you reply to someone? Or did you fix something? Did you move some comments to the right place? Is there anything someone else might be interested in reading or is it clearly between two editors? Take for example, this recent edit: Is it a comment, i.e. something that might be interesting to more people or is it just a reply to someone, interesting only to the parties involved? Or this edit: Without checking the diff, one cannot even determine which thread it belongs to or that it even belongs to any discussion or is not a new message (which might be of interest to talk page stalkers). Or this AFD comment: Is it a comment? You fixing another AFD? A !vote? Nobody knows who just sees the change on their watchlist. If you are editing from mobile yourself, you must know how hard it is to assess someone's edits on there. I don't think there are reasons to make it harder, on any page. Think of it that way: Leaving edit summaries means people who trust you to make good edits don't have to review those edits just to find out what you were doing (and thus whether it might concern them), thus saving them time to do something else. Regards So Why 08:51, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know...perhaps it's because I have a penchant to actually click through and review every edit regardless of what the edit summary says (and maybe partly because my watchlist is very small)? I don't particularly read them even when on mobile, I prefer (as I said above) having full context for anything in case it's something that would interest me. In any case, thank you for taking the time to explain it to me, and I'll keep that in mind for the future, starting with this edit. ansh 666 08:57, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To each their own but people like me with approx. 6,000 items on their watchlist (and many editors have far more), checking each edit - especially on mobile - is impossible. I'd be happy if you can really change this and prove (part of) my oppose rationale wrong. Regards So Why 09:03, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've got a hundred odd articles on my watchlist (basically everything I have improved to at least GA plus a few I mean to if I get round to it), and every other day some editor turns up and changes something without an edit summary, and it drives me up the wall. If you get into the habit of using edit summaries everywhere, it forces you to think about what you've just written, and make a final decision on whether your edit is actually useful. This goes even for talk pages; there is a semantic difference between "reply to 'x'", "2c", "off topic rant" and "advice". Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 09:07, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yikes, I rarely ever go above 70 on mine, and the majority are zero-activity pages (my own userspace, or articles where socks vandalize every couple months), since I tend to not watch pages with a lot of activity. That certainly puts things in perspective. ansh 666 18:55, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just going to interrupt here and say I'm in agreement with Ansh666 here, with regards to talk pages, and in fact any edit summary. Like him, I check every diff and keep my watchlist a sensible and useable size. If your watchlist is 6000+ pages, you're going to have a bad time, especially on mobile if you want to know what happened to every article on it. "Reply", "re" or the dreaded and useless "r" are utterly useless to me because I would check the diff regardless because I'd want to know what they'd said - so no need for the edit summary. Even if it said "fix" I would still check it, being the nosey bugger that I am :-). I would always use an edit summary when making major changes to an article, or any edit that could be confusing based on the diff produced. But every single edit? Not needed, and certainly should not be a deal breaker for adminship. Has there ever been a case of an admin being de-adminned for not using an edit summary? I'd be very surprised. They are a guideline for good reason. Aiken D 22:15, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I actually do seem to recall that at least one editor has been sanctioned on the admin noticeboards at least in part because they refused to leave edit summaries, but I can't be bothered to look through a hundred archive pages to find it. ansh 666 22:18, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

would always use an edit summary when making major changes to an article, or any edit that could be confusing based on the diff produced. That is pretty much every edit, from my experience. You'll be amazed at what people can object to or squabble over. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 11:08, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Umm....

I noticed that on User talk:Citationhelper you stated that my signature does not contain a link to my user talk page, which indeed it does. perhaps there is something I missed, or you viewed an old signature of mine, but my signature is '''[[User:Citationhelper|'''''Citation''''''''''helper''''']]''' ([[User talk:Citationhelper|talk]]). Please tell me if I missed something or if there is something you want to elaborate on. Thanks for your time! Citationhelper ^(talk) 20:17, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Citationhelper: That was probably it. I noticed it on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jimmy Ritchey and you probably changed it since then. Glad it works now. Regards So Why 20:29, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Content Verification

Hi Mr. SoWhy Previously i was created a bio article page in the name of Sooraj Palakkaran https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sooraj_Palakkaran&action=edit&redlink=1. But unfortunately it was not verified, actually i insert all available reference link from different sources.So kindly give as a feedback or suggestion what was the exact problem occurred.Also i have to recreating the same article again what i will do for the same. -Vishnu-Wikiappu13 (talk) 07:21, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Wikiappu13: As you can read in the discussion that lead to the deletion (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sooraj Palakkaran), the problem was that the references were not reliable sources (such as newspapers, books, academic journals etc.). In order to create an article about a subject, you need to prove that the subject has been the subject of substantial coverage in multiple such reliable sources. You can read an introduction to it at Wikipedia:Your first article#Gathering references. Regards So Why 07:41, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

CSD nominations

Hi SoWhy, I'd like to thank you again for your input into my last RfA candidate poll. After a few months, I have worked on improving my CSD nominations, and have made considerable progress (CSD log). I've also helped to develop an article review flowchart for New Page Patrol, this process I feel has helped improve my understanding of CSD criteria immensely (and hopefully it can help others too). Anything else you would recommend that I should do to further improve? Also, any feedback on my CSD log or the aforementioned flowchart is welcomed. Thanks for your time. — InsertCleverPhraseHere ^{(or here)} 23:27, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there ICPH. Intesting idea with the flow chart, I mostly agree with it (except for the "draftify" part but I accept that I'm in a minority when it comes to that). The chart would be better if it weren't an image though, because then you could link to the various cited pages and scripts which would make it much more useful (which is actually possible with CSS3 (see here) but I don't think it can work on-wiki because it requires css to be defined (well, it would probably work for people who imported the css to their common.css)). Another idea: maybe someone can create a reviewer script that one can invoke on such a page and click through the various entries until they reach the correct outcome? As for the log, I'll have a look later when I have some more time. Regards So Why 08:51, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The program I used it can export as an SVG file, which I might try to get working, the problem is that it doesn't work in all browsers, which means it would always have to be an 'alternate' version. It is also possible to make it a image with clickable links on it, which I plan to do once I am really sure that it is not going to change (which will probably be after we define a draftification policy).

I also already have been thinking about a script that clicks through the flowchart as a series of pages that allow you to automatically implement many of the recommended changes, that would be really cool, but again will have to wait until we are really sure nothing is going to change, which I am not 100% confident about just yet. I am also not a programmer, so I'd need someone like Evad37 to collaborate with, and am wary of asking someone else to take on this large workload.

I did try to keep draftifaction narrowly construed in the chart, and really it is optional anyway, as the clear alternative (and within editor judgement) is AfD if you don't agree with draftifying. This is also a good option, because it might result in some other eyes on the article that find sources that you could not. I can see the other side of this argument and might actually put an "or" in the chart to reflect this (a script would give both options at the "yes" answer to "does the article have useful prose?", so the flowchart probably should too.) — InsertCleverPhraseHere ^{(or here)} 10:02, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!

Hi SoWhy, thank you for your comments at my RfA and here. Your feedback is much appreciated, and I'm glad you took the time to give it. Cheers, ansh 666 00:11, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Ansh666: You are welcome and despite my opposition, congrats on passing RFA. I hope you will continue to accept constructive feedback in your new role and I'm happy to assist in any way I can. Regards So Why 08:56, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

RS

claims coverage in RS. What is RS here? -- Innocent bystander (talk) 05:39, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Innocent bystander: Sorry, when you have been editing for a time, it's easy to suffer from TLA-itis. "RS" means "reliable sources", see WP:RS. Regards So Why 07:02, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, I know, I have just not yet learned the enwiki-dialect. I am more used to that of wikidatawiki and svwiki!

In this case I think that this political party exists and the drama inside the party has been well covered by RS, but the description of its ideology and ideas is only covered by itself and/or its closets friends.

But as you said, this probably needs more of a discussion, than a speedy-process. Our main problem on svwiki has been that we have been flooded by meat-puppets who has promoted this party. The main notability-idea on svwiki is that political parties have to have at least a seat in a council through a general election. This party has all its seats from rebellion within other groups. But this is far from my main field of interest, and maybe also yours... -- Innocent bystander (talk) 07:24, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Innocent bystander: No worries. Our notability criteria are not that strict but afaik we don't have any specific rules for political parties, we just use the same criteria as with all organizations or all subjects, so not having "won" seats is not a problem, after all, most readers don't care why a party has seats, they just want to find information about the party. As for the party in question, I don't speak Swedish, so I cannot really assess the sources and whether they establish notability but just having sources is usually sufficient to avoid speedy deletion. If you believe a deletion discussion is warranted and are insecure of how to start one, just ask and I'll make the necessary edits for you. Regards So Why 07:55, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I leave that to Hannibal or somebody more experienced with the procedures here. I guess the notability for political partys are stricter on svwiki, since we have a history of bad experience with the use of sv.wikipedia as a base for political propaganda. Ideologies that aren't given space in broad public media, use other ways to promote their ideas. We have had discussions on how to handle these problems with the coming general election in Sweden 2018. Such periods are often troublesome at svwiki. Personally, I am not interested in the ideology-part at all here. I am more interested in the statistics... -- Innocent bystander (talk) 08:57, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can see there are no Reliable sources for this: 10 sources, out of which 4 (no 1-3, 10) are the party's own blog, 2 (no 4 and 6) are the same opinion website (both articles are unsigned), 1 (no 5) is from another opinion website (albeit one run by the state television company, and it's also unsigned and is one sentence long), 1 (no 7) is a pundit blog, and the final two (no 8 and 9) are links to databases that any organisation can get. So we can probably establish that they exist, but noone else seems to be interested enough to write about them. I think this is a pretty clear example of trying to use Wikipedia as a soapbox. As Innocent wrote, they've launched an attack on Swedish Wikipedia to try an "get" an article. I know that may not account for much here, what happens on Swedish Wikipedia, but I can see very little relevance to this article and no reliable sources. I hope that clarifies the situation. //Hannibal (talk) 09:18, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]