User talk:BrownHairedGirl

BrownHairedGirl is a Wikipedia admin

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Your AWB edits

Hello BHG, I am wondering about your editing frequency as of late.

Between 14:08 and 14:59 (14 October 2019) 150 edits were made using AWB

15:00 and 15:44 453 edits were made using AWB

16:02 and 16:35 777 edits were made using AWB

Between 17:22 and 17:39, 475 edits were made using AWB. From 17:39 to 17:49, 529 edits were made within the span of 10 minutes (an edit about every 1-3 seconds).

17:50-18:56 saw an additional 764.

19:20-19:25 (space of 5 minutes) saw 220. The rest of the 19:00 hour (end) saw an additional 1,083.

20:00-20:59 (start, end) saw 459 edits.

21:00-21:59: 183

22:00-22:59: 794

23:00-23:59: 452

Between 14:08 and 23:59 on 14 October 2019, at least 6, 339 edits were made - the vast majority using AWB (did my best to discount any non-AWB edits in the above figures). This isn't a one-off either (quickly clicking through the 15th, it appears to be at least another 3 or 4k edits). Skipping forward to your most recent contribs and this pattern appears to have continued until just yesterday. This seems way too fast for even AWB to reasonably do as a non-bot (ie 529 in 10 minutes). (That's faster than the average editing frequency of my bots even.) How did you manage this using AWB? At least on the surface, this looks like unauthorized bot activity/bot-like editing - which is concerning to me as a BAG member. To be clear: the concern is with the editing speed (frequency), not the validity of the edits themselves. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 22:43, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Might I suggest that you create a bot account (or re-use BHGbot, subject to a new BRFA), apply for bot approval at BRFA and get it flagged? That way, you can make these edits without flooding recent changes. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 23:13, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi TheSandDoctor

This is all done with an out-of-the box copy of AWB, currently v6.1.01. Downloaded pre-compiled, and unmodified in any way.

A little context. In general I find AWB to be a v poor tool for tasks that require manual changes to the edit window. I occasionally use it that way for very short runs, but for anything more than a few dozen edits, I find that it doesn't provide clear enough feedback on the effects of edit. So I try to use AWB only for tasks where I have regexes and/or modules to cover all cases; even though it may take longer to code to cover all cases than do them manually within AWB, coding them offers more accuracy.

That means that during the AWB run, my crucial task is spotting edge-cases, i.e. either unforeseen patterns or cases where my regexes and modules don't behave as expected.

For big jobs like these, I did some experiments a few years ago. What I found was that the accuracy level of my assessment of AWB edits declined as runs got longer; I was less likely to spot edge cases. Watching myself doing such jobs, it seemed that as a long run progressed, I was mostly concentrating on clicking in the right place, and not focusing as I much as I should on the actual changes.

I had hunch that this was because the physical act of clicking was a distraction, so I devised a way to automate the process of clicking. (it may not helpful to say more publicly, but I am happy to explain that more privately). This was a revelation: apart from making my fingers less achey, it massively increased my detection rate of edge cases. Instead of half my attention being on clicking in the right place, I could now focus solely on the effects of the edits, and stop the run if I spotted a problem. Sometimes my reaction times are slow, and one or two more edits may be saved before I get to stop the run; but overall my accuracy level is much higher than before.

I have now used this approach successfully for several years. I set a low click rate initially, and increase it increments as I gain confidence in the accuracy. Then, on longer runs, I let it run at massively higher clicks per minute, so that the limits are simply how fast AWB can load a page, process it, save it, and then load the next one.

Category pages are usually short and simple, so a simple edit to them can sometimes be done at a rate of about 40 to 60 per minute. The sets which run at that sort of speed are nearly all categories.

Large and complex pages (nearly always articles) are much slower; some of them can take five or ten seconds each to load and process, but in general articles can be done at a rate of 15 to 35 per minute. Long runs of stubs maybe 40/min.

After several years, I am very satisfied that this combination of high speed when freed from clicking to do actual watching is the most accurate way of doing long runs. It's more accurate both than unattended bot editing and than manual clicking.

I liken it do a change I made in my driving a decade or so ago; I got a much more powerful car of the same size, with an automatic gearbox and cruise control instead of its predecessor's small engine and manual gearbox (manuals are the norm in Ireland). It made me a much better driver, because I could concentrate much more on the crucial task of reading the road.

And I am glad that you agree the accuracy levels are fine: that has always been my prime goal. Since that's the focus of WP:MEATBOT, I have therefore worked on the basis that so long as I maintained v high levels of accuracy, I was well within policy.

For most of the last few years, nearly all of my edits done this way have been to categories, which are little-watched. So it has been v rare for them to flood any watchlists.

However, in the last 2–3 months, I have been doing link replacement after portal deletions. In many cases, these have either been small sets, or mostly categories (esp country portals, where several editors did AWB runs to add portal links to categories but not articles). So again, little intrusion.

However, in the last week or so, I have handled two portals which each had over 2,000 links from article space, so I can imagine that those have been more intrusive.

Nonetheless, I would prefer not to use a bot account for this. That's mostly because BAG usually sets a throttle on editing rates, usually (AFAICR) 5 or 10 edits/min, which is too slow to make attended editing viable.

I have had two recent cases of portals with >6,000 backlinks, plus one with ~15,000 backlinks. At five edit/s min, those would take respectively 20 hours and 50 hours … which is too long for this human's attention, so they'd have to run unattended. That would be a step backwards.

The other factor is that I often tweak these AWB runs by adding related minor fixes such as capitalising the first letter of the names of other portals which are being linked. Since BAG tends to define its tasks narrowly and precisely, I'd be concerned that such uncontroversial fixes would be subject to bureaucratic hurdles. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:06, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

I was asked to comment on this off-wiki, but I just thought I would clarify a few bot-related things. First, the upper bot rate is generally 20-30epm (with 20 being the "preferred" standard) with the upper limit more-or-less acceptable during "off-peak" hours. Second, there has been a little bit of a relaxation of the hard-and-fast "no genfixes" rule that seems to have been common a few years ago in BRFAs - "fixing caps in related portal links" would be a perfectly acceptable genfix to have (assuming the major change of removing the portal was accomplished).

Personally, I feel that MEATBOT is more for problematic editing, so I guess whether you use a bot or your main account is up to you (provided your edits stay more-or-less flawless), but I also suspect that while a high-epm bot wouldn't be questioned, there are multiple editors I've seen sanctioned over the past few years for high edit rates (though to be clear, they were being a bit problematic overall). Primefac (talk) 01:20, 21 October 2019 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

I would prefer for BHG to use an alternative account for doing mass big job AWB edits, so that I can follow her more intellectual activities in the user contributions of the main account. On the other hand, it is interesting to note the sheer number of edits to clean up after portal fixes. --SmokeyJoe (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:30, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you for the response, BHG, and the explanation. I am glad that you appreciate my concerns. I asked Primefac to comment as I was away from my keyboard at the time and unable to respond/was not sure if I could tonight.

  "...so I devised a way to automate the process of clicking..." by definition means that the edits are supervised, but automated. Being essentially automated, it satisfies the definition of WP:BOT ("an automated tool that carries out repetitive and mundane tasks") and combined with the speed in some of these instances WP:ASSISTED's clause, which states "semi-automated processes that operate at higher speeds, with a higher volume of edits, or with less human involvement are more likely to be treated as bots. If there is any doubt, you should make an approval request." WP:BOTUSE also notes that "...high-speed semi-automated editing may effectively be considered bots in some cases (see WP:MEATBOT), even if performed by a human editor. If in doubt, check."

  Your concern regarding a 5-10 edit limit is indeed a valid concern and I can see why that would be something that would give you pause, but I can assure you that that is not the case. Primefac mentioned the 20-30 edit/min number above out of his own experience but there is no mention in BOTPOL regarding an edit rate limit. BOTPOL just asks that between 12:00–04:00 UTC high speed bots slow down. Even if a limit was specified, having a bot flagged account would allow you to make the process automated within AWB without the need to manually approve each edit (though you could certainly continue to do so should you choose). This would also save you the trouble of an autoclicker and the "nectar" two sections up for your finger. ;)

  I appreciate the work that you have been doing to correct portal links post-deletion, but it is something that would be far better served by a flagged bot. This would prevent watchlist/recent changes flooding (an edit a second is fairly intrusive) and be in line with current bot policy. As a BAG member, my strong recommendation is to file a Bot Request for Approval regarding these activities and to switch the edits to either BHGbot or another account you create. I do not see the process being overly long given the low controversial nature of these changes - probably just a few days at most. Genfixes also wouldn't be an issue to continue and there is also precedent for BAG members to give rather broad approvals in some instances/at their discretion (I just gave one yesterday). --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 03:45, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

• @TheSandDoctor: thanks for your reply. I am surprised to learn of off-Wiki communication between you and Primefac which doesn't even involve keyboards. That seems odd, and I prefer discussions about Wiki to be on Wiki.

Anyway, I am glad that everyone agrees that these edits present no issues of accuracy.

Despite all that has been written above, I see zero benefit to me of getting bot approval for this job. Nothing about doing so would make my task easier, or help me to maintain accuracy. On the contrary, there are several factors which would make my work more difficult, one of which is splitting my contribs list between the bot and my main a/c; that makes it harder to check the sequence of events if it needs to be scrutinised.

So in terms of the core issue of getting the job done, using a bot a/c seems to me to be a step backwards.

I wasn't aware of WP:BOTREQUIRE's provisions about throttling edits between 0000 UTC and 0400 UTC, and trying to avoid weekdays. Now that I am aware, I will adopt both, and leave big jobs to the weekend.

So the only outstanding issue I can see is possible flooding of related changes. In practice, it's rare for any run to be long enough to cause much of a problem; the period noted above was exceptionally busy.

@TheSandDoctor: are you really sure putting this job in a bot framework would, on balance, actually helpful? It seems to me not.

If you do insist on going down that path, we need some input from @BD2412, who has been doing the same type of edits, also at high speed, tho apparently with much cruder replacement codes.(see e.g. [1] and [2]) I have never been clear what purpose is served by BD2412's duplication of effort, but if there are overriding reasons to move my work to a bot job and/or throttle its rate (at least during some hours), then it makes little sense to me to have another non-bot dong part of the job, and possibly "taking up the slack" as my work is delayed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:35, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

I would only add to the above that this job can not be done by a bot. Each individual edit requires human attention, and I tend to skip more than I save, since only so many solutions are readily apparent to the eye. With respect to rate, the human eye can generally discern within less than half a second whether an immediate edit like the removal (or replacement) of a deleted portal in a bar is correct. bd2412 T 23:42, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

@BD2412: on the contrary, this job can be done by a bot. I have a set of regexes which allow the job to be done without individual assessment. They handle all cases (including name variants and duplication, and different types of portal link template), so my monitoring of edits is simply to check for regex glitches which I then fix. The only reason that you are making individual checks is that it seems you don't have regexes which handle all cases.

My concern is only whether it is better done by a bot, and I am unpersuaded of that. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:49, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps it depends on the case. Since we are talking about substituting portals, in some cases editors have pointed out that the higher-level portal topic makes sense for some articles but not others, so in some instances it should be replaced and in others deleted altogether. There is no regex that can make that judgment call. bd2412 T 00:29, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

@BD2412: sadly, there is usually no discussion on the proposals at MFD to replace or the backlinks (which are usually made either by me or by Robert McClenon). I recall only one instance where there was a post-discussion request to make selective judgments, and I rejected that one because it seemed to mistake linking to a portal with categorisation. I recall no case where there was agreement at MFD to be selective. If I have missed some, please can you point me to them?

I have nothing to add except that the decision as to what to do with the backlinks, like everything involving portals, has to be done using common sense, and that is a characteristic of editors who are H. sapiens rather than bots. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:27, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

If there are any such cases, they will certainly be very rare; the overwhelming majority of cases require simple replacement, while avoiding duplicates, and that is done much more accurately by a rule-based process than by repeated snap human judgements. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:50, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

I recall, for example, that concerns were raised about replacing links to the deleted portal on terrorism with links to Portal:War, when certain of the target articles were about one-off acts that were unrelated to any war. bd2412 T 01:06, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

I think that the definitions at Portal:War are broad enough to include such actions, tho I can respect that there are edge cases where editors may reasonably disagree. If subjective judgements are to be made about the edge cases, it is much better that they are made after reflection by editors well-familiar with the topics than in less than half a second by someone working rapidly through a list. Doing the replacement rather than just deleting leaves those finer judgements to the place where they belong. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:19, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Apologies for the delayed response. It seems that an issue of confusion here with you and BD2412 is the belief that bots must be automated. There is an entire class of bots which are supervised and have their edits checked by the bot operator prior to saving them and are not automated (see WP:ASSISTED, "...semi-automated processes that operate at higher speeds, with a higher volume of edits, or with less human involvement are more likely to be treated as bots. If there is any doubt, you should make an approval request" clause I've quoted above - emphasis added). In essence, this shouldn't change much of anything for either of you to do aside from a one-time settings change in AWB and the filing of a BRFA (again, you can request broad coverage for things like what you have been doing etc - genfixes are totally cool to include as well). You'd then continue as is on the other account. All I am asking is that you file a BRFA and wait for approval (probably no more than a couple days). Aside from filing, there shouldn't be much - if any - extra work for you to do. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 07:54, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

@TheSandDoctor, thanks for your reply.

Things got a bit sidetracked above into a mistaken idea that this job can't be done unattended, which still seems to me to derive from an inadequate AWB setup. After that with about 100K such edits, I have demonstrated that my regexes are sufficiently robust that the job can be done unattended.

However, it seems that you missed my longer post above, at 23:35, 21 October 2019[3]. As noted there, I still struggle to see advantages of doing this as a bot. Please may I ask you to review that post?

Thanks. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:21, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Will do. If you are still unclear as to the need or feel it is a ton of work, could you please list where you are getting "stuck" (e.g. like the automation and genfix issues like have been previously cleared up)? I am happy to help clear up any misconceptions etc.

"I am surprised to learn of off-Wiki communication between you and Primefac which doesn't even involve keyboards. That seems odd, and I prefer discussions about Wiki to be on Wiki." - that was communication over WP:IRC. The Wikipedia app was not working for me on mobile at the time (showed your talk page as blank and tends to be spotty at best for me, even after upgrading phones) and I was unsure when I'd be able to give you a (reasonable) response. The crux of the issue with keeping it "on wiki" was the fact that I was literally unable to edit Wikipedia at the time as the app wasn't working. I guess you could say that a keyboard was involved though as IRC is entirely text based. I too prefer onwiki communication when possible, but sometimes it simply isn't. I am also active on the channel where a lot of revdel requests come in. Operations is also a useful channel to monitor regarding any ongoing (WMF) server issues. IRC does have its positive uses.

"...I see zero benefit to me of getting bot approval for this job" - the primary benefit to you, as I have implied in previous responses, is being within the bot policy as it is currently written (see also: the bolding in my above/previous response & my other earlier breakdowns where I have illustrated the need; the second last paragraph of this response). At current, this is at best WP:ASSISTED's clause (see bolding of policy in last response requiring a BRFA to be filed), at worse an unauthorized bot by your own admission. Until starting this thread on your talk page, I was unaware of BD2412's involvement. I would also urge BD2412 to create a secondary bot account and also file a BRFA should he wish to continue with this sort of work (for clarity: I am referring to the duplication of effort you've mentioned above). They are quite simple to write up (especially when the edits will be using AWB; see User:Enterprisey/easy-brfa for a really simple way) and honestly will not take a lot of time to get processed.

"On the contrary, there are several factors which would make my work more difficult, one of which is splitting my contribs list between the bot and my main a/c; that makes it harder to check the sequence of events if it needs to be scrutinised." - Every editor who files a BRFA and runs a bot has the same issue. I have a combined total of over 290,000 edits if you include my bots. Bots typically make uncontroversial edits which are unlikely to cause concern. If there is an issue, the community can certainly manage (revert, go to operator's talk page and discuss). This truly isn't a significant issue. I am unclear how this would make your work more difficult? As I've explained above (previous responses), it would probably have little to no effect (on difficulty), aside from a one time AWB settings change and the initial filing of a BRFA. (To make the filing super simple: you can use User:Enterprisey/easy-brfa and follow the directions there. I personally use the script and it does make filing easier.

"...are you really sure putting this job in a bot framework would, on balance, actually helpful?" - what do you mean by "framework" in this case? A BRFA? if so: yes, I truly am. Aside from the policy reasons previously mentioned, it would make your contributions easier to read, for one thing. It would keep your AWB link fixes in one area and be easier to go through, whilst keeping your non-AWB edits more visible on this account. It would make both easier to filter through should there be any issues.

"If you do insist on going down that path..." - I would really rather that we did per all the policy reasons I have been citing in my responses above. The entire approval process is quite painless and doesn't take that much time. In general, BRFAs basically follow the below pattern/flow. You can request broad approval for the types of fixes that you have been doing previously.

1. submit
2. asked to do usually <50 edits
3. Those edits are reviewed. If everything is in order and there are no outstanding issues, approved. If there are, changes are made and another trial requested.
4. edit

If automation is still a concern, please note that bots can be entirely supervised and do not need to run automatically (see previous response). If you are still unclear as to the need or feel it is a ton of work, could you please list where you are getting "stuck" (e.g. like the automation and genfix issues like have been previously cleared up)? I am happy to help clear up any misconceptions etc. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 17:33, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

@TheSandDoctor:, I do have an approved bot account, User:BD2412bot. I am not using it to address portal deletions because I consider the decision to replace or remove a specific deleted portal to require case-by-case human attention (I would add that I have only done a relative handful of these, and my primary usage of both AWB and BD2412bot has been disambiguation link fixing). bd2412 T 17:54, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

@TheSandDoctor: you still haven't persuaded me of any advantage to this other than possible policy-compliance issues. However, I don't want the drama of an unauthorised bot complaint, so I will do the BRFA.

I am not persuaded at all by BD2412's comments that this requires case-by-case human attention. The only example which BD2412 gave was unpersuasive, and the edit rate of many of BD2412's portal-link replacements makes it v hard to believe that the process either involved individual assessments or was done without assistance. Also, I didn't see any instances where one of BD2412's run involved mix of replacements and deletions. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:27, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Here is an example from my run of replacing links to the deleted international relations portal where I determined that the appropriate replacement was with two distinct portal links, to Portal:Politics and Portal:Architecture. Here is one where I found it appropriate to replace the deleted portal with separate links to Portal:Politics and Portal:Law. These are, of course, calls that must be made on a case-by-case basis. For the most part, as noted above, the call that I make is whether to make the edit or skip it altogether, so decisions to skip the edit don't leave an edit to point to. My edit rate may indeed be hard to believe, but I am just that fast. On occasion I have even been confused for using AWB or similar tools while editing manually. bd2412 T 20:13, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

@BD2412: In each of the first two cases =921299147[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palace_of_Nations&diff=prev&oldid=921303122 you did two tasks:

1. replaced Portal:IR with Portal:Politics
2. added another link to a portal unrelated to the removal, which you didn't disclose in the edit summary.

Adding those other portals looks like a good idea in each cases, but it was not a part of the replacement process; it was an addition.

So I see nothing at all in that which impedes the use of a bot to do this job. Any editor may of course choose to add links to portals, but there is absolutely no reason to say that each replacement must be checked manually in order to facilitate undisclosed additions. As a general principle, it is much better that an edit summary discloses what was done, and the use of the replacement process to facilitate undisclosed additions seems to me to be something which should be discouraged. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:58, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

PS I also don't see why you would ever decide to skip the edit altogether, and leave a link to the deleted portal … unless the problem is that your regexes haven't handled the replacement accurately. Mine cover all cases accurately, so no need to skip. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:02, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

@TheSandDoctor: request submitted at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BHGbot 4.

I tried using User:Enterprisey/easy-brfa.js, but it wouldn't save the form, even I tried again with placeholder answers. The error message each time was While creating BRFA subpage, the edit query returned an error. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:02, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

• That's a token issue, a quick fix for Enterprisey ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:26, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

• @TheSandDoctor: it's now over 5 days since I completed the trial run requested at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BHGbot 4, but there has been no substantive response to it.

You wrote above that the BRFA approval process would take probably just a few days at most. How do you define "just a few days at most" in this context? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:52, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

You are correct, but I wrote that it "probably" wouldn't take more than a few days (a lot of BRFAs sit for at least a week or more...yours was fairly fast). Me processing it would've been quicker, but not ideal (more than one set of eyes is always preferable) - though I will say that I would've probably gone ahead and approved it (barring any complaints) anyways had it been open much longer.

A request is also typically left open for a couple of days after trial in case anyone has any feedback (speedy approvals aside). With that said, a problem with BAG is that there simply aren't enough active members. Members also tend to not like approving what they've trialed or had other involvement in (e.g. requesting a BRFA be filed). This can lead to delays in and of itself, but is a consequence of the low number of BAG members (a couple of us have been forced to approve bots they trialed due to low numbers of BAGs - see User:TheSandDoctor/BAGusual and User:TheSandDoctor/extraordinaryBAG). I do appreciate your patience and willingness to file a BRFA. If you ever have any BRFA/bot questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 01:44, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Women's sport

Would you please have a look at Portal:Women's sport? Before I ask for a lot of new links to be added, I would like to check how this portal rates on the activity criteria you have been applying to other portals—i.e., there's no reason to add new links if the portal should be deleted instead. Thanks, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 02:09, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Black Falcon, and thanks for asking. I did a quick analysis. Here's the results in note form:

• No discussion at Portal talk:Women's sport
• Daily average of only 10 views/day in Oct 2018–Sept 2019. That's risibly low, and it's not due to lack of promotion: there are incoming links from 1,322 articles and 2,046 categories.
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women's sport looks only semi-active.
• Project not interested: a search of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women's sport and all its sub-pages (i.e. archives etc) gives no hits for "Portal:Women's sport", apart frm BF's 13 Oct 2019 note on adding links.
• The portal has been badly neglected since 2011 or 2012. The DYKs are all long-since stale; the sample of ten birthday pages which I examined were all untouched for between five and 8 years; the most recent addition to the biogs was in 2012 (see biog/13); the most recent /article is article/9, which was added in 2011, i.e. before the portal was even moved to mainspace.
• Massive, unmaintainable sprawl of subpages: Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Women's sport contains an absurd farm of 440 pages.

So AFAICS, this is an abandoned portal: abandoned by its creator, by readers, and by the WikiProject which has never shown any interest in it, let alone in staying on top of the 440 sub-pages.

Looks to me like it's long overdue for deletion. So please hold off the bot run until after the MFD which will likely happen soon. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:49, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Of course, I'll wait until the nomination concludes. Thank you for taking the time to check. Cheers, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:27, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Planned choreography.

Thanks a whole lot for your edit on planned choreography. I'm writing an exam and I just needed that explanation. I'm also really interested in your page. Keep it up.😁 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.190.2.64 (talk) 01:26, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, but I have made no substantive contribution to Wikipedia's content on that topic.

Anyway, good luck with your exam. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:32, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Re-insert maintenance Tags to destroy the pages

Hi,

The problems are created by the below mentioned user (Obi2canibe).

Sri Lanka is a multi cultural country & he has a habit to interfere with the pages which he is not happy. I Kindly request from you to keep a watch with this matter as he is against all communities other than one & keep on adding re-insert maintenance Tags to destroy the pages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Obi2canibe

• Please clean up (re-insert maintenance Tags) Mr.Sajith Premadasa'page (he is one of 2019 Sri Lanka Presidential Candidate).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sajith_Premadasa

Yours sincerely,
Jetta
112.134.224.168 (talk) 02:18, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

The Simpsons portal

When you get a chance, you may want to take a look at Portal:The Simpsons. The introduction just says "666"; I seriously tried to fix this vandalism and could not figure out how to do so. Who knows how long it has been live. The news feed died out in 2011, save for one update from 2013. Viewership also appears to be quite low; for the last 20 days, it's been at 17 per day vs. 7,379 for The Simpsons, which is FA class. [4] -Crossroads- (talk) 00:15, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, @Crossroads. I fixed the intro.[5]

I'll try to make time to do a thorough examination of whether it should be an MFD candidate. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

In the first half of 2019, it had 17 daily pageviews: https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2019-01-01&end=2019-06-30&pages=Portal:The_Simpsons

The article had 6548: https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2019-01-01&end=2019-06-30&pages=The_Simpsons

I haven't reviewed the currency of the 26 articles and 29 episodes. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:49, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Antonietta_Dell'Era

hello, I am relatively new.. On this Italian dancer, there is a book I cannot find anywhere, by Panwitz, Sebastian, is it okay by wiki standards to delete it? Toandael49 (talk) 15:25, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

(talk page watcher)@Toandanel49: Why would you want to delete a mention of a book which another editor has added: do you believe that they were hoaxing? This book is in Worldcat - see the catalogue record which shows it is held in a couple of German libraries.

And is it intentional that your signature displays a slightly-misspelled version of your editor name? It's quite confusing for other editors. PamD 15:54, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying how to find the book. That is why I asked. I do not know why my signature is different from my editor name, I will try to figure it out. Toandael49 (talk) 16:04, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I fixed my user signature, I had not noticed that error, thank you for pointing it out to me.Toandanel49 16:16, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

@Toandanel49: Umm, no, not quite fixed - you haven't got a link in it now! PamD 17:35, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Why did you remove my edit?

Why did you remove my edit? It’s completely factual. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwsapp (talk • contribs) 00:25, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Jwsapp,

I had no idea what you were talking about, so I looked at your edits, and saw what had happened: User:Vsmith reverted[6] your edit, restoring the last edit by me.

I see that User:Shenme has already left a message on your talk page[7] explaining why this was done. I would add that http://lisasstudio.com/vmpopup_2018.htm is a) not a reliable source (it's WP:SELFPUBLISHed); b) not an independent source; and c) that WP:VNOTSUFF applies. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:24, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

The notes say that you removed my edit and marked it as spam. Ms. Bryan is my girlfriend and besides being a talented artist, it one of the few modern pictorial mapmakers. She d serves recognition for her contributions to the preservation of the nearly lost art of pictorial maps. She also publishes books and jigsaw puzzles based on her maps and has works in the Library of Congress. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwsapp (talk • contribs) 03:56, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

@Jwsapp: No, I did not remove your edit. The diff[8] makes that clear.

Anyway, your statement that you were adding a link relating to your girlfriend is a statement that you have conflict of interest. Please see the policy WP:COI, and stop using Wikipedia to promote your girlfriend. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:07, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Undelete portal:African American

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:African American - I just found the discussion where the portal was deleted, reasons given that there were only 14 articles from 2010 and it was poorly maintained. As I have added articles to that in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and this year, I'm confounded that an admin saw fit to validate what can be construed as white-washing. It's a strong term, but in my view is the only way to get across the message that articles dealing with the 'race-based diminishing' that occurs when the need to conform with WP:style engages the black experience and the plain-speak of that subculture. While articles about celebrities easily meet WP:notoriety, and Portal R&B fits the musical genres, some articles about marginal figures that were inspirational to black audiences, but have few or no reference cites to work with will end up with few page views, all that's left is a portal to call home, where an aggregate makes them easier to find. If there is no editor placing the portal on fresh articles it will be un-tended, but no less relevant. Replacing it with Portal:United States again works to disappear the stories about the African American experience. Unless it is something you personally have a stake in, deletion seems like necessary resolution to something that didn't need resolving. I don't know who called for it's deletion, but I would have argued against deletion as I have, so to say, a few dogs in that fight. It is not often that I feel the need to rant about a subject to an admin, heaven knows I have run up against some who have strong feelings that are contrary, and they - I have found them to have more experience at flame wars to achieve their goals which they gain thru sheer 'never give and inch', which some can't be bothered to pay attention to forever.Just wanted you to be aware that I expressed this to admin User talk:JJMC89 today. Thanks.. CaptJayRuffins (talk) 13:58, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi CaptJayRuffins

If you don't agree with the closure of an XFD, the first step is discuss the matter with the admin who closed Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:African American. If the two of you don't reach agreement, the next step is to open a WP:Deletion review. No admin other than the closer will act unilaterally.

As to the substance, I get that black America is as under-represented on en.wp as it is in wider American society. But please remember that Wikipedia is not a pace to write great wrongs. As a tertiary publication, Wikipedia reflects the balance of existing sources. Luckily, lots of editors do great work on these topics, but if the sources aren't there then the article can't go far. And given the low page views of portals, they area very poor way of showcasing any topic.

If I had !voted in that MFD, it would have been to delete, because the portal was neglected. Your choice to label deletion as white-washing is an unevidenced slur on the good faith of those who did participate in the MFD, and as to your own good faith: you claim above that you added articles to that in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and this year, which is not true. Your contribs list shows no live edits by you to any portal page, and also no deleted edits by you to any portal page.

So I am pleased to see that JJMC89 declined your unfounded, bad faith, request to undelete. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:41, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I thought that putting the portal logo on the page was how it was done. I stand corrected. I also see that the reason why the Portal did not register any of my articles, and maybe others as well since 2010. I do not wish to have to rewrite the portal when there was a lot of work put into the original, I was hoping that you could help. You are mistaken that I did not use the portal, I was just not consistent is placing the portal under ==See Also==, instead using ==External Links==. I only knew of the deletion when I was notified you were changing the now dead link to Portal:United States. So articles that I assumed were included, were not. I don't wish to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, just to use the tools available to categorize like articles. Someone vandalized the portal, the result is deletion of the portal for supposed under-use. You changed many of my articles to Portal United States, not the subculture/5 african american topic, in effect, legitimizing the removal. It's not a complaint, but I think we can fix this. CaptJayRuffins (talk) 07:46, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

November 2019 at Women in Red

November 2019, Volume 5, Issue 11, Numbers 107, 108, 140, 141, 142, 143 Check out what's happening in November at Women in Red... Online events: New: Librarians / Leaders / Geofocus: Asian Women Month Continuing: Suffrage / #1day1woman / Stub Contest Editor feedback: Check out the conversation regarding: Disappearing articles Help us plan our future events at the Ideas Cafe Join the conversations on our talkpage Social media: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter Stay in touch: Join WikiProject Women in Red / Opt-out of notifications

--Rosiestep (talk) 22:57, 29 October 2019 (UTC) via MassMessaging

The Signpost: 31 October 2019

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* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:11, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Search shortcuts script

Hi! I noticed you've made a couple of redirects like Wikipedia:TFD/2019 March 16. I've constantly been frustrated with the same thing! So I made User:Enterprisey/search-shortcuts, so when you type "WP:TFD/" into the search bar, it expands to "WP:Templates for discussion/Log/" and you can just type subpages normally. Let me know if this is useful. Enterprisey (talk!) 07:15, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

P.S. I also fixed easy-brfa. Enterprisey (talk!) 07:17, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi Enterprisey, and thanks for both of those fixes. I confess that I did say a few unprintable things about the easy-brfa script, but then remembered that I was using MS-Edge, which seems to have a wider issue with tokens. But great that you have found a way around that.

I am looking fwd to trying User:Enterprisey/search-shortcuts, but I think the ideal thing would be a bot to make such shortcuts automatically. It'd be a trivial bit of coding, and a huge help. I'll do a WP:BOTREQ. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:29, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Of portals and choices

Heh, BHG, I hope you are well. I see you have been having a rough go of late (I only read a little bit of the recent ANI "conversation" and already don't think I can get any farther), but then portal space has always been a huge slog for you. As you might have noticed, my wiki-break is over now per say. My over month long break has done a great deal to lift the dark storm cloud that had set in over my relationship to Wikipedia and portals, which resulted in the note (one might say rant!) I left here. I don't have the stamina, time or patience to return to my previous level of clean-up efforts, but this reminded me of you and our work together. It's not right of me to leave a wiki-mate unaided by me in a mire of hardship and distress. I apologize to you that I did. Yet, while I did cast some new votes at MfD, I'm not really back to help with that effort per say.

My focus is on what you said here recently: "At some point, I will have to decide that enough is enough." You know that I worked passionately with you to help clean up portal space, so I hope you see this as the good faith attempt to give you perspective that this is. You must know better then anyone that this topic pounds the life out of a person. Based on my own experience, just "letting go" of this topic was a huge relief, so if you feel that is what you need, don't be afraid to pull the trigger. It really is a huge mental burden and time-suck that just disappears from your world, freeing you to pursue other, likely much happier activities. It's a cruel twist of fate that a handful of us work to clean up in a period of months a 15-year joyride by a huge number of people.

Even crueler that nearly every part of the portal clean-up effort is depressing. Reviewing one abysmal crud portal after another that has rotted for a decade or more, writing detailed noms/votes again and again that are of vastly higher quality then what's being written about, arguing with delusional people at seemingly every forum available on Wikipedia, etc. What I see here is a woman who is tired. Almost 1000 pre-TTH spam portals have been deleted now, and you must know in your heart after well over 1000 hours spent on this cleanup, as much as you might not want to, that incredibly likely hundreds more ought to follow. If you choose to end your involvement with portals, you can hold your head high and hang your hat on an incredible contribution you have freely given to Wikipedia and its readers. You rock :) But, as someone who I like to think became your friend, I think it's time you thought of yourself. Newshunter12 (talk) 10:36, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

• FYI, before you make that choice, Portal:Massachusetts has been deleted. Let me know if you plan to clean up the links. Cheers! bd2412 T 00:13, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

• @BD2412: WP:Bots/Requests for approval/BHGbot 4 was authorised a few minutes ago, so as soon as the bot flag is re-activated I will put it to work.

Given that there is now a bot to do this job, I think it's best that you leave the task to the bot, per the discussion above. Thanks! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:21, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I definitely agree. bd2412 T 00:23, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

User:BHGbot user page

I was just looking at User:BHGbot and noticed that it appears to need an update. The page doesn't list the recently approved task #4. I've gone ahead and marked it as an approved bot in the header, but haven't touched anything else. I hope that that is okay with you. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 02:55, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

@TheSandDoctor: yes, it does need an update. I'll get to it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:57, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

 Done [9] --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:21, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Discussion on MP categories

Hi. Incase you missed my ping, please see this discussion. Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 09:27, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2019).

Administrator changes

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Interface administrator changes

MSGJ

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Oversight changes

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DeltaQuad • DGG • Julia W

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC was closed with the consensus that the resysop criteria should be made stricter.

• The follow-up RfC to develop that change is now open at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2).

• A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors may now nominate themselves as candidates for the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections. The self-nomination period will close November 12, with voting running from November 19 through December 2.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Appreciation

Hey Hi BHG was tracing my roots kenya kakamega county and the wards to find exactly where i belong to as i was feeling some information i needed, Thank you for editing and keeping things sleek thou am a bit perplexed in regards to your origin and how you know so much of something and not being apart of in regards to the information i was going through. Either way thank you alot humbly appreciate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 102.68.78.119 (talk) 11:43, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean?

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cape_Verdean_escudo&oldid=924632674 I haven't edited anything on this page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Megyeye (talk • contribs) 12:54, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, Megyeye. My mistake.

I did correctly ping you in my previous edit,[10] but something went wrong with my copypastes while constructing the edit summary for Cape_Verdean_escudo, and I pinged you again. Sorry. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:19, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

good afternoon

Hi. A topic about internet censorship in iran needs to become update on Wikipedia. Please add "How Iranian people access to block websites and use social medias" Wikipedia needs your attention to become better place. Thank you. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Iran Omid6578 (talk) 14:05, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi Omid6578.

I have no idea why you are asking me to do this. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:20, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

They've spammed a bunch of regular users (including myself) with this message. Cheers, Polyamorph (talk) 15:58, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Polyamorph. I hadn't checked their contribs, but just did so now. 11 such posts in all.

@Omid6578: i suggest that you post at Talk:Internet censorship in Iran to explain what updates you believe are needed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:01, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Abuse

It looks like Newshunter12 and The Blade of the Northern Lights are bullying and harassing people who edit longevity related pages again. 213.128.80.62 (talk) 00:20, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Furthermore it looks like Newshunter12 made a sock account possibly to avoid breaking the 3RR on List of the oldest living people. 213.128.80.62 (talk) 00:40, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Please forgive the intrusion on your talk page BHG. The IP's post looks to be related to this Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#TFBCT1's editing on longevity articles. You might already be aware of this but I wanted to provide the link just in case. This IP may be a sock as well. MarnetteD|Talk 00:44, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

No intrusion at all, @MarnetteD.

Thanks for explaining the context. I am a bit ANIed out right now, so I'll leave it to others to resolve this. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:17, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Wise choice methinks :-) MarnetteD|Talk 02:35, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

@MarnetteD: Indeed. There's some talk at ANI about an IP troll, sock, and impersonator. Say hello to that IP. In fact from what I've seen, don't listen to any IP or new user who edits longevity articles or related talk pages. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:40, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

@MarnetteD and Zzuuzz: Sadly, what from I have seen of longevity topics, the field now has two tribes of POV warriors: one set of unhealthily obsessive longevity fans who spam out any old carp without regard to WP:GNG, WP:V, WP:WEIGHT etc; and another polar opposite faction who dismiss anything to do with longevity as "cruft", no matter how well and widely it is sourced. (The latter group has some similarities of style and some overlap of membership with the WP:FTN crew, who are similarly dogmatic about their worldview). So the whole field is an unpleasant area in which to tread. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:39, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Good grief BHG and Z. That is crazy. What a thing to edit war over. Here is an old carp. In case that was a typo BHG I won't leave a pic of the other possibility for those four letters :-) MarnetteD|Talk 01:41, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@MarnetteD: that's a deliberate typo, to avoid triggering swear filters. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:44, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Ah I hadn't thought of that. Does that mean it was Thomas Carper who invented the WC? heehee. MarnetteD|Talk 01:47, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

You should flush that thought from your mind, MarnetteD. Such matters can be very draining. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:22, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

That is excellent stuff BHG. The smile on my face is so wide my cheeks are starting to hurt. :-D Many thanks. MarnetteD|Talk 03:36, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Just noticed this. The IP poster above is the one who created the now indefed Newshunter16, not me. You will be pleased to know BHG, insofar as one can with a topic as troubled to edit in as longevity, that the current ANI issue is not related to AfD, but following consensus sourcing standards for list inclusion and personal attacks. We have very different views on those past longevity AfD's, but it's worth understanding that that effort is all in the past. No one is using Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Longevity to do much of anything anymore, least of all to make controversial AfDs. Insofar as that "faction" existed, we've largely gone our separate ways. I only went to the topic again because the same longevity IP troll from before harassed me yet again, not because it's a nice place to edit in. If you and @MarnetteD read the four IP posts on my talk page since 30 October, you will see why I went back. Not going to let the bully win. Newshunter12 (talk) 03:54, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for November 6

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited List of sports attendance figures, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page NNC (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 07:25, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Member states of the European Free Trade Association

You added {{Portal|European Union}} on a category with members of EFTA. Yes, it is correct that EFTA cooperate with the EU through different agreements. However it is a separate organization, independent from the EU. The EU portal doesn't even mention EFTA? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Megyeye (talk • contribs) 13:45, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

@Megyeye: yes, I added in because while EFTA is separate to the EU, it is closely related to the EU. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:26, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Even if they cooperate they are separate organizations. Makes no sense to add EU portal on EFTA category page, on a category page for EEA it would make more sense, as this is the agreement that both EFTA and EU is member of. EFTA itself has nothing to do with the EU — Preceding unsigned comment added by Megyeye (talk • contribs) 21:00, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

(TPS) I can understand people not liking an EFTA page being "tagged" for the EU. An analogy: If Ireland didn't have a portal, but the UK did would you put the UK portal tag (and hence the UK flag) on Ireland pages because they are closely related? DexDor ^(talk) 21:51, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Fair point, DexDor.

My thinking here is that a portal link is akin to a see-also link. But on a category page, where the portal link is at the top of the page, I can see how the portal link with its flag looks like a bit of a land-grab.

So look, Megyeye, if you still want to remove it, I'll withdraw my objection. Thanks to you both for the discussion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:59, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Adding categories

Hi, I've been working through some articles in Category:Welsh expatriate footballers and noticed you seem to have added a number of players to this category at the start of the year using AWB who seemingly shouldn't be there. I've already removed Danny Allsopp and Peter Barnes (footballer) and a quick look finds others such as Giorgio Chinaglia, Chris Blackburn, Aurélien Collin and Terry Cooke. Category:Welsh expatriate sportspeople in the United States also seems to be affected as they were added simultaneously. Thought I'd check if there was a reason for the additions before going ahead and removing en masse, I'm guessing it's got something to do with the fact that these players all played for a Welsh club at some point, cheers. Kosack (talk) 21:09, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

A Star

		The Special Barnstar
		Sometimes editors need a star! Keep on advising! Keep pushing! Lightburst (talk) 00:40, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:43, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Question re WikiProjects

Hi BHG - I asked a question on NA1K's TP about whether we should have links to WikiProject pages on the front Main Space pages of the Main Articles, instead of the Talk Page. My thought was that ultimately Portals are caught between Main Articles (+NavBoxes) and WikiProject Directories, and can compete with neither. Maybe if we had WikiProject links on the Mainspace articles, it would solve a lot of these issues? NA1K gave this a slim chance of being accepted by the community, however. What do you think? Britishfinance (talk) 13:58, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

• FYI, I would agree with this, if the WikiProjects were generally more active. Some are as moribund as the portals. Perhaps some formula can be derived for more closely tying together the operation of these spaces, so that the portals serve as an entree to the projects. I would also be agreeable, under these circumstances, to linking the relevant WikiProjects on the Main page rather than linking the portals that are there now. bd2412 T 01:12, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Ultimately, merging Portals into WikiProjects, and putting a WikiProject link on the Main Article page could solve a lot of issues simultaneously:

1. It would avoid some of the portal content issues of pov+forking (e.g. bigger audience), and avoid portals having to compete with Main Articles (which they are mostly failing at).

2. It would encourage the WikiProjct to take some responsibility for the portal (even if still ignored, can't worsen the situation); many WikiPrjects have quasi-portal pages as their front page.

3. If a non-editor topic expert clicks on a portal, in 9/10 cases they will get the impression that WP is a failing project which could lead them no to bother contributing. However, if they click on a WP Project, they will see a much larger scale of activity (e.g. compare the Portal:Alaska with WikiProject Alaska and its structured directory of over 10,000 topic articles); this could drive them to engage.

4. While a high % of portals have become functionally obsolete (due to Main Article+NavBoxes and WikiProject Directories), we will always need a WP Project space in some form.

5. Even where the WikiProject is dormant, it can't be a worse situation as the portal is likely to be in even worse shape; per 3. we should be trying to promote the WikiProject in such cases.

Perhaps WP should also have an MOS for the front-page of WikiProject pages if such a link was created to help things along? Britishfinance (talk) 13:56, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Category:Lists of Fellows of the Royal Society has been nominated for discussion

Category:Lists of Fellows of the Royal Society, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Dicklyon (talk) 15:30, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Considering taking the case on "portal wars" to ArbCom

Okay, I think I've had enough. Since there appears to be no end to questionable behavior and half-truth arguments from a number of portal advocates (at least from my perspective, and likely yours as well), I'm considering filing an ArbCom case, though I'd like to know if you agree on whether or not this is ready for ArbCom deliberation. If so, are there any other relevant discussions you know of that attempt to resolve this dispute (other than this one)? ToThAc (talk) 03:03, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@ToThAc: I don't think that ArbCom should be the first step from here.

I see two underlying problems here:

1. there are no community-endorsed guidelines relating to the portals. This means that every portal needs to be considered individually, applying broad policies; but most of the portal fans demonstrate little or no familiarity with those policies.
2. the general abandonment of portals by WikiProjects and readers, and the lack of the normal intellectually-taxing editing process of discussing how to use which sources has left portalspace dominated by low-skill editors, who may have technical expertise in tasks such as coding, but who lack experience and skill both in applying policies and in discussing disagreements to reach consensus. Many of them dissemble, lie, post half-truths, contradict themselves, etc; some of them seem incapable of basic collaboration skills, such as explaining a rational basis for why they made a decision, and there are repeated crucial absences of ability to do critical thinking. As a result, debating with them is like debating a bunch of unruly school kids.
   This is a structural problem, because portalspace is one of the few parts of Wikipedia where this low-skill base can flourish, and it is the only one where it dominates. It is also a social problem, because many of these editors feel frightened and threatened by the deletion of portals, since their limited skillset gives them minimal basis to participate elsewhere. Portals are the spaces where they can make pretty pages and unchallenged lists without having to engage with all the intellectual complexity of content policy.

The first problem is capable of resolution by RFC. If RFCs established community-supported guidelines on at least some of they issues with portals (even tho there may be gaps), then much of the contention would be removed. If, for example, there was consensus on how a list of selected articles should be selected, then much of the drama at the current transport MFD could be avoided. That would be true regardless of whether guideline said "add whatever you like" or specified quality, scope, importance, and transparency of process (like notifying WikiProjects before you rebuild their portal).

Similarly, if RFC established guidelines that portals should be drawn from live, linked lists of articles, then there wouldn't be the surprise factor of the transport MFD being faced with plausible demands to restore a reverted version ... only to find on scrutiny facilitated by MFD disclosure that in fact the list created is a huge POV failure. If that had all been disclosed upfront, the scrutiny could have been done long before.

The social problem is more intractable. As far as I can see, the portal fans' priority is to keep as much possible of their playground, regardless of its quality or utility. So long as others try to uphold higher standards, they will continue to be aggrieved. The resulting disruption will be much more contained if there are clear guidelines, but even then the social problem will remain.

So if this goes to ArbCom, then ArbCom faces some ugly choices. Does it say to the angry portal fans that their low skill level is a breach of WP:CIR, and that they should back off? Or does it say to the likes of me who are trying to uphold encyclopedic quality that no matter how persistently dishonest or incompetent other editors are, that their incompetence and dishonesty must not be explicitly challenged?

This a variant of the old Randy in Boise problem: how does Wikipedia balance its purpose (to produce an encyclopedia, which is a significant intellectual work) with its process of crowd-sourcing (which means crowds which usually include people without notable intellectual skill). I don't know how ArbCom resolves that, and I don't see how an ArbCom case helps other than in diverting huge amounts of energy into weeks of diff-farming.

So my preference is to try first doing RFCs to make guidelines, and see how much that improves things. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:04, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for your input. I guess bringing this up with you was the right call after all. ToThAc (talk) 04:39, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

The red footer "If you leave a new message on this page..."

I had to play with the magnification in my web browser in order to uncover the final line or so of the last comment on the page. At no magnification (i.e. 100%) it is fine and clears the text. At higher magnifications (e.g. 110% 125% etc) it isn't set far enough down from the text and covers it. I don't see how the message is being generated, so can't see any suggestions to make. Shenme (talk) 03:32, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@Shenme: the message is generated by Template:UserTalkReplyhere, which I created about 12 years ago. The CSS has never worked entirely as I intend on all browsers in all circumstances, but it has been good enough that it's used by about 50 editors and hasn't been changed in about 10 years.

I prefer having its imperfections than not having it, and I don't intend to spend hours checking on all permutations of all browsers on all operating systems at all resolutions. Sorry that some permutations of your set-up don't work. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:22, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

My Category:1929–30 in Hungarian football edit

Apologies, I had not noticed I had put the deleted portal in - many thanks for picking this up and fixing. Dunarc (talk) 16:02, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

MFD:P:HZ closed

(1) Please remove the backlinks to Portal:Harz.
(2) Also, thank you for this which happened while I was on wikibreak.
–MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:42, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Correction of misspelling

Hello, would you mind correcting the spelling of Choctaw in 'Confederate government of Missouri' under Allied tribes in Indian Territory? Apparently I don't have access to it. Go raibh maith agat! 2600:1700:A230:3CA0:FD78:91B2:B148:9F70 (talk) 23:03, 9 November 2019 (UTC)Alan

portal at 2020 NBA Draft

I didn't put that portal in there. I merely restored an edit which had it... Enigma^msg 03:38, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

@Enigmaman, whenever I do one of those fixes, it's because the page has been categorised in Category:Portal templates with redlinked portals or one of its subcats. I just try to do the fix, and try to use the edit summary to notify the editor whose edit caused it to end up in there, and to do so neutrally without casting judgement. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:48, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

When will it end

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. --Moxy 🍁 07:25, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Selective Application of Consensus

Hello. I noticed on WP:ANI, you wrote: "I did was very clear that POG is a former guideline, and I cited it to explicitly stress the folly of that guideline. NA!K is trying to conflate this with their efforts to cite POG as guidance on how to act, which is the exact opposite of what I did. NA1K actually claimed that POG has current value, which I explicitly did not." Could I ask how this reconciles with your reference to WP:POG as "policy" in Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Vermont? I'm sure you've also referred to it as policy elsewhere, although I don't have much time to go digging. Regards, Vermont (talk) 03:52, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

I may not have been clear. You also wrote about "NA1K's disgraceful attempt to claim currency for POG as a device to justify creation of a POV portal". If it is a "disgraceful attempt" to claim POG as a reason to justify creation of a portal, is it not the same to use POG as a reason to justify deletion of a portal? To me, at least, it seems like you're pushing your view that all portals should be deleted regardless of what consensus and guidelines, whether current or past, actually say. Regards, Vermont (talk) 03:57, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Sure, Vermont. That first question is very simple.

WP:POG was delisted as a guideline on 27 Set 2019[11]. That followed the closure on 26 Sept of WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive 153#RFC:_Formalize_Standing_of_Portal_Guidelines_as_a_Guideline_(18_July_2019)

My last edit at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Vermont was on 26 July 2019‎. At that point, POG was tagged as a guideline, as it had been for years. I accepted the status quo, and worked within the guideline, even though I had grave reservations about much of it. I used at as guideline while it was still a guideline, and whe it was delisted per RFC I stopped citing it as a guideline ... though I frequently noted how absurd it had been to recommend only 20 articles.

That is how WP:Consensus works: accept a guideline unless and until it is changed. The status of POG changed two months later, but I work within policy and guideline as they are now, not how they might be in the future.

My wording there are MFD was sloppy in one respect. In reply to you, I referred to two fundamental policy issues, but I should of course have used the word "guideline". I am sorry for that error, but I don't think it was a major issue in the context. I think that our disagreement would have been the same whichever word was used.

As your comments that I am pushing [my] view that all portals should be deleted regardless of what consensus and guidelines, that is very far from the truth. Of the last 30 portals I assessed for possible MFD noms, I nominated only about 5.

I think that you miss some very important distinctions. Editors are all entitled to their views and to express them. They are also required to respect the current consensus.

In this case, some editors would like to have thousands of portals, and some would like to have zero. I would like few or none, and if we got down to say 100 portals I'd say good enough for now: the 100 would still be pretty useless, but at least at that number they would probably have enough traffic to be maintained, and maybe even restructured to add a little more value than the failed model of pseudo-magazine with a Rube Goldberg machine. But for now there are two points of consensus: a) that there should not be a deletion of all portals, per WP:ENDPORTALS, and b) that individual portals may be deleted at MFD.

So that is my personal view, and I hold it while also respecting the current consensus. I support the deletion of failed portals, and those on excessively narrow topics. I would oppose the deletion of a broad-topic portal if it is in good shape, and if it is a high-level topic portal in terrible shape then I would support a WP:TNT deletion pending a rebuild, as I did e.g. at MFD:Portal:Asia. If P:Asia had been in good shape, I'd have said keep it.

I regard the stream of MFDs as being a process of removal of failed portals, like P:Vermont. I thought that process would have ended months ago, but sadly MFD nominators are still finding lots of failed portals. In hindsight, I realise that I had radically overestimated the degree to which portals were being maintained, and now realise that the rot extends much further than I had thought.

I hope that clarifies my views.

Best wishes, --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:54, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your clarification. I was unaware of the timing of the delisting, which is surprisingly recent. Vermont (talk) 10:51, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@Vermont: it's a pity that you chose not to check the dates before accusing me of regardless of what consensus and guidelines. The information is available on the 8th line of the revision history of WP:POG, or you could simply have asked me the question. Instead you chose to make a pejorative judgement on me without having the key fact. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:55, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

I was unaware of the timing. I stated that, and thanked you for the clarification. I apologize. However, that does not negate the fact you misrepresented POG as policy on multiple occasions, and as our disagreement then remains unchanged, our disagreement now remains unchanged. On a related note, do you believe these statements fall within our community's standards for civility? I hope to understand how you believe these to acceptable, where I regard them as abhorrent conduct unbecoming of an administrator. Regards, Vermont (talk) 17:38, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@Vermont: I twice used the word "policy" when I should have used the word "guideline", and I have apologised for that. However, you miss the point I cited POG in support when it was still a guide, and ceased to rely on it as soon as it was delisted. In complete contrast, NA1K has WP:GAMEd the system by asking successfully for POG to be delisted as a guideline, but the cited as justification for problematic edits. That's trying to have your cake and eat it.

As to my comments about NA1K, I stand by my view that NA1K's substantive conduct has been unacceptable. They have repeatedly misrepresented both fact and and guideline, and have repeatedly demonstrated the very poor judgement which was noted by multiple editors at both their RFAs. Their latest escapade has been shocking. In 13 years as an admin, I have never before seen any editor, let alone an admin, cite in their support a page which was deprecated on their own insistence that it never received actual formal discussion to be enacted as a real English Wikipedia guideline page. I could never have imagined a situation where an actual admin would repeat that deception in a discussion where the error had already been noted in the post to which they were replying ... and I am shocked that it has all been done in support of sneaky edits which amount to massive breach of the core policy WP:NPOV.

Yes, I have used strong and direct words to point this out. And I am very deeply saddened that some editors are massively more concerned about my language than about the substantive and persistent problems which I have described. It's nearly 14 years since I joined Wikipedia to help build a verifiable, NPOV encyclopedia ... and the conduct which I have seen and described here appals me because me it runs counter to that goal. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:10, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I believe it has formulated the fundamental disagreement between us: the value of civility. I have not looked into NA1k's edits regarding portals, nor do I intend to. My only involvement is with your incivility towards editors who disagree with you. I hope you recognize that your behavior would not be in question, at least from me, if your responses conformed to WP:5P4. I cite you referring to people in the current ANI discussion as "incompetent", "mendacious", "habitual lying", "idiot", "poster-child for the Dunning–Kruger effect", "incapable of conducting rational discussions", "a liar or incompetent, or both", a "mix of stupidity and mendacity", "anti-truth", "bad faith", "low-skill group", "very low-competence editors" (which you went on to name specifics), and various other phrases. Your constant incivility towards other editors is a problem. I have no interest what consensus is with regard what to do with portals, whether NA1k is gaming the system, or anything other than your conduct, as that is not why I am here. I have no interest in portals; only the one for my home state, which was deleted. My sole motive in this is to promote an atmosphere where people are free to disagree with other editors without incivility. Even when you believe other editors are acting out of line, you can't start spouting insults and personal attacks. You're an administrator; you should know better than to say things like that. And if you weren't an admin, I can nearly guarantee that you would have been blocked by now for your conduct. Please, please, please try to focus on wording your comments to be respectful of editors you disagree with, avoiding personal attacks, and ensuring that your comments promote a constructive environment, regardless of opinion. Regards, Vermont (talk) 23:37, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from, Vermont.

But with respect, I think that you are taking a dangerously incomplete view of civility. It seems to me that you overlook (or at least massively underestimate) the deep incivility of the passive aggression and WP:GAMEing techniques used by NA1K. The repeated selective quotations; the misrepresentation of statistics; the attempts to depopulate tracking categories because "they are used by deletionists"; the use of pompous synonyms to describe as a guideline a page which was de-guidelined at their request; the stonewalling in response to civil questions, such as NA!K's assertion "I assessed these articles relative to their suitability for this portal" (word soup which conveys nothing); the brushing off of complaints about the poor quality of a selection with variants of "add more stuff if you like"; the complete failure to accept any responsibility for creating a huge POV breach at Portal:Transport; and much much more.

This all highly aggressive and uncivil conduct, which wastes the time and energy of other editors, and sets them up for NA1K to make allegations of badgering, harassment etc when challenged on their evasions and deceit. This manipulative conduct is a form of systematic goading of those trying to have reasoned debate. And all these issue were note years ago, in NA1K's RFAs.

Other editors have noted it in the portal MFDs, but have not directly challenged it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:59, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

You complain about stonewalling and your responses here are stonewalling, feeding me word soup which conveys nothing. Could you explain to me how your slew of insults and personal attacks conforms with WP:5P4, without mentioning NA1k? Someone else being uncivil is not a reason to be similarly or more uncivil. Your argument is a basic strawman argument. I will again reiterate: you are being extremely uncivil, and it does not matter what it is in response to. You're an administrator, and are expected to act with a degree of control that you are not showing. You need to stop your blatant and callous incivility, which you seem to recognize as being nonconforming with policy by your intentional attempts to walk around it. Vermont (talk) 00:22, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

So sustained incivility directed at me is fine, but my incivility in response is unacceptable? Wow.

Also, I spent ten minutes writing that reply, honestly listing and describing a number of problems I encountered, and you have just dismissed it as "stonewalling" and "word soup". That is spectacular rudeness, and since you came here let me me about incivility, it's pure hypocrisy. I assume that you were here I good faith to discuss, but it seems that I was mistaken, Now I regret wasting my time replying. Unless you retract that, just stay off my talk. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:42, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Sorry BrownHairedGirl, but I agree with Vermont here: discribing your fellow Wikipedians as "incompetent", "mendacious", "habitual lying", "idiot", "poster-child for the Dunning–Kruger effect", "incapable of conducting rational discussions", "a liar or incompetent, or both", a "mix of stupidity and mendacity", "anti-truth", "bad faith", "low-skill group", "very low-competence editors" is unacceptable, no matter what the provocation. You wouldn't treat your co-workers that way in the workplace, and it's not acceptable on Wikipedia either. Basic Wikipedia 101: Comment on the content, not the contributors. You might consider having a look at Wikipedia:Old-fashioned Wikipedian values which gives a set of four simple rules for interacting with your fellow editors. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 15:09, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

User:BrownHairedGirl - I think that nearly all of your analysis is technically correct about portals. However, it isn't useful to say that NA1k is being stupid or mendacious or acting in bad faith -- even if they are being either stupid or mendacious and are acting in bad faith. So I agree with User:Diannaa that those of us who think that there are too many failed portals need to be civil in explaining that there are too many failed portals. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:59, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Optional hyphen in century link

Hi BHG, you probably know this or a better way already, but just in case it's useful to you, here is a method I found to link to centuries with or without a hyphen (e.g. 17th-century songs but 17th century in music), depending on whether a parameter began with "in ".[12]

It was confusing to me that I had to compare just two characters "in", since the string functions trim the space if they find "in ". It also took me a while to realise that {{sp}} is the way to insert a space.

Oh, and looking for help led me to meta:Help:String_functions#Extracting_a_substring which says "This is done in Template:Sub." Not in English Wikipedia, it's not! (I added the warning note at the end of that section.)

– Fayenatic London 11:38, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi Fayenatic

Clever work, sorting the difft format with the "in" prefix.

For matching parts of a title, I tend to use Module:String#match to apply a regex, because I am used to working with regex, but {{str left}} works too. Whichever you're more comfortable with. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:24, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Help me understand

I've been reading through the discussions at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Transport (which I found via the ongoing ANI discussion), and there is one accusation that you're making of NA1k that I can't figure out. You're saying that NA1k made edits to the portal that added a number of articles to the rotation, but these additional articles were obscured from view in some way. Specifically, you say that NA1k's new version of the portal does not display a list of linked articles that are part of the rotation in the portal. I have tried comparing the before and after versions of the portal (via this diff), but I don't see a list of linked articles that appears in one version and doesn't appear in the other. Can you help me understand where this list resides, and specifically how you believe NA1k's change to the article made this list more difficult to access? Thanks. ‑Scottywong| [talk] || 22:40, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@Scottywong, writing up my reply. Sorry it's taken longer than I thought it would. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:00, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi Scottywong, sorry this was slow.

The Rube Goldberg machine structures of portals makes this a bit complex. I'll try to explain from the ground up as if you knew none of it; please forgive me if this ends up over-detailed, but I don't want misunderstandings from misplaced assumptions.

The usual structure for portals using the content-forked sub-page model was to have a set of numbered sub-pages for each section: /article1, /artcle2, /biog1, /biog2 etc. For each set, a template on the main portal takes one random page from each set to build the portal. So at any given time, the portal might display e.g. /article7 + /biog3 + /image17, or whatever ... and after a purge, it would display a new random selection, e.g. /article2 + /biog39 + /image13.

For maintenance and scrutiny purposes, each set of sub- is usually grouped in an index page which transcludes all the sub-pages, displaying redlinks for non-existent sub-pages. That provides a handy overview, because the set can be checked just by scanning one page, to see if the topics are well-chosen (in scope, balanced set, etc). It also allows the forked summaries to be easily scanned for vandalism, outdatedness etc ... and there are links to the actual articles, which makes it easy to check on their quality.

For an example of this on a live portal, I think that Portal:South Australia (permalink to current version)is a good example. Note:

1. Each box has a bolded link at the bottom "More selected articles", "More did you know" etc, which link to the index page for that set
2. e.g. "More selected articles" links to Portal:South Australia/Selected article, which lists all 17 article sub-pages plus three redlinks at the bottom.
3. Note also that at the bottom of Portal:South Australia, there is a link titled "Sub-pages of Portal:South Australia", which links to Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:South_Australia/. That allows a quick glance overview of which portals exist.

Now look at Portal:Transport, in its reverted (i.e. pre-NA1K) version.

1. The "Selected image" section has a "More selected images", which links to Portal:Transport/Selected picture
2. The "Selected article" section oddly does not have a "More selected articles" link (Which is the omission you noted).
3. However, the bottom of the pages does have a link titled "Sub-pages of Portal:Transport", which links to Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Transport/ ... where you'll find the list of selected articles at Portal:Transport/Selected article.

The omission of the link in the "Selected article" section is inconvenient, but for those used to scrutinising portals it is only a very minor inconvenience, requiring one or two more clicks to get to Portal:Transport/Selected article.

Now look at the 8 October version by NA1K, the result of their last edit to the portal.

As before, there is no list on the face of the portal, but this time there's also no list in the sub-pages, because NA1K's version doesn't use sub-pages. Without using the edit button, the only way to see the set is to repeatedly purge the page and hope that you purge enough times to see the full set. That will take at least 64 purges; due to the randomness, it may take many more.

So try editing the page. You'll see a list of entries, beginning:

|1=Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore)
|2=London congestion charge
|3=MTR

etc

In some cases the nature of the topic will be evident from the title. In others (e.g. MTR) it won't be.

But if you are doing a thorough check, you need to see the article page and its talk page and its history. Most questions cannot be answered without visiting the page: :# Is the topic significant, and how is its importance rated? (a portal shouldn't be laden with trivia)

1. What geographical area does it relate to, and what time period? (to avoid systemic bias)
2. What quality is it rated as? Does that rating seem reasonable?
3. Plus lots of subsidiary questions: Is it stable? NPOV? Free of cleanup tags? Unvandalised? Are there current disputes on its talk page? Has it been moved to a new title, or is there a merge proposal? etc etc

NA1K's "black box" format provides no links, so visiting each of 64 pages is a lot of work. The techniques I tried for MFD:Portal:Ghana (which turned out to be an abymsal selection) were:

• Open a new browser tab, and copy-paste in each link one at a time, do scrutiny ... then alt-tab back. Gets tedious very quickly
• Paste the list into a sandbox, add brackets to each entry, then view the result. Linking lots of items is tedious.
• So the solution I used was to copy-paste to a text editor, use a regex to add the links in one replace operation, copy-paste to a sandbox, preview and proceed

That was tedious for me, so after MFD:Portal:Ghana I didn't do it again. For most editors, who aren't handy with regex, it's enough of a barrier to make scrutiny just too much hassle.

That is why I just reverted Portal:Transport. I didn't get to scrutinise the list until a month later, when NA1K posted it at the MFD ... and then it took me only a spot check to see that it looked biased, and just a few minutes to analyse it and document the scale of the bias.

I don't know whether NA1K was consciously creating a biased list, or simply maximising numbers without regard to balance and without looking at the assessments of the many other transport-projects. But what's very clear from the MFD is that NA1K is even now unconcerned about the huge bias in the list, and just focuses on the number of articles listed. And very sadly, so do most other editors commenting at the MFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:32, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that detailed explanation, I think I understand it much better now. To test my understanding, I'll try to briefly summarize: Your main objection to NA1k's edits on Portal:Transport was that he replaced {{Transclude random subpage}} with {{Transclude random excerpt}}, and hard-coded the list of articles into that template's parameters within the main portal page, rather than the (presumably) more popular method of organizing the list of articles on a series of subpages, with an index page that conveniently lists the articles with links and excerpts. This had the effect of making it much more difficult for editors to scrutinize the set of articles being used in the portal, to ensure that all articles have a sufficient quality assessment, that the list of selected articles doesn't show signs of systemic bias, and that the articles chosen are otherwise fit for use in a portal. A few follow-up questions:

1. Is that an accurate summary?
2. Is it your opinion that {{Transclude random excerpt}} should never be used directly to construct portals the way NA1k used it? I understand that it might be used within other templates, or it might be used on portal subpages, but I'm talking about specifically using it on a main portal page with hard-coded articles as template parameters. Interestingly enough, it seems that there are at least a couple dozen instances of it being used in this way currently. A (very small) sampling of these portals seems to show that a number of them were switched over to this method recently by NA1k, and others were switched over by other editors (sometimes as long as a year or two ago) such as The Transhumanist or SportingFlyer. While I understand that the subpage method offers more visibility and easier scrutiny for those that are familiar with it, it seems that the subpage method is more of the "Rube Goldberg machine" that you often talk about, while the {{Transclude random excerpt}} method cuts down on the Rube Goldberg aspect considerably.
3. In your comments at the MFD, you repeatedly refer to NA1k's edits as being "sneaky". Does the use of this word imply that you believe NA1k deliberately changed the structure of this portal (and others) with the intention of obfuscating his changes to the list of articles that are being displayed in these portals? If so, what evidence are you basing this on?

It's clear to me that the lack of a solid portal guideline is causing a lot of problems. If there could be agreement on how all portals should be constructed, and criteria for which topics can have portals, it would really save everyone a lot of time and headaches. It's also clear to me that finding consensus on any of these things is going to be extremely difficult. I'm not sure I know the best way to proceed. Thanks again for the explanation. ‑Scottywong| [prattle] || 06:35, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

I finally understand what your objection is to the way that NA1k is implementing transclusion by black box. At least I think I understand. The problem is that you or I can't successively click on the 11 or 23 or whatever subpages in succession to view their content or view their maintenance dates or whatever. Now I understand. However, I think that you are defeating your own purpose. It has taken you two months or so to explain to me why what NA1k is doing is problematic, and I don't see the value in general of portals. For a reader who thinks that there is value to portals, all that they are going to see is that you are being shrill and uncivil. You aren't going to persuade anyone by saying that other editors are being dishonest, even if other editors are being dishonest. So lower your voice. You might not be heard, but it is better than just being heard yelling, in which case other editors aren't looking at the fact that you are right, only that you are loud. So listen to the editors who are telling you to be civil. It might actually be more persuasive also. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:14, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Robert, while I understand where you're coming from and acknowledge that others share your views on this subject, please consider that you have just interrupted a civil conversation about technical details to wag your finger at BHG and say "be nice". Probably not the right venue for that comment. ‑Scottywong| [chat] || 06:35, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon, a few points:

1. I The reverts which I made were exactly one months ago (on 12 October), not two months ago.
2. I tried many times to explain the issue at the October AMI thread, but it was a pile-on by portal fans in which nobody was interested in the detail
3. At that ANI tread I repeatedly proposed to NA1K that we have an RFC to discuss the issues, but got no response. I have repeatedly asked NA1K since then to work on an RFC, but NA1K has refused all discussion.
4. At Portal talk:Australia#Comments_and_analysis_by_BHG, I posted a lengthy analysis of the laws of NA1K's edits to that portal.[13] NA1K chose not to even reply directly.
5. Note that Portal talk:Australia#Comments_and_analysis_by_BHG was linked directly (I think several times), from the October ANI discussion. It's not surprising that you missed it, since that thread became a pile-on where my replies were drowned out in a sea of accusation; but that's why I repeatedly tried to get out of the pile on, and into RFC.

The repeated problem here has been that most of the portal fans have been unwilling to engage with such analysis even when it has been set out in detail, as with Australia. In the 32 days since those reverts, Scottywong is the first editor who has actually tried to do so, which I deeply value, and that's why I have provided such a detailed explanation. With respect, Robert, you too could have asked such questions, but didn't. I am disappointed by that.

Scotty, thanmks again for trying to understand. I really appreciate that. There are some outstanding issues from your post of 06:35 12 November[14], where I need to clarify things a bit. I will try to do so later tonight. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:22, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind me butting in, but your explanation to Scotty was enlightening and now I have a couple questions:

1. Is your objection solely that it's hard to monitor? Do you agree/disagree that transcluding pages is better than the static subpages because (a) there's only one page you have to update (the underlying article) rather than having to update the subpages, and (b) the underlying article gets patrolled so the subpages don't have to be? (That's obviously my understanding of the benefit of direct transclusion but please correct me if I'm misunderstanding.)
2. Could the hard-to-monitor problem be solved by creating another template, which creates a monitor page (an index page) from the {{transclude random excerpt}} on any given portal? So, for example, using the Portal:Transport (permalink) example from your explanation, you'd have a page, Portal:Transport/Index that would have {{transclude random excerpt index}} (or whatever), and that template would pull the arguments from the {{transclude random excerpt}} template at Portal:Transport, and then list those pages (1=Mass Rapid Transit (Sigapore), 2=London congestion charge, etc.) with wiki-links and, e.g., the lead transcluded (or display the pictures, or whatever). Essentially, a template that automatically creates an index page like Portal:Transport/Selected articles, and populate it from the transclusion templates on the main portal page. And then that index page would allow you to see everything that was transcluded in one place. Is this a workable solution? Has it been discussed before?

Thanks, – Levivich 06:56, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

@Levivich: not butting in at all; you are very welcome, and as ever you ask important questions.

However, it's now silly o'clock here, and I need sleep. I will reply in more detail tomorrow, but for now I will just say you and to Scottywong that I strongly urge everyone to focus less on the how and more on the objectives.

I see two important objectives here:

1. to eliminating the abominable content forking which created mad forests of subpages and left portals rotting for years, and whose complexity created too big a barrier to adding articles
2. to enable scrutiny by retaining a visible, linked display of the actual live list of selected articles (under whatever heading; same applies to e.g. a "selected biographies" section or a "selected widgets" section)

NA1K's mass WP:FAITACCOMPLI achieved my objective #1, but at the price of creating a failure of my objective #2.

The choice how to achieve those objectives is a secondary matter to actually agreeing that they are both important, which has not happened. Even after a month of controversy as I asserted objective #2, NA1K yesterday tried to game the system by opening an RFC which considers only objective #1: see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Use of direct transclusion in portals and the newer portal transclusion templates.

I can think of many possible means by which those two objectives can be achieved simultaneously. I like some aspects of Portal:Wind power, because its markup is so simple. (Its display feels a a bit crude, but that's not hard to fix). It uses a kindof a reverse approach to what you suggest in your question #2. Your idea is that an index template grabs the params of the transclusion template; but the Portal:Wind power approach is that the transclusion template grabs its list from the links in a named section. AFAICS, both approaches are viable, and I am sure there are more possibilities.

Unfortunately, as usual with portal discussions, the portal fans are busy focusing on the how, not on the end goals. (Even the former featured portals process was like that; its reviews were almost entirely about the process of templates and formatting, rather than about whether the result was actually a useful overview of key aspects of the topic). If we are ever going to the point of having proper broad scrutiny of the actual contents of portals, we really need to focus on outputs rather than inputs ... and in this case, the needed output is an easily-amended, easily-scrutinised list of articles. It doesn't really matter much whether we achieve that by template:XYZ63 or by praying to the Spaghetti monster to divinely spay magic pixie dust to make it happen. (No offence intended to Pastafarians).

I had hoped that this discussion could take as part of a wider discussion about how the list of selected articles should be presented. I see at least 5 options: a) as bare list ("mega-navbox") style; b) as a bare list with random preview (e.g. Portal:Wind power); c) as a random preview with a link to a list to list on another page (as with many of the content-forked portals); d) as a random preview with no list (i.e the "black box" model which NA1K sneakily imposed on many dozens of portals); e) as an annotated list with a short description to accompany each entry. There may be more possibilities.

Then get in to what general goals should be set for the selection? e.g. what quality threshold? what importance threshold? what NPOV criteria (e.g. recentism, systemic bias)? How to handle the systemic bias which skews the eligible set of articles? etc

Instead we have a month of the portal fans being outraged at the idea of even having a visible list to allow scrutiny.

Hope that helps. But now I need my beauty sleep, or else the tourists will mistake my wrinkles for the Grand Canyon. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:55, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all of this explanation, BHG. I agree that the current RFC is far too narrow to have any real impact in the world of portals. And, I absolutely agree with your assertion that we need to focus on the outputs rather than the inputs: start with defining the goals of portals and what they're good for, and then proceed to tweaking their design to maximize those goals. This is precisely what I'm attempting to do in my userspace at User:Scottywong/Portal guideline workspace. I know you have a ton of other stuff going on, but I hope you'll join us there. And, anyone else reading this who has a sustained interest and knowledge of portals should feel welcome to join too, even if you weren't explicitly invited. ‑Scottywong| [express] || 14:54, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

BHG, do you think your concern with {{Transclude random excerpt}} can be assuaged by an edit request for that template, to propose adding a collapsed list of all listed articles? I think there is an advantage in having all titles in the base page of the portal: you can see all updates with a diff, and you can see all updates (and vandalism!) for (potentially) transcluded articles with Special:RecentChangesLinked. Nemo 17:36, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Black box gone rogue?

I think I found a good example of "black box" gone rogue. Can you confirm this kind of unexpected or unpredictable result is the kind of "feature" that makes those templates a dangerous "black box" in your eyes? I agree that a minimum we should document better how content is selected. Nemo 12:46, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Question about group of edits

Hello BHG, I hope you are well. Edits like this appear to fall within Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BHGbot 4? I was wondering why didn't you use the bot account for these? --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 03:01, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi TheSandDoctor. Hope you're well too, and thanks again for your help setting up BHGbot 4

I considered using BHGbot, but decided against, these edits were part of a series of disambiguation edits which fell outside the scope of BHGbot4: "When a portal has been deleted at MFD, remove or replace links to it which are generated by one of 4 templates". They were not a consequence of portal deletion, so don't fall within that precise scope.

What happened was that in the process of watching and checking BHGbot replace links to the deleted Portal:Paralympics with Portal:Sports, I had noticed that there were links to Portal:Sports and games, which has been a dab page since 2013. So I checked them out, and set about cleaning those up.

I did so in 154 edits in various batches using difft methods, first picking off a few simple sets which could be done with straightforward replacements, then tackling those which would create duplication. The edit which you spotted to T46 (classification) was one of what now seems to be of 25 such edits removing duplication.

Did I screw up here?

My aim was and is to use the bots for edits within its scope, but only for those within its scope.

Should I have ignored the precise scope, and said "close enough"?

Or should I have sought an amendment to BHGbot4?

It didn't seem to me to be either a big enough or sufficiently recurrent task to need the overhead of bot approval, so I went ahead and did it, as I have done a few similar tasks of disambiguation.

I would welcome your advice on whether I made the right call. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:16, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

I am doing well, thank you for asking. I am glad that we were able to bring about BHGbot4 and was happy to help. My apologies for my delayed response. I guess you are correct in regards to the scope. I was looking at "...and remove any resulting duplicates." of "Double replacement" in the BRFA and was (genuinely) curious of your thought process (no implications intended). Given the relatively low number of edits in this, you are correct. BHGBot4 was given a deliberately wide scope, but not wide enough to properly encompass that. I am quite happy to work with you on BRFAs in the future. Should this become a more common occurrence, I may be able to speedily approve it now that there is a "new" BRFA (4) and based on your track record/the uncontroversial nature of the edits, which means the process would probably take under an hour (assuming we are both online at the same time). Let me know what you think, should the time come.

Just now I took a look at a group of edits that you made and came across Special:Diff/925616749 (same with Special:Diff/925342951 etc). That one appears to fall within BHGbot4's template "Removal" and "Single replacement" clauses? --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 18:21, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks again, TheSandDoctor:

Regarding the two edits you linked to:

1. Special:Diff/925616749: was outside the scope of BHGbot4, because it was not removing the templates listed in BHGbot 4: {{Portal}}, {{Portal bar}}, {{Portal-inline}}, {{Subject bar}}, all of which provide a link to the portal from the face of the portal.
   That edit was one of a series removing from the talk page the a custom template for that portal: {{Minnesota Portal Selected Biography}}, which created a message box saying "This article was the ''[[Portal:Minnesota/Selected biography|selected biography]]'' of the [[Portal:Minnesota|Minnesota Portal]] in [[{{{1}}}]]". It was I think about the fifth instance I have encountered of such a template having been used in conjunction with a deleted portal, and quite exceptional in that it had 107 uses to remove. The other such templates that I have removed have had much lower uses, e.g. the previous one was Template:NFCA (for Portal:North Carolina), which was removed in 12 edits on 10 October. Note that two are also a month a apart: the rarity of previous instances plus the low scale of previous uses means that this type of thing didn't cross my mind as requiring bot authorisation when I lodged the BRFA. Since its authorisation only 12 days ago, BHGbot4 has done 21,367 edits, so even that exceptional set of 107 is a drop in the ocean.
   I will follow BAG guidance on whether BHGbot4 should be extended with some sort of broad addendum to the effect of "plus related tidyup", but my understanding has been that esp since the Betacommand dramas, BAG has sought to avoid authorising such fuzzily-defined bot tasks. I was a minor party in that megadrama (as a critic of Beta), but the four key lessons I took away from it were that a) bot operators must be willing to openly and civilly discuss the bot's operation; b) the task must be precisely defined; c) the bot's code should be public; d) it is v helpful for the authorisation page to be linked from edit summaries.
   I have tried to follow all four points, and would be especially uncomfortable with a more fuzzily-edged task definition, so I hope that BAG doesn't ask for that.
2. Special:Diff/925342951 was a manual (i.e. non-AWB) edit. It was one of about a dozen similar manual edits which I did as the final step of cleanup after the deletion of Portal:Indian classical music and its replacement with links to Portal:India + Portal:Music, fixing uses of {{Portal-inline}} which accepts only one parameter. This is explicitly described in some detail in the penultimate para of the "methodology" section of WP:BRFA/BHGbot 4. In this instance I didn't do my usual AWB edit to break the template by giving it two parameters, and then do a manual cleanup of the pages in Category:Portal-inline template with more than one portal parameter; I went straight to the manual edit for those cases.
   After any BHGbot run, there are nearly always a few edge cases which need manual attention, and this {{Portal-inline}} is the most common. The next most common case is the much rarer use of a HTML comment inside the template call, e.g. from memory {{Portal|United States|Aviation|Tennessee<!-- company HQ is is here -->}}. I chose not to handle these edge case in the regexes, because my tests showed that they added a lot of complexity to the regexes, which increases the risk of error. I am much more comfortable running simple code which reliably handles the overwhelming majority of cases (over over 99% in this instance), because complex code to handle exceptions is much more error-prior due its complexity, and much harder to monitor for errors due to its rarity of use.

Hope this helps. And thanks in particular for the way you have approached these issues by asking open questions in which you seek explanation, rather than launching into an accusation. That makes for a much more constructive dialogue than has been possible in other recent dramas (see e.g. the hatted as "Off topic" section in MFD:Portal:Lighthouses where two editors chose to tear into me for not using AWB to making massive scale changes for which they could demonstrate no consensus and were unwilling to seek consensus). The sort of shoot-first approach taken there is the complete opposite of your style, but the persistence of such shoot-first conduct in this field (esp from those parties) makes me very wary of running a bot with fuzzy edges. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:56, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

That does help. I think that we are good as-is, but if any of these other fixes happened to start encompassing many hundreds or thousands of changes or became frequent (edge cases not withstanding), I believe that a new BRFA would be in order (and I would be happy to work with you on that). I appreciate your willingness to answer my questions/put my mind at ease and your complement. I like to think that I am a reasonable, nice guy and live by "treat others as you'd like to be treated" as best I can . I hope that it never came across as if I was "stalking" your edits or anything (certainly not the case, but I just realized the possible perception). If you ever have any questions, please feel free to reach out! --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 04:17, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Stray cats

Can you please delete these empty categories: Category:This day in horror, Category:Lighthouses portal, Category:Minnesota portal pages, Category:Minnesota portal, Category:Basketball portal, Category:Basketball portals, and Category:National Basketball Association portal. Thanks! I'll do a check of all the portals deleted during my absence to make sure there aren't any stray categories remaining and report back here with my findings. Newshunter12 (talk) 07:37, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Category:Indian classical music portal, Category:Commonwealth Games Portal. The merge of Category:Motorsports portals to Category:Sports and games portals is not yet complete as the former category still exists. The delete result of Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Social sciences (2nd nomination) from over a month ago was never fully carried out. Will continue looking for more. Newshunter12 (talk) 08:30, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Obsolete template Template:Globalization selected pages is the only entry in Category:Globalization portal. The delete result of Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Atheism from September was never fully carried out, and likewise with the should be empty but isn't Category:Atheism portal. This one page is still in portal space, when the MfD result for Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Elbe–Weser triangle was a move to project space. Now that Portal:Zoos is gone, does the redirect Portal:Zoos/Wikimedia need to go to? I have now gone through the last of the portals deleted while I was on a break, so we're all caught up now. Newshunter12 (talk) 09:13, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Great work, @Newshunter12. I have done the first two batches, and will clean up the rest later.

And I'm sorry for not thanking you sooner for all your kindness. You have been right about a lot of things. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:18, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Empty:Category:Colonialism portal. This cat, Category:Berlin portal, ought to be empty per Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Berlin, but it isn't. I didn't give this one last time because I wasn't entirely sure what to do with it, but since the portal no longer exists, that stuff should not be linked to portal space anymore. You also passed over Category:This day in horror up above, although perhaps that category could serve as an aptly named journal or book title to document your time in portal-land.

Glad to hear you appreciate my work and statements, and that your great mind finds them worthwhile. You are very welcome. As you wade through the Wikipedia swamp, don't forget in the world about you: the sun's shining, birds are chirping across Ireland, there are books to be read, and loughs to visit. The sun will still rise tomorrow if you decide to remove your coat from the hook in Wikipedia's entry hall for the last time and move into your future without it. Newshunter12 (talk) 01:41, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Portal guideline workshop

Hi there. I'm taking it upon myself to try to moderate a discussion among Portal power users with the intention of creating a draft guideline for Portals, and I'd like to invite you to join this discussion. If you're interested, please join the discussion at User talk:Scottywong/Portal guideline workspace. Thanks. ‑Scottywong| [gossip] || 02:49, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Reply at ANI

I hope you're already feeling better. I replied to you at ANI and pinged you because that's how that thread had been going, but don't care if you never read it. Nil Einne (talk) 10:06, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

November 2019

Hello again BrownHairedGirl. You're still saying a lot of attack-y and negative things about Northamerica1000 ("sly, cunning and deceitfully selective"; "deceitful, manipulative conduct"; "manipulative scheming") in this post. And here, "I have never seen such sustained gaming of the system as that which NA1K indulges in". While these are not as egregiously bad as some of your other recent comments, it's still not appropriate and it needs to stop. Thank you, — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 00:58, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

@Diannaa: I am both fascinated and saddened that you object to me saying "I have never seen such sustained gaming of the system as that which NA1K indulges in" ... but that you don't object to the gaming of the system.

I joined Wikipedia to join in the building by consensus of a NPOV encyclopedia, which is verifiable from reliable secondary sources. If you don't see a problem with an editor who games the system and stealthily breaches NPOV, then we are here for very different purposes. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:45, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

I, and others, think you can pursue your worthwhile goals without the personal attacks on other editors or admins. You have contributed SO much to improve the project that it is unfortunate that you are unable to appreciate the negative effect of the words you use.

People are sympathetic to your work on portals and your point of view but are calling for action against you because of these attacks. They say, "We'd get blocked if we called another editor an idiot & liar, why isn't BHG getting a block?" If you cannot temper your language and make your points without all the insults, you will find you have fewer defenders at ANI and arbitration which is a shame because you are one of the admins I most admire. Truly admire. And I don't want to see action against you so I hope you can rein in your contempt for editors you clash with so the harsh words don't distract people from the merits of your valid arguments. That's all I wanted to say after reading the entire discussion on ANI yesterday. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:06, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Liz.

I was repeatedly goaded and baited into losing my temper by severe misconduct and manipulation at points when I was under a lot of stress in real life, but have steeled myself to be less WP:SPADEy. However, NA1K's repeated gaming of the system is deeply corrosive conduct, and I make no apology for challenging it. The way I have done so may not in hindsight have been the most effective, but the problem is real.

So we'll see were this lands. If sustained manipulation of Wikipedia consensus-building is going to be treated as a secondary issue, then I will have to reconsider whether I want to be part of Wikipedia any more. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:17, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Like I tried to explain to you here and here, I don't believe he *is* gaming the system. It is your opinion, your interpretation. Perhaps you believe you were goaded and baited by other people's activities, but what you describe here is not goading or baiting. People are doing things you don't agree with; that happens sometimes.

Yesterday I added some articles at Portal:Military history of Germany/Quality Content and then checked the page views for that portal. Guess what? That portal gets only 30 views per day. Even our best portals get less that a hundred views per day. My top edited article (Adolf Hitler) gets 22,330 views per day. Portals are not visible on the main page in mobile view. Mobile view is 58% of our traffic, as of March 2019, and is growing all the time, which will probably mean that portals will become even more lightly visited, because they will become invisible to even more of our readers. I offer this as some perspective on the importance of portals compared to other more productive ways you could be spending your time. Perhaps it's time to find another way to contribute. If there's a hill a person wants to die on, this ain't it. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 03:52, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

@Diannaa: you are looking at this episode in isolation. Sadly, it's part of a long, long series of efforts by NA1K to game the system.

I agree with you that portals are poorly used. I have been making that very point repeatedly for nearly a year.

What's been happening is that the portal fans first opposed the deletion of even abandoned junk portals back in Feb/March, and went into battle mode at the first hint of that, which most of them sustained right through that prolonged process. Then the scrutiny process which led to deletion of the spam led to the nomination of abandoned and neglected portals, and they continued in battle mode. Those of us supporting cleanup have been the subject of sustained abuse from a variety of portal enthusiasts.

And throughout that NA1K has been engaged in a long long series of gaming tactics. I won't go into the details all the gaming tactics used along the way, but they include misrepresenting guidelines, playing games with statistics, depopulating tracking categories, etc etc; but I will explain just one of them. At some point in the summer, NA1K began a project which some editors have now called "The Portal Rescue Crew" (TPRC), but it is mostly NA1K. The tactic used by TPRC is a variant of the gameplan of the Article Rescue Squadron (of which NA1K was a leading light until it became an issue during their RFA, when they quit mid-RFA), to take an abandoned portal with rotted content forks, convert it to use transclusions rather than sub-pages, chuck in a list of articles, and move on. I haven't got a precise tally of how many portals NA1K did this to, but from memory it was at least 70 drive-by "updates".

The problem was that TPRC used transclusions in a way which impedes scrutiny, and made no attempt to consult or even notify the relevant WikiProjects, and despite being a vocal participant in the portal project they didn't declare their activities there. Working alone, NA1K rebuilt the article lists on a huge range of portals in which they could not possibly have enough expertise to make good selections alone. And indeed, when I put the time in to work behind NA1K's barriers, and analysed the results, the quality of their work was utterly abysmal. But when such portals were brought to MFD, NA1K parroted phrases to the effect of "but the portal is maintained, and lots of new articles have been added". The gaming tactic was and is transparent: chuck lots of stuff into the cupboard and pretend it's being maintained, when the reality was akin to cinematic street set: all facade and no depth. It was very cunning and effective gaming, because it shifted the burden on those seeking deletion to scrutinise and document the hastily thrown-together lists (in the case of Ghana it took me about two hours).

The RFC trickery is just the latest episode.

But anyway, AFAICS you and a bunch of others regard this long saga of the manipulative trickery as absolutely fine, so long and as it is done without using harsh words. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:56, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

I have focused on one concern: your ongoing lack of civility and repeated verbal attacks directed at your fellow editors. The fact that I have done that does not mean that I condone someone else's behaviour. What it does mean is that your behaviour has been extremely uncivil, which is something for which you can be blocked. I will be monitoring your contribs for the next while and I will block you if I see any further extreme incivility such as verbal abuse or insulting epithets directed at a fellow editor. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 12:43, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, Diannaa. You have chosen to focus on the response to the problem, rather than the source of it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:07, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Pardon the driveby and you may remove this if you desire but responding to a problem by making another problem is not solving said problem. It's just making two problems. Perhaps if you stopped the incivility people would more easily focus on the other editor. 2001:4898:80E8:8:B913:4918:A13B:839C (talk) 22:52, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

A Comment, Gaming the System, etc.

I will try to reply to User:BrownHairedGirl and to comment on the admonitions by User:Diannaa and User:Liz. As BHG knows, I agree with BHG about portals far more often than I disagree. I think that we have too many disused stupid cruddy portals that need to be deleted, and I can now finally understand why BHG says that NA1k is gaming the system. It has been very hard for me to understand how their work on portals is gaming the system, and I still am not sure that I agree. I am inclined instead still to think that it is a deeply misguided devotion to the cause of maximizing the number of portals in the English Wikipedia. I don't know why NA1k wants so many portals. I have asked, and I haven't understood the answers, so I have concluded that their belief in portals is mystical. But a mystic deeply believes in what they believe, and they aren't gaming the system, at least not intentionally, and intention does matter.

It has taken me weeks to understand why BHG keeps reverting NA1k's edits to portals, and I still am not sure that I agree. The purpose clearly is to improve the portals, either in advance of a deletion discussion, or during a deletion discussion. So why should improvements be reverted? BHG will say that they aren't improvements. I kept seeing that the edits were black boxes. I didn't know what that meant, and I think I am a knowledgeable editor, and one who isn't afraid to look inside the black box.

The problem is that the intensity with which you, BHG, are alleging conduct violations by NA1k is distracting from your efforts to explain what they are doing wrong. If I have been having a hard time understanding what the issue is, and I am mostly looking for portals to delete, how do you expect other editors to see what you are saying? If NA1k were trying to game the system, then they might do it by first provoking a few portal critics into irrational anger to distract. Well, what I see is irrational anger. The cause of deleting portals is rational. The amount of anger isn't. One portal critic has already been indefinitely blocked for irrational anger about portals toward someone on their own side. We don't need another.

User:BrownHairedGirl - You aren't making the case effectively about gaming the system, because all that can be seen is your anger, and not a technical explanation of the issues. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:27, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

• @Robert McClenon, I am very sad to read that.

I have written about the problems so many dozens of times that I am by now sick of repeating myself. If editors choose not to read those explanations, or not to seek clarification if they are unclear, then there is little more that I can do. The failure of others to have reasoned discussion on issues raised is not my failing.

If is also untrue that BHG keeps reverting NA1k's edits to portals. I did a series of reverts on 12 October, and then stopped when an ANI thread discussion took off. Since then, the only reverts I have done have been to restore the status quo ante when NA1K's version was restored while the matter was still being actively discussed.

The substantive reasons are simple, and I will try to summarise them briefly:

1. NA1K converted the portals to a "black box" format which does not include a linked list of the articles. That significantly impedes scrutiny, for the reasons I explained ain a step-by-step account elsewhere on this page at #Help_me_understand
2. In every case that I checked, NA1K had significantly expanded the list of articles without any notification to the associated WikiProject or any other possible locus of expertise.
3. NA1K did this to dozens of portals, on a such a wide range of topics that they could not possibly have sufficient expertise to make a unilateral assessment of a set of suitable topics
4. NA1K is a vocal participant at WT:WPPORT, but made no indication in any part of that WikiProject that they were engaged in a solo massive rewrite of a large chink of portalspace
5. Analysing NA1K's list-making is time-consuming work, because NA1K has given no explanation anywhere of any selection criteria other than a fuzzy quality threshold. Attempts to engage NA1K in discussion about their selection process produced only meaningless replies, such as at MFD:Portal:Ghana, where NA1K said only I assessed these articles relative to their suitability for this portal which says precisely nothing about the criteria. That sort of response indicates either evasion or inability to comprehend the concept of selection criteria.
6. In the two cases that I have analysed, at MFD:Portal:Ghana|Ghana and MFD:Portal:Transport|Transport, the quality of NA1K's list-making has been utterly abysmal. The Ghana list former included lots of low-quality articles, the Transport list was a massive breach of NPOV.

Even now, 6 weeks after my first reverts, NA1K has accepted no responsibility for their actions, nor ever explicitly accepted that transparency of the list is essential to allow the peer evaluation on which Wikipedia relies.

Robert writes that purpose clearly is to improve the portals, either in advance of a deletion discussion, or during a deletion discussion. So why should improvements be reverted?. Simple because: because a) NA1K has made those purported "improvements" in a way which it unnecessarily hard to evaluate whether they actually are improvements; b) because those which have been checked are abysmal.

Note that my first summary explanation of the reverts was provided at ANI at 18:25 12 October 2019‎,[15] only 14 minutes after Moxy opened the ANI thread.[16]. That thread became a pile on with buckets of rage from the usual crew of portal fans ... yet you accuse me of irrational anger. I had buckets of shit poured all over my head by a lynch mob, but the same crew are now telling me that yes, portals lists do need to be transparent and easily scrutinised, and even NA1K has themself radically revised the list they made at P:Transport, acknowledging that it was indeed massively biased. So basically, thjere is now no dispute at all that I was right in substance.

The latest drama arose out of MFD:Portal:Transport|MFD:P:Transport, where NA1K created that massively biased list, and gamed the system by claiming that their choice was dictated by WP:POG. That is absurd; POG did not recommend that editors ignore NPOV, and in any case it is no longer a guideline because NA1K asked that it be no longer a guideline. You may choose to regard my anger at that as excessive, but I remain appalled at such trickery, and describing hat anger as irrational is perverse. What on earth is the point of the community having guidelines if an editor says in scrap this guideline 'cos it's junk ... and then says in effect "I broke a core policy because I was following that crap former guideline"? And NA1K's choice to describe the former guideline as a schema for advisement was just plain devious and manipulative: the plain English meaning of that pompous phrase is "guideline", so NA1K statement amounted to "it's not a guideline but it is a guideline". If you choose to describe my anger at this as irraional, then that's not a choice I admire. Not by a long way. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:14, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi BrownHairedGirl. Most of the above post is okay from a civility point of view but there's a couple of spots where improvements can be made. Please have a look at my analysis below for reasons why a couple of the things you said are not acceptable. I would appreciate it if you could accept my critique as a good faith attempt on my part to help you work towards further improvements in your discussions on other people's conduct.

• That sort of response indicates either evasion or inability to comprehend the concept of selection criteria. Saying this is not okay, because you're stating that the editor's intention was to evade, and questioning their level of intelligence.
• I remain appalled at such trickery: Again not okay, because you're stating that the editor's intention was to trick people. It's not okay to say that.
• just plain devious and manipulative Again not okay, because you're again making negative assumptions about the other editor's motives. Don't do that please.

Now here's a couple where you use strong language, but since you're speaking about the editor's actions rather than dissing him personally, these are acceptable things to say:

• the quality of NA1K's list-making has been utterly abysmal
• those which have been checked are abysmal— Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 16:50, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @Diannaa, I note yet again that you focus entirely on the forms of words used, and not on the substance of the problems which I have described. I appreciate that you genuinely believe that you are trying to help, but I have had enough of your focus on form rather than substance.

The crucial point for me is where you write that I am making negative assumptions about the other editor's motives. Not so; I am making negative judgements based on assessments of the evidence. In the first your bullet points, you don't even have the courtesy to acknowledge that I noted two possible explanations, and you offer no alternative possible explanation.

Sorry, but you have found the limit of my patience. Please do not post about this again on my talk. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:38, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I very nearly blocked you this morning when I saw that edit, but instead created the above post as a last-chance alternative. Since your response to my post is to fail to see that making judgements about other people's motives and questioning their intelligence is a personal attack, and instead doubling down on your perceived right to make these attacks, I am blocking you 31 hours for same. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 18:53, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Hatnote I added to The Progressives and Progressive Senate Group

Hi BrownHairedGirl,

Since you previously stated you focus on Irish and European political topics, among other topics and portals, and since you were that page's previous editor, I thought I'd ask you this question about The Progressives. I added what I thought would be a useful hatnote to the article and to the newly-formed Progressive Senate Group in Canada. Although the latter's name is Progressive Senate Group ("PSG"), it uses The Progressives in the first iteration of its logo. Do you think the hatnote would be useful?

Also, feel free to correct the "about" description of The Progressives if I incorrectly tagged them as being in the French lower house.

Cheers,
--Doug Mehus T·C 18:07, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

@Dmehus: I actually said that I mostly work on Irish and British politics. I do v little wider European politics.

As to the possibility of a hatnote, I favour a low threshold for inclusion of hatnotes, so I would personally support using one like in cases this where there is some ambiguity, tho not in the WP:Commonname. However, other editors favour a much higher threshold, and apply hatnotes only in a narrow set of cases. I can't recall precisely where the guidelines currently set the balance, so I will have to check. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:17, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl, Thanks. Sounds good. Yeah, I am like you with respect to low threshold for inclusion of hatnotes. I can go either way in this case. Doug Mehus T·C 19:22, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Renamed portals

Hello, how are you? Could you use the User:BHGbot to edit {{Portal}} and modify the renamed portals? Portal:Sexuality -> Portal:Human sexuality and Portal:Pornography -> Portal:Erotica and pornography.Guilherme Burn (talk) 21:37, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Also: Portal:Soccer -> Portal:Association football. Thanks! UnitedStatesian (talk) 21:46, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

• I've got the Portal:Sexuality -> Portal:Human sexuality links; the pages tend to be large and slow to load. Cheers! BD2412 T 21:56, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi Guilherme Burn

Your request is a bit unclear. You ask me to edit {{Portal}} and modify the renamed portals, but the actual change you ask for seems to me to be a matter of modifying the backlinks, rather than modifying ether the portals of {{Portal}}.

BHGbot isn't authorised to do that, tho recent discussions suggest that it would probably be a quick matter to get authorisation. However, I am surprised to see that BD2412 has started doing this in not-bot mode. Given that BD2412 was a party to a lengthy discussion where BAG member TheSandDoctor asked me to use a bot for this sort of large task, it seems to me to be very odd for an editor who wasn't asked to jump in on the request and do it without a bot.

So, @Guilherme Burn, please can you clarify: is link updating what you want? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:11, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

• TheSandDoctor's objection was to the pace of the work. I'm going slowly (and the process is somewhat slow). BD2412 T 22:27, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @BD2412: I understood TheSandDoctor's objection to be to both scale and pace. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:33, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
    • Perhaps, but there are a relatively small number of links to Portal:Sexuality (around 500, as opposed to the many thousands to be fixed for more involved portal renames or removals). BD2412 T 22:40, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
      • ~ 900 links in all, BD2412. That's about the median for the hundreds of portals I've handled this year. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:42, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
        • You are correct - I was only looking at article links. BD2412 T 00:14, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

The redirect Portal:Pornography has been deleted and as a result many links in articles to Portal:Erotica and pornography have been lost. I could just recreate the redirect, but if you can edit all the articles the links in {{portal}} would already have the correct name.Guilherme Burn (talk) 22:28, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

OK, Guilherme Burn, that's a smaller set of only 304 links, so I'll do those, tho not with the bot. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:45, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Actually, since these involve a deletion, I use the bot, even tho it's a slight stretch of BHGbot 4 since there's not an MFD involved. @BD2412: please can you leave these to the bot? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:01, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm done with my part. I only touched those that were linked to Portal:Sexuality. BD2412 T 01:10, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

User:UnitedStatesian, User:Guilherme Burn, User:BD2412, User:TheSandDoctor - What is the purpose or necessity of renaming the portals? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:55, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

This looks like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, which makes it more difficult to count the lifeboats. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:55, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon, this discussion is solely about cleaning up backlinks. There was a spate of undiscussed renamings earlier this year (mostly in April and May, if my memory is right). I objected to these being done without discussion, and since then I think all renamings have been done via WP:RM. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:44, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Okay. That's better. Yes, the renamings were in April and May. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:19, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Maybe next time, check first? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:15, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Unblock request 17 Nov 2019

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who accepted the request.

BrownHairedGirl (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

Diannaa blocked me for 31 hours, leaving only this message.[17] but no block notice. Blocks are supposed to be preventive, not punitive. This block is not only punitive, it is based on a misrepresentation of comments I wrote as personal attack, whereas they were not personal attacks according to the definitions in policy; they were in fact a reasoned comment on problematic conduct. The post to which Diannaa objects is this reply[18] by me to @Robert McClenon. Dianaa and I discussed it at User talk:BrownHairedGirl#A_Comment,_Gaming_the_System,_etc.. Diannaa objects to three of my comments in that reply to Robert: * my comment: That sort of response indicates either evasion or inability to comprehend the concept of selection criteria.
That was my comment on a post by NA1K in which NA1K had responded to my question about selection to which NA1K replied with the tautologous I assessed these articles relative to their suitability for this portal. For goodness sake, how can anyone describe the uncollaborative nature of that reply without noting that it's either evasion or a failure to grasp the concept? * my comments: I remain appalled at such trickery and just plain devious and manipulative.
That was about NA1K's choice to describe a former guideline which was deguidelined with NA1K's vocal support as a a schema for advisement, which is a verbose form of words that means exactly the same thing as "guideline". It is reminiscent of early 1980s Haigspeak, which was described in the 1941–1991 Dictionary Of Neologisms as "Language characterized by pompous obscurity resulting from redundancy, the semantically strained use of words, and verbosity".[19]
NA1K was trying to justify their controversial actions by reliance on a guideline which they themself had sought to deprecate in toto because it contained elements they believed were wrong. NA1K didn't ask for amendments to that guideline; they wanted it scrapped, made null and void. But having achieved that, NA1K was now claiming that the null-and-void document legitimated their actions. That is an attempt having their cake and eating it. What on earth is the point of delisting a guideline if the editor who sought its delisting then relies on it as if it was still a guideline? The only part of Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks#What_is_considered_to_be_a_personal_attack? which seems to me to be relevant is "Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence". I have made a conscious effort to avoid the comments on character which I made several times in the heat of the moment. My post to which Dianaa objects is a strictly a comment on conduct, and it did supply evidence. This block is contrary to policy. It amounts to an attempt to prevent me from even describing problematic conduct, and as I noted in my last reply to Dianaa,[20] Dianaa focused entirely on the forms of words used, and not on the substance of the problems which I have described. I wrote I appreciate that you genuinely believe that you are trying to help, but I have had enough of your focus on form rather than substance. WP:ADMINACCT says that "editors are free to question or to criticize administrator actions", and it seems that I have been blocked for challenging Dianaa's focus on the details of my phrasing rather than n the substance of the problematic actions which I was describing. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:41, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Accept reason:

Well, this is certainly a first for me, in my nine years plus as an administrator, reviewing a block imposed by (in my opinion) one of the best administrators we have on (in my opinion) another one of the best administrators we have. It is also if not a first, at least a very rare experience for me, lifting a block without consulting the blocking administrator. Before I give my reasons for doing so, I will mention, BrownHairedGirl, that your unblock request came nowhere near to being compliant with the guide to appealing blocks, and I have seen many an unblock request declined for that reason alone, irrespective of the merits of the block. OK, so now my comments on the block. In the edit which Diannaa gave as the reason for the block, BrownHairedGirl certainly showed her irritation, and she expressed herself in a less temperate way than would have been ideal. However, none of us always lives up to ideal standards, and her comments really did not amount to a "personal attack". However, had that been all, although I would have disagreed with the block, I would have merely expressed that opinion and invited Dianaa to comment, to give her a chance to justify her decision. However, that is not all. The block came over 19 hours after the comment which was given as the reason. That is not preventive. It would require a most extreme and exceptional kind of unacceptable edit for one edit to pose such a risk of continuation that in order to prevent such continuation the editor in question had to be blocked nineteen hours later, and this is not such a case. The block was therefore completely out of line with policy, and has to be regarded as a mistake. JBW (talk) Formerly JamesBWatson 21:16, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Being no admin I don't know whether it's OK for me to post here, and express my support for BrownHairedGirl's unblock request. Their comments in the cited conversation with Robert seemed to me (after having read the entire discussion) strictly comments on content, nothing near to ad hominems. It's an evaluation of what is going on with the edits on which BrownHairedGirl was commenting, nothing more nothing less: it is perfectly normal on a user talk page to compare the content of edits with Wikipedia's behavioural guidance, if, like it seems here, the edits seemed, to BrownHairedGirl, problematic w.r.t. that guidance. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:58, 17 November 2019 (UTC)