Jump to content

User talk:Ser Amantio di Nicolao

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Metalhead309 (talk | contribs) at 00:06, 8 October 2017 (→‎RfB). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

To leave me a new message you may click here.

This user is the most active Wikipedian of all time.







Archive

Back to DC

Well, I made it. Got about 150 separate sites, including the Pentagon thanks to your suggestion of using the marina near the Lyndon Baines Johnson memorial. I was impressed by the site density (my expectations of getting a lot less were the result of me overestimating the walking needed), and while it took a big amount of distance and time (I entered the 1401 H Street garage at 8:40 AM, and I left at 6:10 PM), it took less time and less pain on my feet than getting 110-ish sites in Richmond back in April. The rain even helped; the overhanging roof at the Washington Marriott Marquis kept me so dry that I was able to doze off a little during the 4PM storm. But what about you? No big overhangs on the Mall for folklife-festival attendees.

I was going to ask AgnosticPreachersKid, but he's hardly around anymore, so you're going to get stuck with a question you may not know how to answer. I missed several sites (including multiple NHLs) just north of the Old Executive Office Building due to security: fences and lots of Secret Service agents surrounded the South Korean embassy and the western sections of Lafayette Square, and while pedestrians were prohibited in those areas (I asked), Pennsylvania Avenue itself was still open to pedestrians. Is this normal, or was something unusual being done? Some parts of the park were closed off with ordinary fencing (apparently it's undergoing some sort of construction), but the central and western sections definitely weren't experiencing construction. Nyttend (talk) 03:55, 2 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm around, I just don't have a lot of free time to edit. Might have been because the South Korean president was in town? He might have been staying at Blair House which is directly north of the Old Executive Office Building. I take it you were trying to photograph American Peace Society house and Peter Parker House. APK whisper in my ear 20:34, 2 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Spent all of today in DC (left at 5AM, got back exactly at midnight) and got nearly 140 more sites, but with more walking and more foot pain, since these were more spread out. I would have been a good deal worse off if not for the Subway restaurant on Connecticut Avenue north of DuPont Circle, but they were happy to sell me a fountain drink and to allow me to refill my water bottle.
Do you have time to go through the DC listings and check/fix coordinates like I did with all the Virginia listings? In other words, check each item in the lists, compare its coordinates with what the nomination gives as its location, and fix if needed; maybe that's as simple as finding the coordinates and verifying that the house at that site matches the building in the photos that they submitted in the nomination. I found a bunch of errors, but I didn't write them down, as I didn't have time; the only one I remember is the Anthony Bowen YMCA, allegedly located on Swann between 17th and 18th; this is still NW, and the latitude is pretty good, but it's almost straight north of DuPont Circle, rather than being straight north of Logan Circle as it is in real life. So yeah, if you or someone else could help fixing these coordinates, it would be really helpful for the footsore photographer :-) Nyttend (talk) 04:40, 9 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Applying WP:SUBCAT to politician-by-country-century categories

Hi Ser Amantio di Nicolao

It's now nearly 6 months since 11 January, when I raised with you[1] your misuse of WP:AWB and Cat-a-lot to engage in mass categorisation of articles in politician-by-country-century categories when they were is already in a legislators-by-term sub-category of the categ which you were populating. In many cases the edit summaries auto-generated by Cat-a-lot explicitly noted that you were copying a batch of articles from a category to another category which was self-evidently its parent. My checks suggested that this involved over 10,000 pages -- which is a huge number, more than the lifetime total edit count of many respected editors.

This is clearly in breach of the core categorisation principle of WP:SUBCAT: Apart from certain exceptions (i.e. non-diffusing subcategories, see below), an article should be categorised as low down in the category hierarchy as possible, without duplication in parent categories above it. None of the categories from which you were copying was tagged as non-diffusing (with {{Non-diffusing subcategory}}), nor had you proposed anywhere that they should be so.

Our subsequent discussion[2] didn't reach any agreement, so I left a note[3] at WT:Categorization seeking outside views. None of the third-party comments supported your position ... but despite the lack of support, you still refused to budge.

You really didn't seem to understand that you had made a huge set of changes contrary to long-standing guidelines, and that it was not sufficient for you to simply say that my opinion hasn't changed in the intervening weeks". Wikipedia works by consensus, and your view ran counter to the long-standing consensus.

So I politely pushed you to seek a consensus. You said that you wanted a new discussion, but seemed in no hurry to do so. It took multiple requests from me before you finally opened an RFC[4] ... but as I noted there,[5] it asked a different question to the one at stake.

The issue was whether subcats of politician-by-country-century categories should be non-diffusing: in other words, whether an article should be in both a politician-by-country-century category and its legislators-by-term sub-category.However, you asked whether the politician-by-country-century categories should be {{container}} categories, which would have the very different effect of removing all articles from the categories, and leaving only subcats. The result would be that a politician not in one of the by-term categories could not be categorised under the politician-by-country-century categories. Unsurprisingly, your proposal was unanimously rejected, and WP:SNOW closed.[6]

Despite being aware that your proposal had been miscast, you subsequently did absolutely nothing either to revert your mass changes, or to start a new RFC which addressed the actual issue. So the edits remained in place despite your knowledge that they beached the guideline, and that you had found was zero support for your actions. I was fed up with pushing you, and feeling reluctant to take the time to seek ANI enforcement. There we left it until last when an ANI discussion opened on another editor doing the same thing.[7].

Most of those edits were promptly reverted by User:Xeno, and I did an AWB run to clean up the rest. Prompted by that incident, and bolstered by the clear consensus that such edits are a breach of WP:SUBCAT, I have now started a further set of AWB jobs to revert all your miscategorisations.

So, after 6 months, this will all finally be fixed -- but with zero thanks to you.

You have remained consistently civil throughout, but your conduct has been staggeringly passive-aggressive. You had made no efforts to seek consensus before' you set to work, and your desultory efforts to seek a post-facto consensus were useless and belated, resulting only from persistent pushing. That is not the conduct expected of an admin: per WP:ADMINCOND , Administrators are expected to follow Wikipedia policies and to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. You came nowhere near that standard.

There is also the problem that your use of AWB was in clear breach of WP:AWB#Rules_of_use #2 Abide by all Wikipedia guidelines, policies and common practices (the text is bolded on the rules page). Yet at no point in any of the discussions have you expressed any regret for using AWB in breach of the rules, let alone any sign of a willingness to clean up after yourself. Arbcom ruled years ago that it is not acceptable to try to force a change in the guidelines by sheer volume of edits to establish an alternative (see WP:FAITACCOMPLI), yet that appears to be what you have been trying to do here.

Most troubling of all, your posts at the miscast RFC demonstrate at best very poor comprehension of the guidelines on categorisation. If your comprehension really is that poor, then you should not be engaging in such widespread categorisations. OTOH, if, as you asserted in your reply to me at the RFC, that you are not very good at expressing your train of thought in writing ... then why do you insist on taking your policy concern to an RFC, where by definition all communication is in writing?

We all have different skillsets, and I hope that nobody will chastise you for poor written communication. But since you are aware that your skillset doesn't include the ability to constructively discuss your desire to change policy ... then your choice to drag this out was a huge exercise in time-wasting disruption. If there's zero sign of support for your position, and you cannot effectively communicate your case, then for goodness sake just do what the rest of us do on a whole swathe of issues: work within the existing consensus.

You seem like a thoroughly amiable person, but your conduct here seems to me to make it very clear that you lack the the good judgement and respect for policy required of an admin, and you also lack the sense of responsibility for cleaning up after yourself which is a condition of using powerful tools such as AWB and Cat-a-lot. I won't take this any further for now, but if there are further incidents I will refer to this as evidence of previous gross misconduct.

Best wishes, --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:37, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the cleanup is now complete. It took 12,387 edits by me, and about 1,010 more by @BD2412. That total of ~13,500 is rather higher than my estimate of 10,000 -- and it's two days of my life which I won't get back.
It is deplorable that you have done absolutely nothing to assist in the cleanup of this huge mess. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:54, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Although I would not go so far as saying it was deplorable, it was certainly wasteful, and ultimately wasteful of the time of others. I would caution Ser Amantio that use of AWB is a privilege, one connected to consistently using it for correct and useful ends. Well-meaning editors will make mistakes at times, and using AWB can magnify those mistakes across thousands of articles. When that happens, the editor who made the mistake is both best positioned and most responsible for rectifying the situation. Cheers! bd2412 T 18:15, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't been following this convo, nor do I have time or inclination to get knee deep in it. I do want to say, though, that on several occasions in the past few years, Ser has helped me out with categories/non-diffusing categories and he has always done so with kindness. I don't know that my experience has any bearing on the points being raised here, but I felt inclined to mention it nonetheless. And also to say, thank you, Ser, for helping me when I've asked for it, even when you may have been busy with other things. --Rosiestep (talk) 20:26, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, Ser Amantio has been a big help with categorization over the years, though I'm admittedly less keen on the "Male xx" type categories.♦ Dr. Blofeld 06:09, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

wt:NRHP discussion

Hey, you made this edit with an edit summary perhaps indicating you had a perspective to share about NRHP county list-articles/tables but the edit itself did not add any comment to the discussion itself. Since the discussion is flagging, otherwise, I would like to encourage you (and anyone else too) to comment there if you have something to say. --doncram 13:26, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for creating Maurice Durand. You might be interested in two houses he designed that I've just created: Villa Blanche and Villa Mirasol.Zigzig20s (talk) 20:41, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Categorization issue

Hi Ser Amantio di Nicolao, there is an issue with some massive ongoing changes in Film categorization, that has been brought up in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film#Film categories by country and year. There is an indication the same issue might be going on in Novels. I think that your input would be most helpfull. Thank you. Hoverfish Talk 14:50, 9 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

More WP:SUBCAT breaches. Please revert promptly

Hi Ser Amantio di Nicolao

I have been working on politicians in Northern Ireland, where I spotted this 28 June 2017 edit[8] by you to Karen McKevitt, with the edit summary (Cat-a-lot: Copying from Category:Female members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to Category:21st-century women politicians).

So I checked your contribs for that day[9], where I see that you not only did this to McKevitt, but to all of Category:Female members of the Northern Ireland Assembly ... plus, it seems to Category:Female members of the National Assembly for Wales and Category:Female members of the Scottish Parliament.

In each of these 3 cases, the Assembly or Parliament was founded at the end of the 1990s, so each of the categories you contains only women who held that office in the 21st century, so it is indeed correct that all of them belong in Category:21st-century women politicians.

However, because the whole of Category:Female members of the Northern Ireland Assembly belongs in Category:21st-century women politicians, the way to do that is to make Category:Female members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Category:Female members of the National Assembly for Wales and Category:Female members of the Scottish Parliament sub-categories of Category:21st-century women politicians. It is not appropriate to pump your edit count by using automated tools to simply copy from one category to the other. (It is very rarely, if ever, appropriate to simply copy the whole of one category to another category).

This is really very basic stuff about how Wikipedia categories work. It is something which I have been pressing you about, on-and-off, for about 6 months now.

It is substantively the same issue which only ten days ago led to me and User:BD2412 doing ~13,500 edits to clean up your previous mess: see above, section Applying WP:SUBCAT to politician-by-country-century categories (permalink).

To be fair, these 21st-century women categs predate that cleanup by a few days. But they came after months in which you had been pressed to follow WP:SUBCAT, and it's over 4 months since you told me that you were going to stop doing this sort of category-spamming.

I am appalled to find that you are still using powerful tools to do this on an industrial scale. Enough already: time for you to stop, and clean up.

So, please promptly:

  1. Clean up Category:Female members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Category:Female members of the National Assembly for Wales and Category:Female members of the Scottish Parliament, by removing the redundant categorisation.
  2. Stop populating any by-century categories until such time as you have established a consensus for your methodology
  3. Start analysing your contributions for any cases in which you have copied the contents of any category to a by-century category, and reverting any cases where you have breached WP:SUBCAT. Please set up a log page setting out what you have checked, what you have found, and have you have resolved it.

I'm sorry that his message is not written in the friendly, discursive tone which I would prefer. But you are Wikipedia's most prolific categoriser ever, and I have spent 6 months asking you to follow one of the most basic of principles of en.wp categorisation. Having already spent several whole days of my life cleaning up one part of your mess, I am well beyond the point of friendly nudges -- I did plenty of those, and you neither cleaned up after yourself nor demonstrated a consensus for what you are doing. And I a beyond the pint of cleaning up after you while you continue unchecked. So at this point, I am fed up: either you don't understand what you are doing, or you don't care.

So, please promptly start work on the action points I set out above, and explain here what you are doing ... or, without further warning, I will take this whole sorry mess to WP:ANI to seek restrictions on your ability to continue this sort of editing. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:21, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl. I am sorry, but in this instance I do not agree that this is the way in which WP:SUBCAT should work, as I don't think that it is correct, or fair, to single these countries out due to a certain chronological point. Regardless...please feel free to take the issue to WP:ANI, and I will be happy to discuss it further there. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 01:35, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Ser Amantio di Nicolao: I a not suggesting that it is appropriateto "single these countries out"; there are other categories of women politicians in these countries to which this does not apply. I am pointing out that in the case of these categories, you yourself identified them as being wholly subcats of the century categories.
If you still won't follow basic categorisation principles, then ANI it is. But I strongly urge you to reconsider your approach, rather than risk the loss of your tools. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:41, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
PS I still await your thanks to me and User:BD2412 for our huge cleanup of your previous mess. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:43, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
BrownHairedGirl: I will be happy to discuss any and all issues related to my conduct at WP:ANI. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 05:35, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • BrownHairedGirl: I don't think I've yet had the pleasure of conversing with you but I have frequently come across you work on categorization, in particular your coverage of people in sport. I must say that until recently I thought you had been doing a pretty good job but since early this year, your disputes with Ser Amantio on subcats seem to have reached an unreasonable level of aggressiveness. In my experience, no one has contributed so much to the comprehensive categorization of the EN wiki as he has, not just by creating a very wide range of useful categories but also by ensuring that they are properly populated. I have been particularly appreciative of his work in connection with women's biographies but have also been able to draw on his efforts in a wide range of other areas, especially fields of culture. Your present dispute appears to me to be pretty marginal, in that it looks to me that the matter of whether one category should or should not be a subcategory of another is far less important than the progress made in the overall categorization of the encyclopedia. I have also been following the discussions you have had on these talk pages and have noticed that despite reasonable and ever polite explanations by Ser Amantio, you have become increasingly dictatorial, to the point of calling his work "rubblish" and asking him to thank you for reverts you have made to his work which may well not be justified in the overall scheme of things. Implying that Ser Amantio's use of Cat-a-Lot is simply a way of increasing his edit count also seems unreasonable. I'm pretty sure edit count is the least of his concerns. May I therefore suggest that instead of trying to undermine Ser Amantio's recent efforts at further improvement, you take a step back and reflect of the relative importance of the subcategorization "rules" to the basic purpose of categorization which is, above all, to assist search and navigation through an increasingly complex hierarchy of articles and topics. I'm sure work along these lines would be far more fruitful than taking a questionable dispute to a higher level. Given your own obvious interest in improving Wikipedia, I'm pretty sure you'll agree that a collaborative rather than an aggressive approach is likely to contribute not only to more rapid progress but also to a more welcoming editing environment. I hope very much you will take the time to look at all this in the wider perspective. You could after all be extremely helpful in trying to develop a more reasonable approach to categorization instead of trying to enforce some of the existing "rules".--Ipigott (talk) 10:02, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ipigott: I don't recall I've had pleasure before either. Nice to meet you, tho I'm sorry it is in a situation like this.
It seems to me that you have largely misunderstood the basis of my dispute to Ser Amantio. I have never tried to deny the obvious fact that Ser Amantio makes many valued contributions. This is not about whether either party's view is reasonable; I have consistently acknowledged that I assume Ser Amantio has a reasoned basis for their approach. This about WP:CONSENSUS rather than WP:FAITACCOMPLI; it is about working collaboratively and cleaning up after oneself, rather than Ser Amantio's insistence on using tools to bludgeon their view into effect.
WP:SUBCAT is not some some minor point of detail. It is one of the basic principles of how categorisation is organised on Wikipedia, because without it, articles get cluttered with un-needed categories (as was the case with the ~13500 articles which Ser Amantio had spammed into superfluous politicians-by-century-by-county categories).
Un-needed categories undermine the core purpose of categories, which is navigation between articles. They impede navigation by confronting the reader with a wall of duplication, making it harder to find categories relating to different attributes. That is why diffusing articles to more specific categories is one of the key ongoing tasks of category maintenance.
Please go back to the start of my discussions with Ser Amantio, back in January: here. As you can see there, I made an amicable approach, and we had a very friendly discussion.
However, in the course of that conversation it became clear that this was not a matter of some oversight or error which Ser Amantio would fix in due course. Instead, Ser AmAntio was very clear that they reject the principle of WP:SUBCAT. As I noted at the time, I disagree with that while accepting it is a rational view), but a change to that principle or the creation of exceptions to it needs WP:CONSENSUS.
However, if an editor rejects an existing consensus, the onus is on them to build a new consensus. Since Ser Amantio did nothing, I took the initiative. I invited outside views, none of which supported Ser Amantio. But still, despite zero support for their view, Ser Amantio would not agree to work within the existing consensus.
Still amicably, I urged Ser Amantio to open an RFC to seek consensus. Unfortunately, this dragged on, as repeated friendly nudges to Ser Amantio got no action for months. Eventually (more than 2 months after our initial discussion) they opened an RFC which asked a different question to the one at stake, and was SNOW-closed as rejected.[10].
Instead of a followup RFC to propose the change which Ser Amantio actually wants, there was no action.
So despite being aware that there is no consensus for their edits, Ser Amantio has continued to use tools on a massive scale to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI. As noted there Arbcom ruled 9 years ago that this approach is unacceptable: Editors who are collectively or individually making large numbers of similar edits, and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change. This applies to many editors making a few edits each, as well as a few editors making many edits.
This process of consensus-building and working within the consensus is fundamental to how Wikipedia works. My increasingly confrontational tone is because Ser Amantio is basically ignoring the whole consensus thing,and instead is using their tools to create a fait accompli on a huge scale.
Ipigott, it seems from your comment that you share some of Ser Amantio's doubts about WP:SUBCAT. Fine, I WP:AGF that you have a reasoned basis for your view. So instead of criticising me, why don't you do what a civil, collaborative Wikipedian does in a situation like this: open a discussion to build a consensus for whatever principle you think should apply. You can explain why you think it is continue adding hundreds of articles directly to the already 8700-strong Category:21st-century women politicians rather than applying WP:SUBCAT is what you call a more reasonable approach to categorization than applying WP:SUBCAT, and we will see where the consensus is.
You may choose not to use your time that way, which is fine. But if you aren't willing to build the consensus for the change you seek, then I hope that you will reconsider your approach. Please don't rebuke me for trying to uphold the existing, long-standing consensus in the face of an editor who blithely ignores both the core policy of WP:CONSENSUS and Arbcom's ruling in WP:FAITACCOMPLI. And please do not put in my mouth words I didn't use, such as above where you falsely accuse me of calling his work "rubblish"; I did not use that word, and I hope you will retract.
In the meantime, since Ser Amantio refuses to follow WP:CONSENSUS, this will have to go to WP:ANI. I have a big batch of editing underway at the moment which I want to finish first, but in a few days will put together the ANI case.
Best wishes, --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:28, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@BrownHairedGirl: Thank you for taking the time to explain your position is more detail. I have in fact been following your reactions on this page since January and for quite some time beforehand in more general terms. I'm sorry you were unable to accept my proposal for a more conciliatory approach to the problem but from your last message I can see that you consider yourself on firm ground. I had hoped that it might be possible to continue the discussion here on more reasonable terms but I can see you are now set on going to the Administrators' noticeboard where mere content editors like me will not really have a say. As for my accusation of your referring to Ser Amanto's work as "rubbish", I apologize for not using "this whole sorry mess" which to me meant exactly the same thing. I should perhaps have been more careful about using the inverted commas. Despite all you have written above in defence of your position, I would still suggest you hold back for a while to see if the matter cannot be resolved on a more friendly basis. After all, many of us are all devoting a huge proportion of our leisure time to work together towards producing the world's best online encyclopedia. Let's try to do so collaboratively rather than by invoking rules which may well have been developed by editors who are no longer active or on the basis of criteria which no longer hold. I hope we can keep in touch and work together towards an ever more productive editing environment. I always try to pour oil on troubled waters but in this case until now I do no appear to have been very successful.--Ipigott (talk) 18:26, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Ipigott: thanks for that retraction, though the qualifiation didn't help. By this whole sorry mess, I was referring to Ser Amantio's persistent disregard of WP:SUBCAT, rather than to whole of their work. That should have been very clear from the context.
As to your hope that this can be resolved more amicably ... I'm sorry, but God give me patience. It can hardly have escaped your notice that I have been asking Ser Amantio to take that path for six months: to either follow WP:SUBCAT or to open a discussion about changing it or creating exception to it. As you can see for yourself, he has repeatedly failed to do so.
Back in Feb, I wrote[11] to Ser Amantio: en.wp works by consensus, and if you disagree with that consensus, you are free to try to change it, for example by RFC. However, it s not appropriate to simply work against the consensus on a huge scale, and then neither self-revert nor try to change consensus.
That's the nutshell of this. But sadly, Ser Amantio's approach throughout has been to simply pronounce that they consider their view more reasonable than the consensus, and to proceed to try to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI.
So, if you want this to be resolved amicably, then you are addressing the wrong person. I am utterly fed up of pleading with Ser Amantio to use proper channels. The path to amicable resolution starts with Ser Amantio accepting the core policy of WP:CONSENSUS. Ipigott, I want to believe that you are sincere in wanting an amicable resolution, but it increasingly looks like you are simply backing your wiki-friend. If my suspicions are misplaced, and if you really do want this resolved without ANI, then you need to persuade Ser Amantio to start acting collegiately rather than unilaterally ignoring consensus. This is very very basic stuff about how Wikipedia works, and less experienced editors than this are blocked promptly for the sort of conduct in which Ser Amantio engages. Only Ser Amantio's prolific contributions have saved him from summary justice. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:05, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Ser Amantio di Nicolao: I have now removed from Category:21st-century women politicians all the women in Category:Female members of the National Assembly for Wales, Category:Female members of the Scottish Parliament, and Category:Female members of the Northern Ireland Assembly. (edit list: Scotland+Wales Norniron). All 3 office-holder categories are now subcats of Category:21st-century women politicians, so there per WP:SUBCAT, their contents should not also be placed directly in the by-century categ.

As noted before, you should not set out to create inappropriate categorisations and rely on other editors to clean up the errors which you have intentionally introduced to a large number of articles. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:01, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have also removed the some of the category-spam identified below: from the MEP for 21st-century new-member state of the EU. In the these edits. Again, it was evident that in most cases you had simply used Cat-a-lot to copy the contents of one category to another categ which should have been its parent. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:45, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
More of your category-spam removed, this time from Category:East German women in politics and its subcats, including Category:Female members of the Volkskammer, where you abused Cat-a-lot to copy the whole category to Category:20th-century women politicians. Spam-removal edits: [12]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:00, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have done a litle further burrowing, in preparation for ANI, and rapidly found numerous examples of you copying from 20th-century-only categories of women politicians to Category:20th-century women politicians and Category:21st-century women politicians. For example:
After scanning many pages of your contribs, it's also notable that when using AWB—even for a long run—you simply used the default edit summary "add category", rather than taking a few seconds to place the name of the category in the box before starting the run. That means that editors who see these changes or their watchlists or related changes or page histories have to open up each individual edit to find out what it did.
WP:EDITSUMMARY says accurate summaries help other contributors decide whether it is worthwhile for them to review an edit, and WP:SUMMARYNO says "avoid vagueness. While edit summaries can be terse, they should still be specific. When tools are used to perform huge numbers of edits, the need for informative summaries is muchly increased. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:07, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Stumbled on more spam

Here's another cluster of Ser Amantio category spam which I stumbled on by accident. This CFD of lawyers led me to check a sample of its anomalous contents, one of which was H.K.S. O'Melveny. The page history showed this edit by Ser A, with the summary Cat-a-lot: Copying from Category:Los Angeles Common Council (1850–1889) members to Category:19th-century American politicians. Sure enough, a check of your contribs shows 90 pages copied that way, which appears to have been the category's entire contents at that time. Again, it's spam which cluttered the articles, when Category:Los Angeles Common Council (1850–1889) members should simply have been made a subcat of Category:19th-century American politicians.

So I looked at more of your contribs for the same day. Here's 315 articles copied from 19th-century only categs to Category:19th-century American politicians, with another 178 on the next page.

So that is about 600 category spams within one day (America time), and I haven't even checked the whole of that one day. I am beginning to get a sense that the total size of this spam may well dwarf the 13,500 pages cleaned up from your spamming of legislators-by-term categories. The cleanup task is going to be herculean. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:40, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl I'm sure you have your reasons but to the casual observer it does look like you're picking on him. We're all volunteers here, you don't have to spend hours of your day editing here cleaning things up. No editor wants to log into Wikipedia and see somebody telling them on their talk page how useless they are. The timing of your complaints look odd to me, almost like you're miffed that he was recognized by Time and as you know he's garnered more attention of late like you're trying to trash him or something or demonstrate that he is somebody not worthy of the recognition or something. I wish you two could start speaking to each other with more respect. I don't mean to intrude BrownHairedGirl and I know you genuinely care about content and categories on here and have your reasons, but I'm just saying how this looks from the outside.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:11, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Dr. Blofeld: I had not intended to comment further on this page before going to ANI, but I think you post deserves a response. This is something which I have been pursuing on-and-off since January, because I care about the category system. I became aware of the Time mag mention only when someone posted about it below, and I am disappointed at the easily-disprovable suggestion of bad faith. (I'd have hoped that an experienced editor such a yourself would have been a little more hesitant before making that sort of charge).
We are indeed all volunteers. That includes those of us who clean up after editors who use powerful tools to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI contrary to consensus. It would help too if you don't put words in my mouth. I have not told SA that he is "useless". What I did tell SA, repeatedly, is that they should desist from and revert this overriding of WP:SUBCAT.
With nearly any other editor, I would have taken this to ANI long ago, probably back in January or Feb. It is only out of respect for Ser Amantio's long service that I have held off for so long in the hope that they would belatedly try to work consensually.
However, it was this ANI thread a few weeks ago which prompted me to pursue Ser Amantio's edits a little more closely. Another editor had done something very similar to what SA has been doing, and at the instigation of other editors was promptly and undisputedly mass-reverted. That was what led me to post here on 3 July[20] that I was about to start mass-fixing Ser Amantio's category-spam.
In that ANI discussion, Ser Amantio was the one who opposed sanctions against the other category-spammer, on the grounds that since Ser had gotten away with it, others should too.
I think that was a good point about double standards. That's why I came back here to escalate matters.
The mention below of the Time mag was on 14 July[21]. That is after I opened this latest section on the Scottish, Irish & Welsh categories.
I think it would be deeply wrong to drop this issue just because Ser got a plug in a prominent mag. It seems to me that would be an appalling case of double-standards. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:21, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK, well as long as you're not doing this because he got a plug in a prominent mag.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:42, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mean to be nitpicky, particularly as I'm not addressing the section header, but I do want to say that the first Time magazine mention on Ser's talkpage occurred on 26 June (User talk:Ser Amantio di Nicolao/Archive 33#Congratulations.21). After having realized that I hadn't acknowledged the honor, I gave him a barnstar on 14 July (and I gave out barnstars in the last few days to others, having just come up for air from my wiki gender diversity mapping work). --Rosiestep (talk) 18:07, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever. I was unaware of it until the barnstar. You can see for yourself that it wasn't here on July 3 when I returned to this page after several months absence to post a long msg[22] after the ANI about the other, much smaller-scale, category-spammer.
And I really don't see what it of that has to with industrial-scale category spam ... other than that some sort Ser's friends seem curiously rapid to suggest that I am acting in bad faith, but curiously slow to check out the plentiful links to the long history of my patient efforts to communicate with a stonewaller. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:23, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dearest Ser Amantio di Nicolao, how are you?

I opened this short new page, and I ask just 4 minutes to read it and to correct my mistakes, please... Thanks a lot for your precious help, and have a nice week-end!

Rei Momo (talk) 13:26, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bravissimooooo, and thanks a lot!!! Rei Momo (talk) 21:48, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
I keep thinking about how amazing it is that Time Magazine selected you as one of the "25 Most Influential People on the Internet for 2017". Glad to call you my friend and congratulations on the honor! Rosiestep (talk) 14:57, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think many of us share our appreciation for the enormous contribution you have made to Wikipedia. A well-derserved barnstar.--Ipigott (talk) 18:29, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Email

You can do that, or you can provide my email address. If you do that, provide my academic address (the one from which I sent you a subject line of "Photos in DC-land" back in May), since I sometimes go weeks at a time without checking the one to which you just sent that email. Nyttend (talk) 03:05, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If I minded, I wouldn't have suggested that you do it :-) And congrats on the section just above this one. It's not everyone who gets celebrated by Time, even if it is just a paragraph. Nyttend (talk) 03:08, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good, and seeing that it's the fourth-worst illustrated state in the country, I'm sure you'll find plenty of unphotographed spots if you get the chance to go out. Aside from one trip to do Person and Caswell counties last fall, I've been sticking north of the border; my only other NC photos are a couple from three years ago in the southwestern corner (Clay County Courthouse (North Carolina) and Harshaw Chapel and Cemetery) and one photo for North Carolina Highway 93 from back in March. Nyttend (talk) 03:24, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Singer Lu Colombo

Dearest Ser Amantio di Nicolao, how are you?

I've opened this little stub, and I ask some minutes of you time to read it and correct my mistakes. Please...

Thanks a lot fot you precious help, happy week end!

Rei Momo (talk) 09:08, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Grazie mille for all!!! Rei Momo (talk) 22:02, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Folkwang

I miss categories related to the Folkwang school, faculty and alumni. Unfortunately it had many names in history, and only few people would actually be related to its pompous current name, - perhaps simply: Category:Folkwang faculty? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:17, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Women in Red's new initiative: 1day1woman

Women in Red is pleased to introduce...
A new initiative for worldwide online coverage: 1day1woman
  • Create articles on any day of any month
  • Cover women and their works in any field of interest
  • Feel free to add articles in other languages, too
  • Social media hashtag campaign: #1day1woman

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Rosiestep (talk) 03:00, 28 July 2017 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

Just 2 minutes on Gian Franco Saba

My dearest Ser Amantio di Nicolao, how are you? Here Summer continues toooooo hot!!!

Please, I ask some minute of your time to read and correct this new page I charged now. Just some minute.

Thanks a lot and happy week end

Rei Momo (talk) 12:42, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

August 2017 at Women in Red

Welcome to Women in Red's August 2017 worldwide online editathons.


(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --

A new WiR initiative starting in August

Introducing...
WiR's new initaitve: 1day1woman for worldwide online coverage
Facilitated by Women in Red
  • Create articles on any day of any month
  • Cover women and their works in any field of interest
  • Feel free to add articles in other languages too

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:50, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of Caterina Parigi for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Caterina Parigi is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Caterina Parigi until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Fram (talk) 12:30, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

all countries are "in", not "of"?

I have a question about this: all countries are "in", not "of". Where is the policies or guidelines or something else about this? --ㅂㄱㅇ (talk) (Bieup Giyeok Ieung) 07:40, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

AWB question

Hello, is this at all possible, do you know? Nobody's responded, and I wasn't sure whom else to ask. Nyttend (talk) 00:32, 7 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
You definitely deserve one of these. Sorry you've had a hard time on here recently. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:32, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to hear that. Hope you feel better soon.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:16, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Taiwanese men's volleyball players requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. AusLondonder (talk) 11:06, 21 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

September 2017 at Women in Red

Welcome to Women in Red's September 2017 worldwide online editathons.

Ana Recio Harvey.jpg

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list) --

--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 21:19, 28 August 2017 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Bolivian men's volleyball players requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. AusLondonder (talk) 22:57, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Barbadian men's volleyball players requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. AusLondonder (talk) 22:58, 30 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Alex New Art / Painting

Hello Ser Amantio di Nicolao, do you know if this bot User:AlexNewArtBot/PaintingSearchResult is running? The new article Louise Janin has all sorts of bot searches [[23]] but none addressing the main interest, i.e. painting. Any reason?--DDupard (talk) 17:45, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Question: more WikiProject Catholicism articles for assessment?

Greetings, For WikiProject Catholicism I noticed that for Category:Unassessed Catholicism articles last year you added WP Cath. to many articles on 25 September 2016 and surrounding days. Prior to that I was doing article assessments for that category. Over this summer, I have been updating more of these articles with a goal of completing before end of Sept. this year.

As of today there are under 200 articles remaining (for S & T in the alphabet). For planning purposes, I would ask if there are more WP Catholicism articles that can be added to this category? Regards, JoeHebda • (talk) 23:04, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi dear Ser Amantio di Nicolao, how are you? This is my first page after Summer Holydays! I like this journalist, also if he hade some problems with public opinion.

Please, I ask you 2 minutes to read it and correct my mistake. Thanks a lot for your precious help. Have a nice week end!

Rei Momo (talk) 07:35, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Grazie mille, have a nice Sunday! Rei Momo (talk) 06:25, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Categories

I noticed you removed a category added by Koavf (talk · contribs), who cites WP:GHETTO. I find categorization confusing and just try to do my best, but you might want to take part in this discussion: [24] --MopTop (talk) 14:48, 11 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh great guru, I need help.

This is probably a simple thing to do, but I have no idea how. I am working on an article where it mentioned that the woman was incarcertated in the infamous Prison 21. When I plug that in, I end up with Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which is clearly not the same prison, as my lady is from Nicaragua. (What is it with prisons numbered 21? Makes one a bit leery.) I added a bit to León, Nicaragua's page and a redirect for Cárcel la 21, BUT, the Prison 21 page should probably change from a redirect page to a disambiguation page. How does one do that? Better still, mayhaps you will just wave your magic wand and make it happen, so I don't have to know the technical details. Thanks for any help you can give me :) SusunW (talk) 22:06, 12 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Gracias. Totally appreciate the help! SusunW (talk) 13:28, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Little aid for Giulianova

Dearest Ser Amantio di Nicolao, how are you?

Please, I made a red link on this page, and I woul like, before to open the new page, to know if the title is correct.

I saw that Madonna isn't translated in Enclish, so I put Sanctuary of Madonna of the Splendor. Or ti may be correct Sanctuary of Madonna dello Splendore or at least Sanctuary of Mary of the Splendor?

I think it is correct with Madonna, but I want the opinion of an Anglophone friend. Grazie mille for your precious help!!! Rei Momo (talk) 12:59, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Gooooood, thank youuuu!!! You know my next page.... see you soon!!! Rei Momo (talk) 15:46, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Done!!!

I think it's all correct, but please, do you have 4 minutes of your time to correct my grammar mistakes? Grazie mille for your precious help!!! Rei Momo (talk) 20:54, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello---Ser A di N

Hi, Mr. Ser, I would like to know how you know Patricia Grossman. You seem to be editing her Wiki page. Thanks,

I actually don't know her, sorry - just added some categories as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women writers. Sorry I can't be of more help. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 20:39, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Contest

Welcome aboard! Just been announcing it for November on the Women in Red page! It's a bit early to announce it generally but we'll do that for a week or two before the contest starts.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:40, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your work for Wikipedia

Dear Sir Amantio di Nicolao,

I don't go to wikipedia too much, I edit much less, and I almost never talk/comment, but I'm compelled to make an exception for you. One of my friends was often refer to as "the walking wikipedia," as he had vast knowledge about so many vague and unrelated topics. Since 2012 and more heavily in the last few years, he's done a lot of wikipedia editing and adding, creating new pages and editing many that were either lost in translation or just grotesquely wrong. Though he's become known for it in my friend group, he's done no doubt much less than you, and for less than half the time. I have to applaud you, for how long you've been around and what you've done in that time. You're so consistent, so permanent, and though there's no doubt many that've been around as long as you have, I've yet to find them. I saw first your Chinawal page, and it's unbelievably detailed for just a single creator/editor. Looking at your bio, its clear to me you're a pretty dang cool individual, and its a nice reminder that, though articles may seem utterly devoid of humanity, there are people working on them who are themselves so interesting, kind, funny, and just genuinely good people.


Thank you for your contributions, keep doing what you're doing, and may fate greet you kindly around every corner. Flightless Nightingale (talk) 21:54, 21 September 2017 (UTC)Emily[reply]

A nice post Flightless. I don't know when Ser joined but it seems we've been around a similar amount of time. 2006 in looking, same as me. Funny but back then I felt like a latecomer to wikipedia!♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:02, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It looks as if Flightless Nightingale joined Wikipedia simply to tell you how much she appreciates your work. How nice!--Ipigott (talk) 09:40, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Women in Red October editathon invitation

Welcome to Women in Red's October 2017 worldwide online editathons.



New: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/57|"Women and disability"]] [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/58|"Healthcare"]] [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/59|"Geofocus on the Nordic countries"]]

Continuing: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/00|#1day1woman Global Initiative]]

Begin preparing for November's big event: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/The World Contest|Women World Contest]]

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 15:54, 25 September 2017 (UTC) via MassMessaging[reply]

Hi. Can you send out the following invitation to all the participants in Template:The 100,000 Challenge including past contestants of contests and people signed up for the challenges:

Hi. Thankyou for your participation in the challenge series or/and contests. In November The Women in Red World Contest is being held to try to produce new articles for as many countries worldwide and occupations as possible. There will be over $4000 in prizes to win, including Amazon vouchers and paid subscriptions. If this would appeal to you and you think you'd be interested in contributing new articles on women during this month for your region or wherever please sign up in the participants section. If you're not interested in prize money yourself but are willing to participate and raise money to buy books about women for others to use, this is also fine. Thankyou, and if taking part, good luck!

I've sent out invitations to the UK contestants and challengers so far, I'll send out some more a bit later.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:13, 27 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The article William Edward Haesche has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Search for sources reveals no indication of significance per WP:ANYBIO or WP:MUSICBIO.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. DrStrauss talk 10:37, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of William Edward Haesche for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article William Edward Haesche is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William Edward Haesche until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. DrStrauss talk 14:31, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can you rename and subcategories The Women in Red World Contest?♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:45, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! About these categories, I've been thinking of setting up a category for articles improved on Canada's The 10,000 Challenge but I haven't found any policy/guidelines for these or associated article talk page templates (ie: for a small banner). Do you have any advice for me? – Reidgreg (talk) 17:15, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's worth creating categories for the challenge articles, featuring on the lists I think is enough. Perhaps at some point WMF will support contests for US snd Canada and we can have categories for those contests then!♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:30, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, dearest Ser Amantio di Nicolao, how are you? Me fine.

I opened this page an hour ago, and I ask, please, 4 minutes of your time to read it and correct my possible mistakes. Thanks a lot for you precious help!!!

Rei Momo (talk) 11:25, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, my dearest Ser Amantio di Nicolao, how are you? Please, when you'll have 3 minutes and half, can you watch also this page, joined to the Ruffinoni page?

Thanks a lot for your precious help! Have a nice week end.

Rei Momo (talk) 09:51, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Grazie mille, wonderful work! have a nice Sunday!!! Rei Momo (talk) 23:49, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Upload request

Hello, could you upload [25] and add it to the Eppington article? I don't have the opportunity, since I'm just on a quick break at work. Nyttend backup (talk) 18:16, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

RfB

Hey Amantio,

           I've awarded you a Barnstar in the past, and it occurs to me that through your years of editing, you have never once been nominated for bureaucratship. As such, I was hoping for your blessing to nominate you as a bureaucrat. I hope you accept my request, and better yet I hope the community accepts my request, as I feel having you as a bureaucrat will greatly improve the encyclopedia.
                                                                 Thanks,
                                                                         MasterMetalhead309 00:04, 8 October 2017 (UTC)