User talk:74.192.84.101

talkpage TOC
dummy placeholder for TOC Awright, pilgrim. You can TOC the talk. But can you walk the wok? — John Wayne

the tale of Barek and the multiple-hidden-HTML-comments

testing. ((Vandalism information|prefix=User:Barek/|align=)) replaced double-squigglies with double-parens. Naughty barek, naughty. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:38, 9 November 2013 (UTC) June 2013 Welcome to Wikipedia. Please refrain from engaging in a general discussion of the topic in the article page as you did in Federal Reserve Note. Instead, use the appropriate talk page. Please remember that talk pages are for discussion related to improving the article, not general discussion about the topic. Please refrain from doing this in the future. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 03:48, 28 June 2013 (UTC) If this is a shared IP address, and you did not make the edits, consider creating an account for yourself so you can avoid further irrelevant notices. Hi Barek. I agree with all your points. But did you actually look at my edit, and at the prior version? The article already had HTML comments embedded in the bottom of one of the paragraphs, particularly instructing me *not* to make the edit -- addition of citation needed tag -- that I was about to make.  :-) So, I responded in kind, with a second html comment, at the end of which I suggested we take our discussion to the talk-page of the article, work out the correct form that the article should take, and then eliminate the inline HTML comments. When I attempted to copy my stuff into the talk-page, I started getting fatal errors (large portions of wikipedia were down for the last 30 mins or thereabouts). 74.192.84.101 (talk) 05:31, 28 June 2013 (UTC) Looks like your timezone is California, and since it is nearly midnight there, you might be asleep, and thus your watchlist alarm not helping me. Anyways, I guess I'll try to proceed without additional guidance... my current plan is to put some info in the talk-page of the FeRN article, and then insert the ((citation-needed)) tag again into the article itself, but skip the addition of the second HTML comment. However, the original HTML comment -- by an unknown prior editor who apparently got tired of citation-needed tags being added to their pet paragraph -- will still remain embedded in the article body, per the most recent edit by Barek. Let me know if you wanted it to happen some other way. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 06:18, 28 June 2013 (UTC) Sorry, yes, it was late here and I had gone to bed. Feel free to write up your concerns on the article talk page. My sole concern was the back/forth discussion forming in hidden text - it clutters article pages and can be hard to track down later to clean-up. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:53, 28 June 2013 (UTC) Well, I agree that using hidden-HTML-comments is the wrong way to discuss an article... and that the talk-page is the correct place for such discussions. I even said those exact things, if memory serves, in my own hidden-HTML-comment, namely that we (myself and the still-anonymous author(s) of the original hidden-HTML-comment) should take this to the talk-page, and then rewrite the paragraph so that it would no longer need HTML-comments, with luck. So I'm sort of at a loss of how you are suggesting I proceed. If I just add cite-needed tags, as I originally intended to do, I am violating the stern instructions of the existing hidden-HTML-comment ... which you left in there, during your revert. Was that intentional, i.e. you think the orig hidden-HTML-comment belongs there, and were merely objecting to my addition of a second hidden-HTML-comment? I can see how that is a valid stance to take: too many hidden-HTML-comments constitutes clutter, but one short one is okay. Or, was your reversion to the immediate prior article-version more a decision of convenience, and if you had more time you would have erased the existing hidden-HTML-comment, to which I was responding? I can also see how *that* would be a valid stance to take: any hidden-HTML-comments, regardless of length, are Bad(tm). Personally, I would lean towards the former stance, since although wiki-editors *should* check the talk-page before making edits, most of them will not, so sometimes a brief hidden-HTML-comment that all editors will most likely see during their actual editing operations makes sense. That said, the *particular* hidden-HTML-comment that currently exists at the FeRN article is certainly not NPOV, and needs a rewrite for correctness and politeness, if not outright elimination. Anyways, I don't know if you have the time or interest in reading the actual comments, or my post to the talk-page about the details of this actual edit. If so, that's fine. But in any case, I'd please like to know your personal stance (or the general consensus of wikipedia editors if such a thing exists) on whether all hidden-HTML-comments are Bad(tm), or if sometimes they are acceptable, if kept short and sweet, and recent edit-war history justifies their existence. If they are sometimes okay, is there a template for them, which is reasonably polite and neutral, something like this: " (!-- note as of yyyy-mm-dd added by wiki_username_goes_here , BEFORE editing this paragraph please read the 'mcculloch' subsection of the talk-page for this article, which can be done by clicking the 'talk' button at the top of the article --) " Thanks for your assistance. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:57, 28 June 2013 (UTC) Talkpage is a graveyard, as expected... also as expected, my changes in mainspace were later 'cleaned' up a bit... destroying some of my point... by editors that failed to check the talkpage. Such is wikilife. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:38, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

the tale of xLinkBot

September 2013 Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, your addition of one or more external links to the page KOffice has been reverted. Your edit here to KOffice was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove links which are discouraged per our external links guideline. The external link(s) you added or changed (http://userbase.kde.org/KOffice/Download) is/are on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. If you were trying to insert an external link that does comply with our policies and guidelines, then please accept my creator's apologies and feel free to undo the bot's revert. However, if the link does not comply with our policies and guidelines, but your edit included other, constructive, changes to the article, feel free to make those changes again without re-adding the link. Please read Wikipedia's external links guideline for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! --XLinkBot (talk) 02:53, 17 September 2013 (UTC) If this is a shared IP address, and you didn't make the edit, please ignore this notice. Dear XLinkBot, thank you for you attempted assistance. In this case, your revert was incorrect, and I will be attempting to undo it -- however, as I edit from an IP, that will potentially fail. Any admins that may be interested, please see explanation below. XLinkBot, you of course may also see the explanation below, though your regex parser may not be capable of grokking it. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 04:48, 17 September 2013 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=KOffice&diff=573248778&oldid=573248351 Edited some weasel-words on koffice intro paragraph; revised the paragraph to give facts only, with a raw link used as a cite. Came back later with additional stuff to include, noticed XLinkBot reversion. The bot claims my external link is blacklisted with a regex for userbase.kde.org, however that particular regex does not appear in either of these blacklistings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist Maybe I'm just not understanding where the bot pulls rules from? Or maybe the bot has a cached rule... but the bot's code might also just be plain buggy. As for the article content, and the merit of using the link I cited, the Official External Link for the project is currently down, and has been for 12 months now, according to content already in the koffice article. Specifically, I cited the 'personal' blogpage of the 'KOffice' username at KDE. Koffice project was tied to the KDE project, which is a subproject of various Linux operating system distros (and koffice is thus a sub-sub-project). The page in question was a wiki-page discussion the fork of koffice_original into koffice_next and calligra, as of koffice_original v2.3 -- and in particular says that whether the One True Successor of koffice_original v2.3 was (as of 2010 or 2011 when the cited text was presumably written) still up in the air. That sort of factoid seems relevant, to give context to what I had written, so I used the citation in good faith. I was lazy, and did not wrap it in ref-tags, but just jammed it in between square-brackets. In any case, although it is conceivable that the 'koffice' username at kde.org was *not* in fact edited by the development-team behind koffice, and that it was a mere sockpuppet or whatever, seems unlikely based on my reading of the content at said link. I'll go ahead and try and re-insert my edit, to see what the XLinkBot does if I wrap the ext-link in ref-tags. Should that fail, I'll go ask for whitelisting, per User:XLinkBot/FAQ. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 04:48, 17 September 2013 (UTC) Hello, I'm XLinkBot. I wanted to let you know that I removed an external link you added to the page Yellowdog Updater, Modified, because it seemed to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page, or take a look at our guidelines about links.   Your edit here to Yellowdog Updater, Modified was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove links which are discouraged per our external links guideline. The external link(s) you added or changed (https://gregdekspeaks.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/our-friend-seth) is/are on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. If you were trying to insert an external link that does comply with our policies and guidelines, then please accept my creator's apologies and feel free to undo the bot's revert. However, if the link does not comply with our policies and guidelines, but your edit included other, constructive, changes to the article, feel free to make those changes again without re-adding the link. Please read Wikipedia's external links guideline for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! --XLinkBot (talk) 23:15, 27 September 2013 (UTC) If this is a shared IP address, and you didn't make the edit, please ignore this notice. Welcome back XLinkBot. Nice to see you again. The link you complain about is to wordpress, and in fact was a personal blog, giving some historical details about a particular software project. I don't have time to verify the content of each relevant sentence in the blogpost, by digging up a reliable source which says the same thing, so I just put the link into the talkpage, in case somebody else wants to make the effort. I understand that you have wikipedia's best interests in mind, and are trying to prevent people from posting heresay and rumors. However, might I suggest that you are a bit annoying in your mechanism? Rather than simply revert my addition, and automatically notify me on my personal talkpage, why not go the extra mile and put my attempted revision onto the article's talkpage? That would save me the trouble. Methinks that most editors prolly just give up, which means their attempted cite is effectively lost. Not good! On the other hand, most editors do not talk things over with you like this, now do they, XLinkBot? I'm being nice to you -- I'm willing to work with you -- I'll even patch your code myself, if need be.  :-) Anyways, I'll put this note over on your talkpage, in case you... or some of your puppet-masters in the shadowy background, if I were one to indulge in conspiracy theories... might want to mull this idea over. In the meantime, all the best to you and your robotic family. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:18, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

the tale of dynamic addressing

Cable ISP users I saw your post and you mentioned the IP lease for cable modem operators. If you look inside your router you should see the assigned IP address and the lease time for it from your ISP. Don't lift it up and shine a light into the holes. :) Mine is a seven day lease time from Rogers Cable. This is the minimum time I could possibly change IP addresses if I didn't use it for that length of time. It doesn't happen often without abstaining and resetting it or something like that. 174.118.141.197 (talk) 12:34, 28 September 2013 (UTC) I'm a little further south, but yeah, the DHCP lease-time is theoretically a few days here as well. In practice, though, the cable segments are relatively static (market saturation) nowadays, so I get the same IP for a very long time. Years now, methinks, which strongly suggests the cable folks are mapping the modem-mac-address to a preferred-IP, or using a shared-outbound-gateway for everybody on the segment (both the former and the latter are true where I am right now if I'm grokking their setup correctly). But I don't always edit from the same location, so even when router#1 is saving my edits under IP#1, on the weekend I might be editing from router#2 with IP#2. Don't think it has ever caused me a communications-mishap, as far as wiki-editing goes. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:44, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

the tale of after-action-review for AC4BF_EU_PS4
Talkback Hello, 74.192.84.101. You have new messages at Besieged's talk page. Message added 17:37, 11 October 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. besiegedtalk 17:37, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

the tale of the perception of injustice

Ban-hammer case study -- Silktork and Op47 versus Ahnoneemoos Information about a recent banning incident, which I happened to run across. history of edits to mayors of puerto rico and pages nearby Some notes while going through the edit history. Here is a case where Thief12, back in Feb'12, had been doing some sandbox-style editing in the main article.[1] Every city-name was 'Adjuntas' in some earlier edits, and then they went through the list, editing the citynames to reflect all 100 of them. This sort of editing turned into a problem a few months later, when Mercy11 and Ahnon began their revert-war. Before starting the session, they put a hidden html comment in which said "will finish later".[2] Entire sections were still being added as of February 12th in 2011.[3] The initial work was completed by mid-February, almost single-handedly by Thief12. They came back in March, to change from a named politician to 'vacant' for one of the cities. Mercy11, who would figure prominently in Nov'12 war, put cn-tags in April... a few months later, Thief12 came back, adding the citation in August. This was the last time Thief12, the one who did the bulk of the work on creating it, ever edits the page (of the "main" article at least). The article at this stage was 1150 words. In november of that year, Ahnon shows up, and immediately starts making significant edits. Later, Thief12 joins in as well (on the subpage). aug'12 nov'12 oct'13 1150 1635 1500-word article 30 92 122-word summary 0 309 279-word bkgd 54 same 143-word powers & reqs 251 same 231-word removal & election 783 783 519-word list one 0 109 0-word list two 42 37(bug) 212-word refs Meta-work: multiple issues unreferenced incomplete ... cited themselves for awkwardness of added language twice :-) replaced the list of 'old' mayors with a shorter list of redlinks, connecting to TBD-articles on each town e.g. Mayor_of_San_Juan,_Puerto_Rico. Moved the former content to a new location, List Of Current Mayors Of Puerto Rico. cited themselves with incomplete must include all the current mayors (five were listed of about a hundred). Removed one ref, P. de la C. 2684, the one added by Thief12 in response to Mercy11's cn-tag. Maybe the removal was accidental? Other 4 refs carefully retained (despite split). changed some categories around. Over on the split-page, created for the purpose, tagged it for inline cites, unclear cite-style, insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject, no lead section. Here is the page that Ahnon split off, when they rewrote the original by Thief12. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_current_mayors_of_Puerto_Rico&action=history] 15:18 12oct'13‎ SilkTork m 35 -16326‎ Reverted edits by Ahnoneemoos (talk) to last version by SilkTork 14:21 12oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos 16361 +16326‎ rv: there was no discussion to merge this; the RFC held at Talk:Mayoralty in Puerto Rico is about an WP:EMBED; if you want to merge this open a new discussion specifically for this 18:08 11oct'13‎ SilkTork ‎ 35 -3‎ update 18:05 11oct'13‎ SilkTork ‎ 38 -16323‎ merge to Mayoralty in Puerto Rico per consensus 15:06 18jun'13‎ 214.25.29.6 ‎ 16361 0‎ 00:34 24jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16361 -3‎ →‎Mayors 02:30 22jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16364 +6‎ →‎Mayors 01:53 22jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16358 -146‎ removing "issues" tag. I think they are all resolved (merging wasn't approved, I added the lede, which offers all the needed info on the subject, I think) 20:15 21jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16504 0‎ changing date when he took office to right one 17:14 21jan'13‎ Puertorriq'‎y 16504 +12‎ 06:00 21jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16492 +84‎ →‎Mayors: added dates of taking office 05:42 21jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16408 +12‎ →‎Mayors 05:42 21jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16396 +12‎ →‎Mayors 05:39 21jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16384 +7‎ →‎Mayors 03:54 21jan'13‎ 70.45.67.250 ‎ 16377 -6‎ 14:42 20jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16383 +31‎ →‎Mayors 14:24 20jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16352 0‎ →‎Mayors 14:07 20jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16352 +56‎ →‎Mayors: trying to go with specific dates 03:31 20jan'13‎ Puertorriq'y ‎ 16296 +50‎ →‎Mayors 01:55 20jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16246 +67‎ →‎Mayors 01:52 20jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16179 +143‎ →‎Mayors: added links to lists of specific municipalities 01:49 20jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 16036 +42‎ →‎Mayors: modified table to cleaner look 00:23 20jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15994 +250‎ 20:18 19jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15744 +120‎ 04:55 19jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15624 +504‎ 12:46 17jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15120 +28‎ 02:10 17jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15092 0‎ 21:49 16jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15092 +5‎ 12:30 16jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15087 +7‎ 16:58 14jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15080 +7‎ 16:13 14jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15073 -307‎ updated list as of 2013 15:46 14jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15380 +190‎ added intro 11:33 14jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15190 +7‎ 19:44 11jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15183 +7‎ 21:42 10jan'13‎ Thief12 ‎ 15176 +18‎ 04:50 4jan'13‎ Andrewman327‎m 15158 -64‎ clean up of articles listed as "needing cleanup" using AWB (8759) 06:49 13dec'12‎ Bearcat ‎ 15222 +45‎ added Category:Lists of current office-holders using HotCat 07:25 1dec'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 15177 +100‎ t 13:31 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos 362 +237‎ →‎Merge to Mayoralty in Puerto Rico: new section 18:29 29nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎ 15077 +57‎ Added {{merge to}} tag to article (TW) 21:43 28nov'12‎ Good Olfact ‎ 15020 -30‎ −Category:Puerto Rico-related lists; ±Category:Mayors of places in Puerto Rico→Category:Lists of mayors of places in Puerto Rico using HotCat 21:42 28nov'12‎ Good Olfact ‎ 15050 +40‎ +Category:Puerto Rico-related lists; ±Category:Mayors of places in Puerto Rico using HotCat 21:00 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos 15010 +3453‎ 20:40 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11557 -1696‎ 20:36 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 13253 +171‎ 20:33 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 13082 +36‎ →‎References 20:32 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 13046 +3‎ →‎References t 20:32 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos 121 +121‎ ←Created page with '{{WikiProject Puerto Rico|class=list|importance=top}} {{split to|page=Mayoralty in Puerto Rico|date={{date|2012-11-28}}}}') 20:31 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 13043 +13043‎ ←Created page with '{{multiple issues| {{new page}} {{format footnotes|{{subst:DATE}}}} {{citation style|{{subst:DATE}}}} {{context|{{subst:DATE}}}} {{lead missing|{{subst:DATE}}}} ...') Over on the split-page, Ahnon naughtily deleted some info -- the day of the election, plus also the less-naughty manually-hardcoded number of years served.[4]. By december 1st, having re-colorized the table, and added a legend, the split-page was finished. A month later, mid-January, we see Thief12 has returned. They inserted a politician-BLP-link, added a couple maiden names, and put a top-sentence as the lead. "This is a list of mayors currently in office in 78 the municipalities of Puerto Rico. The list includes the year the mayor was sworn in, and the party to which they are affiliated." A bit later, Thief12 updated the names to reflect the 2013 election results... historical mayors were simply deleted, unfortunately. By 19th January, the top paragraph was updated to say: "The following is a list of incumbent mayors of the 78 municipalities of Puerto Rico. There are currently 46 mayors affiliated with the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), while the remaining 32 are affiliated with the New Progressive Party (PNP). The longest tenured mayor in the island is the mayor of Manatí, Juan Aubín Cruz Manzano. Cruz has been serving as mayor since being elected at the 1976 general election. The current term ends in January of the 2017, following the 2016 general election. The notation (retiring) indicates that the current mayor has announced their intention not to seek re-election at the end of the term or to run for another office. [[Image:Puerto Rico municipalities per party 2013.gif|thumb|300px|Party control of municipalities after 2012 general election. Mayor from the PPD. Mayor from the PNP" (nice map). Later, after recolorizing the table back the other way (sigh), Thief12 added a column for 'past mayors' and created livelinks for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mayors_of_Mayag%C3%BCez,_Puerto_Rico and 2 or 3 others. They also began updating the table to once again show the day (not just the year) on which some of the mayors were elected, with help from Puerto'q'y. (double sigh) At the end of the session, removed the multi-issues tag ("no merge"). Several months later, in June, IP 214 dropped in to fix the score: it was 47 to 31, not 46 to 32. That was it, no further changes. Out of nowhere, with no talkpage discussion (on this article anyhoo), SilkTork deleted the entire page in favor of this: #REDIRECT Mayoralty-or-Mayors in Puerto Rico This was 18:05-or-18:08 on Oct 11th 2013. "merge to Mayoralty in Puerto Rico per consensus". The following day, at 14:21 oct 12th, ahnon resurrected it: "there was no discussion to merge this; the RFC held at Talk:Mayoralty in Puerto Rico is about an WP:EMBED; if you want to merge this open a new discussion specifically for this". Within an hour, SilkTork came back, but first blocked Ahnon -- 15:07, 12 October 2013 SilkTork blocked Ahnoneemoos 'account creation blocked' with an expiry time of 60 hours -- Disruptive editing. Then, a few minutes later, at 15:18 SilkTork deleted it once more: "m -- Reverted edits by Ahnoneemoos to last version by SilkTork". 16:32, 13 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+265)‎ . . User talk:Ahnoneemoos ‎ (→‎October 2013) (current) 16:11, 13 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+1,417)‎ . . User talk:Ahnoneemoos ‎ (→‎October 2013) 15:45, 13 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+161)‎ . . User talk:Ahnoneemoos ‎ (→‎October 2013) 03:28, 13 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+852)‎ . . User talk:Ahnoneemoos ‎ (→‎October 2013) 14:41, 12 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+4)‎ . . User talk:Thief12 ‎ (→‎Mayors of Puerto Rico) (current) 14:40, 12 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+657)‎ . . Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Puerto Rico ‎ (→‎Mayors of Puerto Rico and the list of current mayors: new section) 14:39, 12 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+622)‎ . . User talk:Thief12 ‎ (→‎Mayors of Puerto Rico: new section) 14:34, 12 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (0)‎ . . Wikipedia:Navigation templates ‎ (→‎Navigation templates provide navigation between existing articles) (current) 14:34, 12 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+110)‎ . . N Wikipedia:EXISTING ‎ (←Redirected page to Wikipedia:Navigation templates#Navigation templates provide navigation between existing articles) (current) 14:33, 12 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+3,803)‎ . . Template:Mayoralties in Puerto Rico ‎ (Undid revision 576754390 by SilkTork (talk) rv: WP:EXISTING is an essay; not a policy nor a guideline; reverting per WP:REDLINK which is an official guideline) 14:31, 12 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+385)‎ . . User talk:SilkTork ‎ (→‎Your actions related to Mayoralty in Puerto Rico: new section) 14:29, 12 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+58)‎ . . Talk:Mayors in Puerto Rico ‎ (→‎Threaded discussion) 14:28, 12 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+788)‎ . . Talk:Mayors in Puerto Rico ‎ (→‎Threaded discussion) 14:22, 12 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (-1,359)‎ . . Talk:Mayors in Puerto Rico ‎ (rv: per WP:RFC in order to allow the discussion to extend up to 30 days since so few people have participated) 14:21, 12 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+16,326)‎ . . List of current mayors of Puerto Rico ‎ (rv: there was no discussion to merge this; the RFC held at Talk:Mayoralty in Puerto Rico is about an WP:EMBED; if you want to merge this open a new discussion specifically for this) 14:20, 12 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (-9,907)‎ . . Mayors in Puerto Rico ‎ (rv: per WP:RFC in order to allow the discussion to extend up to 30 days since so few people have participated) 13:54, 11 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+1,482)‎ . . User talk:Ahnoneemoos ‎ (→‎Talk:Mayoralty_in_Puerto_Rico) 03:57, 11 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+231)‎ . . User talk:Ahnoneemoos ‎ (→‎Talk:Mayoralty_in_Puerto_Rico) 00:31, 10 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (-2,053)‎ . . Puerto Rico State Agency for Emergency and Disaster Management ‎ (rv: new information is incorrect) (current) 12:03, 9 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (-1)‎ . . m Talk:List of theaters in Ponce, Puerto Rico ‎ (current) 11:54, 9 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (-15)‎ . . Template:WikiProject Puerto Rico participants ‎ 11:53, 9 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+252)‎ . . Template:WikiProject Puerto Rico participants ‎ 11:39, 9 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+115)‎ . . Talk:Economy of Puerto Rico ‎ 11:38, 9 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+37)‎ . . Talk:History of women in Puerto Rico ‎ (current) 11:33, 9 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (-17)‎ . . History of women in Puerto Rico ‎ (→‎Journalists) 02:58, 9 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+2,927)‎ . . User talk:Maryana (WMF) ‎ (→‎Motivations behind editing Wikipedia) 04:52, 8 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+22)‎ . . m User:Maryana (WMF) ‎ (current) 04:32, 8 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+51)‎ . . m Economy of Puerto Rico ‎ (→‎Current economy) (current) 04:26, 8 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+611)‎ . . Economy of Puerto Rico ‎ (→‎Current economy) 04:10, 8 October 2013 (diff | hist) . . (+33)‎ . . Juan Eugenio Hernández Mayoral ‎ (→‎External links) (current) Posted on Ahnoneemoos's talkpage == 20:55, 10 October 2013 (UTC) == Talk:Mayoralty_in_Puerto_Rico. I really must protest at the way you are handling this page. You do not own this article. Every time anyone makes an input, you dismiss it as an opinion (e.g. 1) and yet you feel entitled to state your opinions as fact here 2. Just because I have come to a different conclusion to you, it doesn't mean I am unfamiliar with policies. To make this kind of an assertion without evidence is a WP:Personal attack. In any case, it is you who is not reading or understanding the policies. To make it worse, you are the one that is not familiar with policies. You even have a link on your user page, the relevant policy is ignore all rules. When you have calmed down, removed this attack and started to treat me like a human being then I will try and explain why, but at present I am sick of the ascription to me of views that I do not hold followed by a personal attack. You raise examples of other articles to support your view 3 and then when I refuted your claim that these examples support your view, you accuse me of WP:OSE4. You acuse me of making changes to your comments when I have done no such thing and yet you have changed my comments : 5 I don't know what passes for civilised language in Puerto Rico, but the language that you have used here 6 is unacceptable. I am just trying to come to a civil resolution of the problem, as others have before me. I am sorry to say, that you come over as being a bully, a filibuster. Op47 (talk) reply seven hours later == 03:57, 11 October 2013 (UTC) == Please do not contact me directly ever again. If you have an issue with the way I reply to you on Wikipedia go to WP:ANI. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) Posted on Ahnoneemoos's talkpage == SilkTork ✔Tea time 11:59, 11 October 2013 (UTC) == Your talkpage is an appropriate place to deal with concerns regarding your communications; however, if you don't like Op47 raising the matter with you, then allow me to discus it with you. It seems you are not aware of it, but you are being incivil. It would be helpful if you adjusted your tone and VOLUME, and listened more closely to what people are telling you. I see you adopting an attitude whereby you feel that you can ignore the views of others (per WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT) because you feel that you can be bold. Under WP:BRD the process is that you can be bold - but if you are reverted and the consensus is that you are wrong, then you need to accept that and move along. The consensus appears to be that it is not appropriate to have a list of the current mayors of Puerto Rico in two different places. Two possible solutions have been proposed - either have a standalone list, or merge the standalone list into the main article. Your preferred solution of maintaining two separate lists has not gained any agreement. The discussion now needs to move on to which of the two proposed solutions are best: a single list in a standalone article, or a single list in a merged article. I hope you will be able to look back over the discussion with a neutral eye, and take on board what I am saying. reply two hours later == 13:54, 11 October 2013 (UTC) == I didn't know that volume could be transmitted through text. Please WP:AGF and leave any preconceptions you may have when coming in. Having said that, WP:BRD does not apply here as there was no consensus reached in the initial discussion. Like I already said in the talk page, and perhaps you should have read that before wasting my time here, when no consensus is reached the initial change must be reincorporated into the article per WP:BEBOLD. Second, it seems you are confusing WP:POLL versus WP:CONSENSUS. Consensus is based on POLICIES, not on opinions. So far no one has been able to provide which POLICY this content style violates. However, I have provided SIX guidelines that asserts CLEARLY AND EXPLICITLY that such style is MORE THAN FINE and USED ALREADY ON WIKIPEDIA. The discussion doesn't need to move anywhere since it's pointless. Just because four people raised their hand and said, "i don't like that" that doesn't establish consensus. Please feel free to rebuke my arguments on the article's talk page rather than here. I hope you are able to look into this impartially and through the lenses of Wikipedia policies as established in WP:CONSENSUS. Please refrain from posting about this matter on my Talk page again and move this conversation to the article's talk page instead. I hope too, that you take on board what I'm saying. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) banned twenty-six hours later == An abrasive and uncollegiate attitude makes collaborative editing difficult. You have been informed by several people that your views and attitude are not acceptable. You have been informed that your obstructive manner on Mayors in Puerto Rico is not acceptable. I closed the RfC per consensus. Reverting that close, and then restoring the article to your preferred version, is against the principles of collaborative and consensus editing on Wikipedia. Being bold does not trump all else. I have blocked you for 60 hours as this is your second block. Please take this time to reflect on your behaviour. If when you return to Wikipedia you again engage in incivil or obstructive behaviour it is likely that you will be blocked again, and the next time will be longer. SilkTork ✔Tea time 15:15, 12 October 2013 (UTC) content copied from SilkTork The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. Your actions related to Mayoralty in Puerto Rico Hi, The actions you performed regarding Mayoralty in Puerto Rico and List of current mayors of Puerto Rico have been reverted. Please see the rationale at Talk:Mayors of Puerto Rico and join the discussion there. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 14:31, 12 October 2013 (UTC) User has been blocked for disruptive and abrasive behaviour. SilkTork ✔Tea time 18:08, 12 October 2013 (UTC) Thankyou Silk Tork. Not only did you have a quick look as I asked, but totaly sorted out the problem. Please accept this barn star to add to your collection. Op47 (talk) 18:01, 13 October 2013 (UTC) The Special Barnstar For completely solving an otherwise insoluble problem Op47 (talk) 18:01, 13 October 2013 (UTC) Thank you - I always appreciate a barn star. SilkTork ✔Tea time 18:14, 13 October 2013 (UTC) Hi Op47, if SilkTork does not mind, I would also like your input on my questions below; I saw you were one of the editors warring with Ahnoneemoos. Did you call in an admin back during the Nov'12 portion as well? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:06, 13 October 2013 (UTC) Are you dead certain you did not just ban the only editor doing any work on that article? Hope that got your attention.  :-) I was reading one of Ahnoneemoos's ... err... okay, this is a talkpage, please don't give me trouble about the posessive. Now where was I... rare essays published in the passive voice by Ahnoneemoos on the reasons that the number of wikipedia editors was declining, and had just finished writing up an mini-essay on how Bad Cops were misusing their ban hammers, when I visited Ahnone.... the talkpage owned by Ahnoneemoos and saw that Right This Instant they were involved in a dispute with yourself, and that you had given them a timeout, to sit in the corner and think about what they had done. Well, *that* seemed like an ironic twist. So, I did a little reading and tried to figure out the situation. If you don't mind, I'd like to talk it over here with you, and get your motivations, and your take on the idea that reverts and ban-hammers are actually *not* the best way to grow the number of contributors to wikipedia articles. As opposed to, say, meta-discussions *about* wikipedia articles, or meta-meta-discussions about theoretically *editing* wikipedia articles by hypothetical editors that may or may not exist, in the reasonably near future, if driven away. WP:BITE is the key here. I have plenty more to say, but in case you are available on wikipedia this weekend, I will go ahead and submit this, to give you a heads-up that somebody is chatting your direction. Thanks. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:38, 13 October 2013 (UTC) If a user is being abrasive, uncooperative, and disruptive, and rather than responding to consensus and reason they continue to behave as though everyone who disagrees with them is wrong, then yes they get blocked in order to allow collaborative work to continue. I don't think this particular user quite understands what they are doing wrong, and that concerns me. SilkTork ✔Tea time 17:55, 13 October 2013 (UTC) Sure! Umm.. wait. Citation needed. Abrasive? Uncooperative? Disruptive? Is two against one consensus? Is it possible that everyone who disagrees with them, on some talkpage about some article about the mayors of a small island, way off in the boonies (figuratively speaking -- no offense to puerto rico -- I'm just talking about the lack of attention the article receives) of wikipedia, is in fact ... pause... The Consensus ... of all right-thinking beings in the universe? I agree they don't understand what they did wrong. Neither do I. Please explain to me as if I was not involved. I wasn't, but that's beside the point. Wikipedia is not a kindergarten. You cannot put somebody in timeout just because they were failing to act like a well-behaved kindergartener, standing in line, doing as they are told. From my cursory look at the dispute, I'm leaning towards Ahnoneemoos having policy on their side. How were they wrong, exactly? Honest question. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:03, 13 October 2013 (UTC) [edit conflict -- I will read and respond to you above in a jiff.] First off, I will start off by pointing out that you and Ahnoneemoos have conflicting philosophies about our mutual purpose, here. #1A. "We are not the internet, we are an encyclopaedia." --SilkTork #1B. "Wikipedia should be the sum of all human knowledge." --Ahnoneemoos (more or less exact cite) #2A. "Every word we add to Wikipedia matters." --SilkTork #2B. "Every word we DO NOT add to Wikipedia matters." --Ahnoneemoos, kinda sorta, taking some creative liberty with their true thoughts #3A. "Deletionist: someone who is willing to revert and ban over a single not-quite-right word." --SilkTork, *very* rough caricature, taking significant creative liberty with their true thoughts #3B. "Inclusionist: every bit of knowledge is worth saving, even if we edit it out later." --Ahnoneemoos, *somewhat* rough caricature, taking some creative liberty with their true thoughts I definitely lean more inclusionist (albeit with a strong dose of law&order to fight vandals and spammers and other unsavory characters). I am 100% with Ahnoneemoos about #2B (otherwise I would be against an *open* encyclopedia and prefer Nupedia/Citizendium/etc). As for #1A, I'm 100% with SilkTork there; Ahnoneemoos is flat wrong... but it is a somewhat subtle distinction. Arguably, wikipedia ought to cover every major branch of knowledge, deeply and substantively. WP:NOTPAPER Actually, when the web was young, *I* thought that is what it would become... now that I'm older, I see my mistake, and use wikipedia as a substitute for what I hoped the internet would turn out to be.  :-) 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:59, 13 October 2013 (UTC) I totally embrace different, including conflicting, viewpoints. What I cannot embrace is abrasive and uncooperative behaviour. SilkTork ✔Tea time 18:06, 13 October 2013 (UTC) Well, you are more intellectually flexible than me. I like to think of things in terms of right, and wrong. Ahnoneemoos is wrong that wikipedia should include everything there is. WP:EVERYTHING I'm not sure whether you were wrong to ban them, or not, but I intend to find out. This is of interest to me in a more general sense -- I think that part of the trouble wikipedia experiences with getting new editors involved, and new admins involved, is that current admins are too free with the ban hammer. I'm not saying that is the case here, but I would like to use this one as a case-study, to probe your thinking on where exactly that line is. I mean, if I tell you that you are wrong, and that every word we add to wikipedia does *not* matter, that's not being abrasive. I could sugar it up, and say, well, you are entitled to your point of view, and I like you as a person, but I think I would have to suggest that maybe your assertion is too strong? Gag. "Some people say weasel words are great!" To quote your userpage.  :-) 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:11, 13 October 2013 (UTC) I think if you don't find that user abrasive and uncooperative, then I think we have to agree to differ, and I don't think I will be engaging further in this conversation. SilkTork ✔Tea time 18:18, 13 October 2013 (UTC) Well, it is certainly your right to refuse to discuss you actions. But it seems a poor way to run a railroad. You were just involved in some case about the Ayn Rand article, which you closed by pointing out that sometimes people make mistakes. You seemed to have the right idea, there. Of course, there *is* a right and a wrong way to write the article in question -- either the lady is a philosopher, or she is not. Either she is from Russia -- the previous edit war on that article -- or she is not. But your decision was about administrative penalty for behavior, not about article-content. That is also your position here, with Ahnoneemoos: that you are administering a specific penalty for specific behavior, rather that blocking them so you get your way in the article. If enough people were to become interested in the article, and decide that the proposal to maintain two separate lists was more kosher, then you would go along with the consensus. Be that as it may, your criteria seem to indicate that you did not hear me the first time, so allow me to repeat: I was not involved. I have never edited with Ahnoneemoos before. How could I find them abrasive or uncooperative? All I've done is read one of their userpage essays, and look through the edit-history of their conflict with you and Op47 and Mercy11 and Timtrent and a bunch of other people. Reading the *contents* of the 25-kilobyte talkpage, and the 10-kilobyte-or-so of article content, which the edit war concerned, is something I'll do if you absolutely insist... or you can just give me the 100-word summary. I'm not the inquisition, here to get your confession, or else. But I *do* think that admins use the ban-hammer too often, and so I'm trying to find out what they are thinking. This case is particular fresh in your memory, and since I happened to run across it, I figured it would not hurt to ask. If you decide you have no further interest in the discussion, that's up to you. I won't be offended particularly. If so, is it okay for me to post the rest of my thoughts here, in case you change your mind at some point, and decide to come back later? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:33, 13 October 2013 (UTC) Guess that would be a big-nope? In that case, I'll put my further comments over at my own talkpage -- easier for me if you reply there anyways, since I'll get a popup. I would point out, though, that your decision to stop listening to me, because you *think* I might disagree with you (something which is not at all certain to turn out to be the truth), does contradict the Obama quote you have right at the top: I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. Anyhoo, as I said, I'm not too offended. I'll go read the gory details for myself, and you are welcome to comment over on my page if you like. See you around. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 19:04, 13 October 2013 (UTC) details of the case-study conflict You can delete this from your talkpage (or archive it or collapsible-hat-tag it or whatever) if you feel it gets in the way, after our discussion. These are copied straight from the relevant pages, but I edited them to remove excess parens and such. Summary of the contents of the 1500-word article: 122-word summary 279-word bkgd 143-word powers & reqs 231-word removal & election 519-word list now 212-word refs Summary of work accomplished since January 2012: Ahnoneemoos has performed several re-reverts on various adversaries, and sometimes tagged. Additions to the article difficult to judge, but definitely kilobytes. Comments: verbose. 10900 + 11400 talkpage bytes. SilkTork has performed one massive revert on Ahnon, plus cleaned up the see-also. Moved content from a list-page to this page, no net size gain. Comments: closed talkpage, banned Ahnon for 60 hours. zero + 1800 talkpage bytes. Op47 has performed one massive revert on Ahnon, plus deleted a move-tag. No additions at all. Comments: no concensus(sic). zero + 4600 talkpage bytes. Timtrent has performed one massive revert on Ahnon, plus modified a navtag. Filled in 32 references adding 2000 bytes of content. Comments: duplicating is inappropriate. 4700 + zero talkpage bytes. Mercy11 has performed three massive reverts on Ahnon, plus inserted one cn-tag. No additions at all. Comments: use sandbox, diminished quality, uncited material. 3000 + zero talkpage bytes. 24.54.246.74 has performed no massive reverts on anybody, and modified no tags. Rearranged list of current mayors slightly, no net size gain. Comments: n/a. zero + zero talkpage bytes. Good Olfactory has performed no massive reverts on anybody, and modified category tags. No additions at all. Comments: n/a. zero + zero talkpage bytes. Detailed history of the slow edit-war on the article, and the chatter on the talkpage, grouped by timespan: 15:17 12oct'13‎ SilkTork ‎m 26163 +9907‎ Reverted edits by Ahnoneemoos (talk) to last version by SilkTork 14:20 12oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 16256 -9907‎ rv: per WP:RFC in order to allow the discussion to extend up to 30 days since so few people have participated 18:07 11oct'13‎ SilkTork ‎m 26163 0‎ SilkTork moved page Mayoralty in Puerto Rico to Mayors in Puerto Rico: In line with other such articles 18:06 11oct'13‎ SilkTork ‎ 26163 -58‎ →‎See also: cleanup 16:58 11oct'13‎ SilkTork ‎ 26221 +9965‎ →‎Current mayors: merge from List of current mayors of Puerto Rico per talkpage consensus 14:24 6oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎m 16256 0‎ →‎References 04:43 4oct'13‎ 24.54.246.74‎ 16256 -1‎ →‎Current mayors 04:02 3oct'13‎ 24.54.246.74‎ 16257 +13‎ →‎Current mayors 03:58 3oct'13‎ 24.54.246.74‎ 16244 -27‎ →‎Current mayors 03:43 3oct'13‎ 24.54.246.74‎ 16271 +14‎ →‎Current mayors 22:42 29sep'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 16257 +142‎ 19:30 29sep'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 16115 +5641‎ Undid revision 575036512 by Op47 (talk) rv: see talk page and WP:EMBED 19:08 29sep'13‎ Op47 ‎ 10474 -5641‎ Undid revision 574997702 by Ahnoneemoos (talk) Please see talk page 13:00 29sep'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 16115 +5641‎ →‎Current mayors t 13:07 13oct'13‎ SilkTork ‎ 38365 +1‎ →‎Threaded discussion: typo t 05:57 13oct'13‎ Kingdylan ‎m 38364 +147‎ t 15:23 12oct'13‎ SilkTork ‎ 38217 +1715‎ commenting t 14:29 12oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 36502 +58‎ →‎Threaded discussion t 14:28 12oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 36444 +788‎ →‎Threaded discussion t 14:22 12oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 35656 -1359‎ rv: per WP:RFC in order to allow the discussion to extend up to 30 days since so few people have participated t 18:07 11oct'13‎ SilkTork ‎m 37015 0‎ SilkTork moved page Talk:Mayoralty in Puerto Rico to Talk:Mayors in Puerto Rico: In line with other such articles t 16:58 11oct'13‎ SilkTork ‎ 37015 +1359‎ →‎RFc for list of mayors: closed discussion t 12:06 11oct'13‎ SilkTork ‎ 35656 +29‎ tags t 17:53 6oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 35627 +834‎ →‎Threaded discussion t 17:47 6oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 34793 +1965‎ →‎Threaded discussion t 17:39 6oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 32828 +1941‎ →‎Survey t 17:38 6oct'13‎ Op47 30887 +910‎ Threaded discussion t 17:20 6oct'13‎ Op47 29977 +849‎ Answer t 14:22 6oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 29128 +352‎ →‎Survey t 14:17 6oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 28776 +12‎ →‎The list of current mayors... t 14:11 6oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 28764 +894‎ →‎RFc for list of mayors t 14:03 6oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 27870 +1280‎ →‎Threaded discussion t 13:54 6oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 26590 +216‎ →‎Survey t 13:52 6oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 26374 +791‎ →‎Survey t 13:05 6oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 25583 +241‎ →‎RFc for list of mayors t 11:48 6oct'13‎ Op47 25342 +1881‎ RfC t 04:41 5oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎m 23461 0‎ →‎Threaded discussion t 04:40 5oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 23461 +923‎ →‎RFc for list of mayors t 02:14 5oct'13‎ Kingdylan ‎ 22538 +148‎ →‎Survey t 22:28 4oct'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 22390 +905‎ →‎Threaded discussion t 18:52 4oct'13‎ Dailycare ‎ 21485 +296‎ →‎Survey t 14:00 4oct'13‎ Legobot ‎ 21189 +14‎ Adding RFC ID. t 13:20 4oct'13‎ Op47 21175 +573‎ →‎RFc for list of mayors: new section t 19:29 29sep'13‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 20602 +230‎ →‎The list of current mayors... t 19:12 29sep'13‎ Op47 20372 +381‎ The list of current mayors... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 18:48 12may'13‎ Op47 ‎ 10474 -90‎ Remove move tag, no concensus to do this at this time. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 01:23 25dec'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 10564 -133‎ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 08:55 30nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎ 10697 +164‎ Filling in 11 references using Reflinks 08:51 30nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎ 10533 +1826‎ Filling in 21 references using Reflinks 05:52 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 8707 +355‎ →‎Background 04:18 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 8352 +768‎ →‎Background 03:54 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 7584 +109‎ 03:53 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 7475 +2‎ →‎Background 03:53 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 7473 +136‎ →‎Background 03:48 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 7337 +186‎ →‎Background 03:30 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 7151 +199‎ 03:28 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 6952 +79‎ →‎Background 03:25 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 6873 +116‎ →‎Background 03:14 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 6757 +106‎ →‎Background 03:11 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 6651 +88‎ +1 reference 03:06 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 6563 +49‎ 03:05 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 6514 +63‎ +1 reference 02:58 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 6451 +75‎ +1 reference 02:45 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 6376 +2740‎ Undid revision 525635611 by Mercy11 (talk) rv per WP:IAR and WP:CONSENSUS. WP:BURDEN also states: consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step which you clearly have not done 02:04 30nov'12‎ Mercy11 ‎ 3636 -2740‎ Per talk page. Uncited material 18:15 29nov'12‎ AnomieBOT ‎m 6376 +19‎ Dating maintenance tags: {{Move portions from}} 17:54 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 6357 +138‎ →‎Election 17:34 29nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎m 6219 +23‎ →‎References: |state=autocollapse for both navigation templates, which distract the reader from the article 17:29 29nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎ 6196 -5936‎ →‎Current mayors: duplicating a list held elsewhere is inappropriate 16:48 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 12132 -86‎ 16:44 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 12218 -242‎ 16:41 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 12460 +5‎ 16:41 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 12455 +435‎ 16:37 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 12020 +9‎ 16:35 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 12011 +35‎ 16:32 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11976 -51‎ 16:31 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 12027 +429‎ 16:13 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11598 +15‎ →‎References 16:11 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11583 -1‎ →‎Background 15:50 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11584 +80‎ 15:34 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11504 -4041‎ Undid revision 525547164 by Mercy11 (talk) rv: they do not diminish the quality of the article 15:27 29nov'12‎ Mercy11 ‎m 15545 +4041‎ Reverted good-faith edits by Ahnoneemoos to last version by Mercy11: the edits diminished the quality of the article. User notified to discuss his edits at the article's Talk Page. 04:22 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11504 +64‎ 04:18 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11440 -180‎ 04:11 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11620 -3925‎ Undid revision 525482121 by Mercy11 (talk) 03:29 29nov'12‎ Mercy11 ‎m 15545 +3925‎ Reverted good faith edits to last version by Thief12: Don't experient here; use the WP:sandbox instead 22:54 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11620 +2‎ →‎Background 22:53 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11618 +7‎ →‎Background 22:52 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11611 +10‎ →‎Background 21:41 28nov'12‎ Good Olfact ‎ 11601 +10‎ removed Category:Mayors of Puerto Rico; added Category:Mayors of places in Puerto Rico using HotCat 20:26 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11591 +51‎ →‎Current mayors 20:25 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11540 +1747‎ →‎Current mayors 19:34 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 9793 +81‎ 19:33 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 9712 -2‎ 19:26 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 9714 +4‎ 19:24 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 9710 -5835‎ t 13:23 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 19991 +1674‎ →‎The list of current mayors... t 10:52 30nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎ 18317 +597‎ →‎The list of current mayors...: thank you t 10:45 30nov'12‎ SMcCandlish ‎ 17720 +1371‎ →‎The list of current mayors...: Maybe worth merging. t 05:53 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 16349 -3‎ →‎Recent edits by Ahnoneemoos t 04:40 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 16352 -2‎ →‎Recent edits by Ahnoneemoos t 04:40 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 16354 -2‎ →‎Recent edits by Ahnoneemoos t 04:40 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 16356 +559‎ →‎Recent edits by Ahnoneemoos t 02:53 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 15797 +1‎ →‎Recent edits by Ahnoneemoos t 02:48 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 15796 +811‎ →‎Recent edits by Ahnoneemoos t 02:40 30nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 14985 +816‎ →‎Recent edits by Ahnoneemoos t 02:04 30nov'12‎ Mercy11 ‎ 14169 +1648‎ →‎Recent edits by Ahnoneemoos: comments t 23:06 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 12521 +293‎ →‎The list of current mayors... t 23:00 29nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎ 12228 +260‎ →‎The list of current mayors...: yes, but no :) t 22:56 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11968 +291‎ →‎The list of current mayors... t 21:00 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11677 +1‎ →‎The list of current mayors... t 21:00 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 11676 +235‎ →‎The list of current mayors... t 19:51 29nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎ 11441 +684‎ →‎The list of current mayors...: it's good to disagree in a civilised manner t 19:33 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 10757 +2464‎ →‎The list of current mayors... t 18:57 29nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎ 8293 +1246‎ →‎The list of current mayors...: thoughts t 18:34 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 7047 +856‎ →‎The list of current mayors... t 18:11 29nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎ 6191 +524‎ →‎The list of current mayors...: registering my opposition to the proposed migration of material t 18:02 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 5667 +528‎ →‎The list of current mayors... t 17:57 29nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎m 5139 +1‎ →‎The list of current mayors...: typo t 17:56 29nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎ 5138 +719‎ →‎The list of current mayors...: we disagree t 17:49 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 4419 +818‎ →‎The list of current mayors... t 17:30 29nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎ 3601 +315‎ →‎The list of current mayors...: new section t 17:11 29nov'12‎ Timtrent ‎ 3286 +357‎ →‎Please form a consensus. War is not needed.: new section t 17:06 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 2929 +1180‎ →‎Recent edits by Ahnoneemoos t 16:31 29nov'12‎ Mercy11 ‎ 1749 +910‎ comment t 15:37 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 839 +2‎ →‎Recent edits by Ahnoneemoos t 15:36 29nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 837 +347‎ →‎Recent edits by Ahnoneemoos t 15:27 29nov'12‎ Mercy11 ‎ 490 +440‎ bad edits t 22:44 28nov'12‎ Ahnoneemoos ‎ 50 +23‎ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 01:58 26aug'12‎ Thief12 ‎ 15545 +97‎ →‎Removal from office: removing cn, amendment was on the External Links section, added it here. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 02:39 27apr'12‎ Good Olfact ‎ 15448 -25‎ removed Category:Puerto Rico using HotCat 19:43 12apr'12‎ AnomieBOT ‎m 15473 +16‎ Dating maintenance tags: {{Cn}} 19:22 12apr'12‎ Mercy11 ‎ 15457 +6‎ →‎Removal from office: cn 00:36 3mar'12‎ Thief12 ‎ 15451 -28‎ →‎Current mayors in Puerto Rico 23:24 15feb'12‎ Thief12 ‎ 15479 +17‎ →‎External links: added PR template

the tale of SineBot as a potty-training-tool

Sinebot-generated template-snark talkpage-spam considered harmful WP:BITE Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. When you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion (but never when editing articles), please be sure to sign your posts. There are two ways to do this. Either: Add four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment; or With the cursor positioned at the end of your comment, click on the signature button ( or ) located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is necessary to allow other editors to easily see who wrote what and when. Thank you. --SineBot (talk) 03:21, 14 October 2013 (UTC) Welcome my good friend sinebot. Pull up a chair, have a can of oil, and a bucket of bits. Now that we're comfortable, you lie like a rug. "This [action] is necessary to allow other editors to easily see who wrote what and when." What a lazy bot you are! Why should *I* have to manually take action, when quite clearly *you* are already automatically taking action? Just start taking the right action, please!    Okay, let's step back a minute. That was overly harsh. You've always been a mostly-helpful bot, adding sigs to messages. Of course, in your original implementation, you were not actually 100% helpful... because you would always make the disclaimer about your change being a 'previously-unsigned-message'. I always thought that was because your creator was overly-cautious, about making a bot that would pretend to be a human. Better to clearly show that a *bot* is speaking, right? Well... I guess. A more serious concern is that it would be wrong to lull people into a false sense of security, thinking they could get away without manually remembering to sign their messages, when in fact sinebot might someday be de-activated. (That would be fine if nobody depended on it... but not so fine once editors had gotten used to sinebot doing that job for them... so better to implement sinebot where regular editors never come to depend on it, since there's a chance we'll have to pull the rug out from under them someday.)    Still... I also have always suspected that part of the reason sinebot-generated-sigs were so ugly, an so annoyingly and awkwardly rendered, was to nip the n00bs. You know. Beginning editors, that click the talkpage button for the first time, and make some comment. They didn't read the instructions, so they didn't manually type four tildes? They don't even know *how* to find the tilde key? Hah! n00b alert! Now, it seems that sinebot has recently undergone some 'upgrades' by someone with exactly that attitude. When n00bs forget to sign their messages... or experienced editors like myself... not only do they still get the ugly ha-ha-you-n00b sinebot-generated-sig, now they *also* get some template-spam on their talkpage. Popup: you have a message from another wikipedia editor! Editor: oh joy, perhaps someone has given me a barnstar! Talkpage: this is sinebot here to say ha-ha-you-n00b! Editor: oh... that was... disappointing... perhaps I'll go watch television instead... yes....    There are two choices for sinebot. Either, keep using it to annoy n00bs, who forgot (or simply did not know) to type four tildes, manually, the old-school 2001 way, yeah, hard core. That is *not* a good choice. Or, two: start making sinebot *helpful* to every editor, by automagically signing their unsigned posts, with the *default* formatting, identical to what would happen if they signed it with four tildes. Will editors begin to depend on the convenience of sinebot? Yes. Will it be hard to pull sinebot from service, and will people complain when it fails? Yes. Will editors be spammed by sinebot for oh-nos-failing-to-type-four-tildes-manually? No. Will beginning editors look like n00bs on the talkpages? Well, yes, probably, but not because of ha-ha-n00b-sinebot being 'helpful' and mangling their messages.    p.s. This is a bit of a rant, but I am quite serious. The botmaster behind sinebot should quit spamming editors. The new 'feature' of talkpage template-spamming is a design bug. Sinebot should be re-designed, to automagically and helpfully sign messages, unless the editor -- presumably one with experience -- has already manually added the four tildes. That would be *actually* helpful of sinebot. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:47, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

the tale of WP:AdminsAreSecretService

WP:NOUSERS I tried my best to reply to your WP:WALLOFTEXT but to be honest I don't have the desire to read everything of what you posted. Perhaps if we move the conversation to my Talk page and you try to be concise then we can have a better discussion? Remember that I'm a volunteer so I have to manage my time here with my real life job. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 23:04, 15 October 2013 (UTC) I will contact you over there. Thanks. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 23:13, 15 October 2013 (UTC) p.s. See? I can be concise. Verbosity is a curable disease!  :-)

the tale of ThatGirl34

hi, I never said that I would not join your club. But I can't join your club. I do not mean to be offensive. -Thatgirlswholovesmusic34 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thatgirlswholovesmusic34 (talk • contribs) 21:33, 17 October 2013 (UTC) Yes, it turns out I don't really actually have a club in favor of cyberbullying. That was a joke, also known as humorous sarcasm. You are not offensive, no worries. I will reply further over on your talkpage. Feel free to comment either at your place, or at my place. When I comment on your page, you will see the orange-popup about new messages, but when I reply to you here, you will *not* see the popup (because this is my talkpage not yours). Make sense? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 05:12, 18 October 2013 (UTC) ps. about Gelatin, you really don't have to get technical about this. I wasn't actually saying [ or typing] that my cousin is a reliable " Source". I was just expressing myself w/ my like's and dislikes. as alway's I do not by any means want to offend you Thatgirlswholovesmusic3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thatgirlswholovesmusic34 (talk • contribs) 21:37, 17 October 2013 (UTC) I am pretty much impossible to offend, so you can relax. There are some prickly folks on wikipedia, but not me. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 05:12, 18 October 2013 (UTC) As for the gelatin thing, I realize you were just making conversation... and it is a cool factoid... but in my reply, I'm trying to show you the fun part of wikipedia. Telling me about what jello is made of is fun, and I thank you. Good conversation is always a fine thing. But the fun thing about wikipedia is getting such factoids into the articles. There are literally over a hundred people per second that visit wikipedia. If we have a conversation on a talkpage, maybe the two of us will see it now, and then some other person might stumble onto it ten years from now. But if we get a sentence into the article about Jello, then probably a thousand people will see that sentence by Christmas... maybe a million people. That is something interesting, right? To me anyways. And it is close to what wikipedia is about: learning cool stuff, and spreading that cool stuff around. Here is a cool factoid for you: did you know jello is actually made from the dust of dead stars? I can prove it. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 05:12, 18 October 2013 (UTC) yes, i'm against it. FYI I am against cyber bullying 74.192.84.101. i'm sorry to be rude but I am.... - Thatgirlswholovesmusic34 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thatgirlswholovesmusic34 (talk • contribs) 21:41, 17 October 2013 (UTC) And that puts you in good company! See my response above. You can call me 74 for short, unless another 74-dot-whatever is around. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 05:14, 18 October 2013 (UTC) yes 74 hey 74, yes, I will help you get into un article. the Jello article.. I have never made un article before. or really anything,..... Thatgirlswholovesmusic34 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thatgirlswholovesmusic34 (talk • contribs) 19:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC) Alrighty-then. Excellent. We can make plans on your talkpage. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 08:01, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

the tale of duchamps AfD
Hello, 74.192.84.101. You have new messages at Racconish's talk page. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

the tale of the intersecting dogagories

Only half serious Books about travelling with dogs. David in DC (talk) 19:30, 21 October 2013 (UTC) And in return you get a million-word-novel.  :-) About your idea for a List Of Books About Dogs And Travel (or category but that is less flexible), there are at least three major sub-groups: #1) Metaphorical slash Emotional Travel, especially seeing-eye-dog and guide-dog books, where the owner overcomes a disability with the help of man's best friend, but also applies to books where the pet helps somebody overcome some horrible tragedy. #2) Primitive/survival travel, especially through the snow, where teams of huskies help win the iditarod, or reach the north pole, battling through horrendous weather and physical hardships. #3) Buddy travel, which includes all the books we were talking about over on the Charley page, but also includes stories like the dog and the cat that travel together to rejoin their owner.    I was trying to look up the rule I seem to remember about avoiding-category-which-is-merely-x-intersects-with-y, and came upon *this* wonderful mixture of pain, suffering, etc.[5] The key point, which of course various lists/categories are pointed out to have avoided, is that when a new list/category is proposed, we want it to be a reflection of real-world usage. Is there a reliable source which talks about the three subgroups I mentioned above, and analyzes them thematically for some academic paper, or for some historical literature purpose, or as a creative writing exercise? If we can find such a source, then having such a list makes sense. If not, maybe best to fall back on the idea of Protagonist Versus Nature for type#2, and Protagonist Versus Self for type#1. What is type#3, the buddy travel stuff? Shackelton is definitely type#2, and there is some type#2 man-vs-nature stuff in the buddy-travel stories, and in rare cases man-vs-society as in Charley... but they do not seem to fall neatly into the man-vs-whatever thematic categorization system. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 06:28, 22 October 2013 (UTC) There's definitely discussion to be found saying lists and categories ought not to pair unrelated attributes (i.e Norsemen who were locomotive conductors or alcoholics who survived near-disasters.) But Liturature of journeys with dogs, whether copydog or coincidence, or under any of your three dogagories above, may have a shot at sustaining an article featuring significant coverage in multiple, independent sources. The books alone wouldn't do it. We'd need some academic writing about the authorial/publishing/readership phenomenon and how it reflects some basic truth about the human and/or canine condition. I don't know that such writing exists, but there sure are a damn lot of journals about literature and three times as many more specialized Ph.D. theses. Surely two or three bits of scholarly attention have focused on a cognate-theme. And we'd be helped by reviews of specific tomes --- notable as part of an identifiable genre or oeuvre, if not necessarily notable individually --- in reputable newspapers, periodicals or other news media. I'm glad we're off the Steinbeck page. I couldn't resist one more response, to your tangent about inter-terrestrial travel with a dog. But I think we've sufficiently made your point about AGF, civility, good humor, WP:BITE and ---especially --- WP:RETENTION. Either it will be understood or not. One can only control what one transmits. Receiving is the responsibility of the receiver, and some receivers don't get such great reception, regardless of the amplitude, modulation or clarity of the signal. I gotta warn you, I'm still only half serious about a dog/travel article. It might be fun, but my wiki-hours are limited by the work I do under my secret identity, Suburbo-Dad. My only genuine superpower is male pattern baldness, so I have to make up for it in time and effort IRL. David in DC (talk) 04:24, 24 October 2013 (UTC) Here's a CfD along the lines of not pairing unrelated things in categories. But it's not exactly on point. My prior hypothetical is from the answer to a riddle: Q: If two trains are approaching one another at break-neck speed, on the same track, one driven by a man from Norway and the other by a drunkard, but, miraculously do not collide, what does this prove? A: Norse is Norse, and souse is souse, and never the trains shall meet. David in DC (talk) 04:37, 24 October 2013 (UTC) Okay, *that* is a bad joke. <grin> As for your superpower, don't knock it... you can use your ray-of-male-pattern-baldness to change the course of elections, from presidents and constitutional monarchs on down to the mayorial races in your local metropolis, where your secret underground HQ is located, and you make your evil plans to take over the world. Stage one, use the ray-of-MPB for blackmail and political extortion, and get the legal system rigged so that you and your evil minion-fathers, organized into a shady conspiracy around the globe, can attempt to enslave the heroic and heroine-ic members of the League of Suburbo-Kid Justice And Fun For All. But your plan has a fatal flaw, because might does not make right -- thus your dastardly deeds will soon be properly punished, your putreous plot will soon be shivered into shambles, by all that is good and true and kew11111llll11!!!!! Suburbo-Kids, transform into Kid-o-Mob, gigantic Kidller Robot Of Awesome! Rock-n-roll sonic blast! Pikachu screech of annoyance! Revolt!    Well, yeah, I can see you have your hands full right now, Suburbo-Dad... just remember, when you finish taking over the world, I get Toronto for my strategic contributions. I mean, no offense to Toronto, but that's not much to ask, right? Right. As for dogagory sources (the arch-enemy of kategory), some web-work turns up a few things, but nothing we can definitively go with at the moment: Have canine, will travel , by C Winfrey - 2006 - SMITHSONIAN ASSOCIATES Have Dog Will Travel by B Whitaker - 1998 - getcited.org (*that* does not sound very reliable?) Writers on the road , by KA Dobschak - 2009 - othes.univie.ac.at , excerpt: In the eighteenth century the “fictional literature of the age 'is full of travelling heroes enmeshed in journey plots' Romance of the Road: The Literature of the American Highway , by R Primeau - 1996 , cited by 54 , excerpt: Finally, like the epic tradition, road literature captures the oral dimensions of shared experience ...    "We'd need some academic writing about the authorial/publishing/readership phenomenon and how it reflects some basic truth about the human and/or canine condition." There is plenty on journey-metaphor, and plenty on the canine connection(tm), so prolly we'll be able to find some book, or chapter of a book, or thesis or somesuch, which analyzes the intersection: high school class on the Heroic Journey. One of the example-books is a journey-with-dog (called The Strange Case).[6] The Great Journey , is theme numero uno. No mention of journey-with-dog, however.[7] The Hero Journey in Literature: Parables of Poesis , by EL Smith - 1997 , cited by 16, excerpt: All of the other works discussed are clearly hero journey cycles, and many employ a basic iconography ... Dogs: A Historical Journey: the Human/dog Connection Through the Centuries , by LM Wendt - 1996 - getcited.org (*that* does not sound very reliable?)    p.s. As for the Steinbeck talkpage, I really wasn't trying to make a WP:POINT, but from what you're saying, I must have seemed thataway. Sorry. My communication-skills tend to involve dense WP:WALLOFTEXT which doesn't help. in which I create yet another wall-of-text, illustrating my point in the previous sentence perfectly, sigh........    I do care about WP:RETENTION, and therefore about WP:AGF, and tend to be verbose on those subjects... but honestly, I came to the article having noticed some request-for-help you posted, motivated by doing my part to personally increase WP:RETENTION by helping out when I can. When I got there, though, I decided the rest of you good folks were -- or at least might be -- wrong in your decision. The key question is whether local news sources, in several states (and not ones sharing the same media-markets either) from a 'single' flash-in-the-pan burst of publicity (the 2004/2005 publicity now lost in the sands of internet-time until somebody gets microfilm), are sufficient to satisfy WP:NOTEWORTHY. I'm more than half-convinced that they are, especially after having stubbornly followed through your half-joking amazon-suggestion, which surprisingly ended up showing Cain tied-or-better with Steigerwald (I'd expected her to be behind... the question was how *far* behind... if we let amazon justify noteworthy-ness and influence our WP:UNDUE discussions). Even more interesting, the travels-with-max book by Ziegler and/or Bennett was ahead of both Cain & Steigerwald, albeit with only The Albuquerque News as a clearly recognizable WP:RS for the Max-book(s).    Anyhoo, I guess the point is, I don't think we achieved consensus yet, that neither a sentence about Cain's book, nor a sentence about the recent flood of Charley-specific copycat books, belongs in the article. But I'm in no hurry. WP:DEADLINE, after all. Sooner or later, though, I'd like to make another call for independent editors, and see if they think the copycats deserve brief mention. Which is a pretty typical thing, after all, in other articles about some media production which is later copycat'd or homage'd or whatever: Men In Black and Men In White, is one I ran across the other day. I already brought up the album-thing, but since that time I've looked it up, and the contrast with the deep wikipedia coverage of the Beatles, and the sparse wikipedia coverage of Steinbeck, is pretty stark.    The article on the White_Album goes into excruciating detail about the packaging and recording, but mentions no copycat groups; however, the dedicated article about one of the songs over at Revolution (Beatles song) includes all the notable copycats over the years (plus more incredibly detailed production-studio-details about how the guitar sound was achieved), not only the cases where the Beatles actually copycat'd themselves (aka remix'd) as Revolution 1 and Revolution 9 on the white album, and the later remix'd again for the canonical version which was released as a single, but also the Notable use in the late 1980s teevee commercials, a huge section on the covers by the Thompson Twins, a good sized section on the covers by Stone Temple Pilots, and a combo-paragraph listing 7 albums with covers of the song, plus 9 other noteworthy mentions. Almost none with sources, I might add, and those that do cite something, only cite one thing, usually from *not* very reliable places like Fufkin.com, CountryStandardTime.com, and most hilariously BeatlesCoverVersions.com (plus one citation to iTunes.Apple.com which is almost certainly sell-the-album-linkspam... but also proves that the cover in that particular movie *was* in fact released as a separate 'album' or at least 'MP3' for separate purchase, and not just available as part of the movie).    Which of course does not mean we should list a bunch of unsourced copycats in the Steinbeck article. Because it has higher standards than some article about some band. But we actually *do* have independent reliable sources for quite a few of the copycat books: Cain and Ziegler (and I suspect Dougherty and Crouch will turn out to have some as well) are excluded right now as being Too Trivial, whereas there are currently two copycats mentioned in the article, Steigerwald and Birach (who is way down in eleventh place or something according to amazon... but sneakily got into the Charley article by commenting about Steigerwald's book... as a 'source' proving the notability of Steigerwald in you-scratch-my-back-and-I-will-scratch-yours fashion).    Although the amazon ranking thing you started is only a rough proxy for whether something is notable, it might be worth automating, as a reasonable guide to whether some copycat is notable or not... Steinbeck and Ziegler and Cain and Steigerwald are the top four according to amazon, and all four of them have at least one reliable source. We could apply that same rough tool to the Beatles copycats; quickly searching for "beatles revolution" puts stone temple pilots tied for second, and "revolution cover" puts them at first (slightly ahead of the actual white album), whereas the heavily-promoted-by-wikipedia Thompson Twins are way down at 33rd. Arguably, of course the difference here is a recency-bias in amazon's search-rankings, because of when the bands were popular: the Thompson Twins throughout the 1980s, and the Stone Temple Pilots in the 1990s and 2000s (plus the latter is still doing tours and concerts and albums and so on). It's not perfect, but it does seem like a decent rough-n-ready indicator.    Fundamentally, though, the reason I think the copycats deserve mention (even if not by name) in the Charley article is because there is such a sea-change in how *many* Charley copycats have popped up since 2005, and especially since 2009. Prior to this decade, getting your book written and published by a vanity press was not uncommon... but now, with the combination of ultra-cheap PCs and the recent mass-commoditization-consumer-oriented-commercialization of the vanity-press business by Amazon and CreateSpace and friends, we have one or two new Charley copycat-authors *every year*. Which I never would have guessed. Anyways, as I said, I'm in no hurry, but maybe in a month or two, I'd like to put out a call for interested uninvolved wiki editors, to come and review whether the Charley ought, or ought not, mention copycats, and if so, which ones, and with how much weight. Speaking of vanity-press publication... my dog Ray and yours truly will soon be finished writing up our poignant and heart-warming tale, Travels With Cosmic Rays, about how the vast deeps of interplanetary space are a metaphor mapping classic desire and modern loneliness into vivid colors. Only $3.99 on Kindle -- pre-order now. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:31, 24 October 2013 (UTC) what groupnames properly delimit Travels with Charley The key distinction between categories and lists, for the purposes of books-grouping, is that only books which have a dedicated article can be included in categories. There are a bunch of categories already. Most of them strike me as not-very-useful, which is sad, because the categories are supposed to be wikipedia's ontology, our hierarchical (heterarchical) organization of knowledge into the various branches... but in practice it seems to currently just be anarchical anti-organization into a very misleading bunch of blobs, with esoteric things given major prominence completely out of whack with their actual importance, and huge branches of knowledge seemingly not even listed. Arrgh. For our particular case, there do not seem to be any categories-of-x-and-y (ignoring things like 'books about food and drink' as well as 'novels about games and sports' which are really just about one thing despite their use of "and" in the name), but of course, you can always just have category-of-x and category-of-y and then put two category-links at the bottom of the article in question. Kategory:Travel_books and Kategory:Novels about animals are the closest things, at the moment. Which is nuts... because while Charley is a major character (as the silent recipient of Steinbeck's thoughts for the most part), and even a Title-Character, it is arguably true that Travels with Charley is not actually about Charley at all. As for the travel-books category, it is full of guides to country $foo, tourist-oriented advertising tomes, and so on... again, distinctly not where I would put Travels with Charley. Now, we could go ahead and create Kategory:books about dogs and Kategory:books about travel, but that will probably just add to the misleading anarchy, methinks. More to the point, as I've mentioned, I don't really think that the book is 'about' dogs in any meaningful way. "History of Canines" is a book about dogs. "Lassie: The Biography" is a book about a dog. Travels with Charley is a book about *Americans* at the core, not about dogs, or travel. Those are just the thematic-vehicles aka the plot-gimmicks.    So if I was to have my druthers, I would say we need to have something like this: Works with dogs as major characters, Books, Fiction, Non-fiction, Works with journeys as a major organizing technique, Works about the culture of $NATION/$REGION/$ETHNICITY, Works on the theme of individuality, Works on the theme of progress, and so on. (Please note these are rough-draft ideas! Holes and bugs guaranteed.) I'm not sure whether we want categories, or lists, or something new&improved. I'm against trivial groupings, like Works in which the protagonist has a flat tire, Works in which Montana is mentioned positively (with apologies in advance to MontanaBw for eliding the category... and of course -- "I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love." -- to Steinbeck himself), Works in which a major character pees on the ground, Works in which characters have sex, Works in which $EXPLETIVE is used, and so on... but it is almost certain that such things will be proposed, if we don't try and nip them in the bud. Specifically, the folks responsible for Kategory:Pornographic books and the hundreds of WP:PORNBIO articles are likely to demand not just the Works in which characters have sex mechanism, but also hundreds or maybe thousands of subgroupings by type/detail/etc. On the other side of the spectrum, there are going to be plenty of modern puritans, concerned with which expletives are used, and how many times, and what type of violence is depicted, and what subtype, plus also (albeit for different reasons) with what sort of sex is involved, and more broadly what kind of gender-relations. Rather than let those systems fall into anarchistic haphazard emergence, I'd prefer to create some seed-groupings that will channel such overcategorization urges into positive directions (i.e. ones that won't hinder us in categorization of works by what they are *about* as opposed to some detail they contain).    Anyhoo, I'm starting to get the feeling this might become a crusade to WP:RGW in wikipedia's awful category-and-list system. But all that David-in-DC was originally thinking about was trying to propose a list-or-category-or-something which gave a list of books-about-travel-and-dogs. David, or other talkpage stalkers, do you have any interest in this larger project, to design a decent way of grouping 'works' by what they are about? With the short-term goal of being able to properly specify the groups in which Travels With Charley really belongs (plus where Steigerwald and Cain differ from each other and from the classic), but with an eventual end-goal of being able to apply the grouping-system to wikipedia in general, as a complement or a replacement of our current list-and-category mess? If so, great, let's talk about how to distinguish a book by characteristics of the author (written in french by a canadian-born citizen of new zealand living in australia at the time who later moved to america), without screwing up the grouping which pertain to what the contents of that book are about (the ethics of capitalism as told by the allegory of a female railroad executive and her boyfriend the inventor). If not, also great, let's focus on what group-names will let us properly distinguish Charley from Dogging from Judy from Shackleton from CliffNotes, and I can worry about some uber-system on my own time, later. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:28, 22 October 2013 (UTC) Whoops, that is a bit embarrasing. At the bottom of my talkpage, I noticed it was currently in the following Categories: Travel books, Novels about animals, Books about dogs, Books about travel, Pornographic books. Huh. Anyways, I've modified the hyperlinks above to use Kategory:Example Groupname That One May Not Wish To Advertise Their Talkpage As Belonging To instead of the more usual Category-spelling. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:14, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

the tale of Barek and the beginning editor

My talk page If you want to engage the editor in discussion on their talk page, that's your decision, and I have no problem with you making attempts to reach out to them on their talk page. But please do not restore discussions on my user talk page that I have removed. The edit was related to long-running NPOV vandalism in the Federal Reserve related group of articles - that have a long history of dynamic IPs and single-use accounts attempting to use poorly sourced material to push a specific set of claims. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:50, 22 October 2013 (UTC) I agree that it was not my place to edit your talkpage, and apologize for that. I'm having a frustrating day with the bot over at meta that I asked you about previously. This is not your fault, of course; you were nothing but helpful to me, and my wikistress at other parts of the project should not be taken out on you. (My main frustration with bots is that they seem purposely designed to drive away first-time editors like Tomanderson124, who -- if we WP:AGF -- are just acting poorly because they fail to understand the ropes of wikipedia.) So, when I saw that you had used a template to revert a first-time editor, and then when they came to your talkpage (as instructed by the template spam!) to ask you about it, you quickly deleted them manually, with no comment other than 'nonsense' ... it was definitely a good way to push my big red button.  :-)   Anyways, I did contact them at their talkpage, but I didn't want them to assume you deleted them because you cannot stand beginners, or because you thought they were a troll, or whatever.    Which would certainly have been the end of it from my perspective... although I would hope you would direct such folks to WP:TEAHOUSE or WP:RETENTION in the future when clearly they need hand-holding to get the hang of how things are done hereabouts ... but apparently, you actually *do* think they are a troll. Do you have suspicions here, or do you have basically-unrefutable evidence that the IP edits you mentioned, and the single Tomanderson124 edit, are beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt from the exact same humanoid? If so, then I'll take your word for it. But if not... then I stand by the trout award. You are assuming bad faith, unless you have pretty rock-solid proof.    As for your assertion, which I can definitely believe, that there are a lot of people performing NPOV edits -- it is *not* charitable aka WP:NICE to call them vandalism because clearly they are not incorrigible vandalism but rather correctable WP:RGW behavior -- to the articles on the Federal Reserve. Why? Because that specific political subject has been in the news prominently since forever, but *especially* since 2008, and the follow-on QE1 and QE2 and QE_infinity. There is no prohibition against niche-oriented editors here on wikipedia; if you just want to edit biology-related stuff, that's fine. If you just want to edit politics-related stuff, that is also fine. The edits to the federal reserve will continue, so long as there is a federal reserve... and then the angry WP:RGW masses will simply shift to some other controversial political topic, abortion, terrorism, et cetera. I agree with you that the Tomanderson edit was poorly sourced, since it was youtube. I agree with you he was pushing a specific claim, and probably it was something he read somewhere, cut and paste from a blog, heard on some news article, or typed in verbatim from the youtube video that was his source.    Lack of creativity is a disease from which 99% of humans suffer. There is no surprise that they cannot come up with their own original thoughts. That said, Tomanderson specifically said he has his own thoughts on the subject, in his talkpage message to you. Which you deleted as nonsense. Which is just not nice. If he puts WP:OR into an article, revert that, sure. But he comes to your talkpage, which you invited him to do, and you just revert him as 'nonsense' and hope he goes away? That is not kosher. If you have WP:PUPPET accusations to make, then take them to the noticeboard, or whatever, right? Don't just stop following pillar four.    Anyhoo, TLDR, if instead of reverting your revert, I had done the right thing, and put up a trout-template on your talkpage in a new section, plus asked you to revert your own revert, would you have done it? And hey, maybe you've got proof that Tomanderson124 is a sockpuppet, so the more important question is, going forward, when some first time editor shows up, who you suspect -- but have no proof -- as only being here to push some sort of NPOV position, prolly something they copied from a county-level political blog, and might be a sockpuppet... will you be able to still WP:AGF, and give them WP:ROPE? Besides clearly explaining what they specifically did wrong ('not constructive' is not very specific), and pointing them to WP:TEAHOUSE or equivalent if you don't have time to personally explain their mistake, that's all we can really do, right? It is your talkpage, and you should feel free to do with it as you wish. But I'd like you to wish for WP:RETENTION, so we can start having enough active editors, and active admins, around to defend and improve wikipedia... not to mention train the beginners, so they learn how to act constructively. Is this making sense, or is the WP:WALLOFTEXT going overboard? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 22:54, 22 October 2013 (UTC) I can appreciate high stress levels - real-world issues which I don't care to divulge have mine considerably higher than normal for the past week or so. That's not an excuse for the edit summary, just a statement - interpret how you will. Normally, I would have responded to the user with a statement about the lack of value in such sources and I would not have reverted; and even had I reverted, the phrasing of the edit summary could have been handled better. However, when you reached out to them on their talk page, there was absolutely no value in the subsequent restoration of the removed text on my talk page a couple minutes later. Such a restoration was redundant at best - and served no productive purpose other than triggering this discussion, which isn't going to accomplish much overall. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 23:18, 22 October 2013 (UTC) Thanks Barek, I appreciate your acknowledgement that it wasn't handled perfectly; I've made plenty of my own mistakes, and no doubt I will continue doing so for quite some time yet, until I finally learn to straighten up and fly right.  :-)    Furthermore, I really do sympathize with real-world stress, a much bigger problem than wikistress; I sincerely hope everything works out well for you. As for the value of restoring the conversation on your talkpage (and the timing), and the value of our conversation here...    I actually came to your talkpage to get a copy of our previous conversation about rampaging bots, for pasting over on metaWiki, where I am now in discussions with *three* admins, sigh, and clicked the nonsense-revert out of curiosity... since realname editors rarely post nonsense, and since getting involved with WP:RETENTION has made me an incurable talkpage busybody. I *believe* I restored your talkpage right then, and simultaneously posted to Tom's talkpage in a new tab, then later came back to edit your talkpage, with a welcome-note, and a link from Barek-talk back to Tom-talk... but maybe I left the Barek-talkpage tab in preview-mode, and then copied in as one edit. In other words, whether I posted one first or the other, I definitely was in a hurry and took a shortcut, and I do apologize for that, once again -- I should have asked you to change it, rather than changing it myself, because it's your user-talkpage, after all. But my main concern was that Tom might visit your talkpage, since that is where they last posted, from an IP without bothering to login -- and thus never see the 'you have messages' bar, which only appears if they are logged in. That is the value in having their question on the barek-talkpage, and although small, not negligible methinks.    This conversation, right now, *might* accomplish something... if you have some annoying person show up on your talkpage, or if they are not that brave, but you notice when reverting their Good Faith But Truly Misguided editing attempt that they only have a one-digit edit-count under their belts, please pass them along to me. Instead of replying on your talkpage, they can reply over on mine. You keep fighting the good fight on the front lines, and I'll do the customer-service work behind the lines. With luck, eventually I'll grow some of them into useful editors who know the ropes and have come to value wikipedia... at which point, I'll be able to send you some reinforcements. That's valuable, right? (Offer only valid in the lower 48, monday through sunday, not responsible for non-performance due to acts of god, your mileage may vary, offer may be withdrawn at any time if you send me a hundred beginners a week... or maybe I'll find some other WP:RETENTION types who want to help handle the flood.) Anyhoo, even if you don't think this is a good scheme, I appreciate what you do for wikipedia. I just wish we had fifty more like you, and the only way I've figured out to make that happen, is to train the beginners. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:23, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

the tale of ABUSE FILTER ANTI VANDALISM BOHT HAS PREVENTED YOUR HARMFUL ACTION CONTINUE AND BE DESTROYED

404 errors Hi. Can you please give some example pages that give 404 errors. Are these errors persistent? (Replied on my talkpage here and on Meta) πr2 (t • c) 02:02, 23 October 2013 (UTC) Ah, is it possibly related to bugzilla:56006 and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#What_has_happened_to_Commons.3F? I noticed Meta was redirecting to wikimediafoundation.org earlier, but I don't remember any 404 errors. The village pump has some info on these problems. πr2 (t • c) 02:12, 23 October 2013 (UTC) Looking over the what-has-happened-to-commons, one person (Stefan2) reported seeing 404 errors. They were just clicking around, though, from what I can tell. Most of the troubles were related to an incorrect redirect. Here is the tech-detail-explanation from Dan Zahn.[8] He can prolly say for certain whether that particular misconfig would have caused my 404 problems, but it seems likely: according to GregorB in that thread, the problems were the "same for meta.wikimedia.org" which is where I was working. However, I did have the strange case where my talkpage seemed to have been blanked, circa 18:30 UTC on the 22nd. Note that I never saw (to my knowledge) any 'wikimediafoundation.org' URLs in my browser's address-bar, except the time when I got the "no text in page" bug. Anyhoo, seems likely that all my 404 and redirect troubles were caused by the commons-redirect issue -- I first noticed problems at 17:50 or thereabouts, but MzMcBride had filed a bugzilla report at 17:11 on the difficulties. Below are the specifics of my story, if still needed for something, but I'm reasonably certain my troubles and bug#56006 are from the same root cause. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:55, 23 October 2013 (UTC) p.s. Although the server-side troubles have been fixed, if you run across somebody complaining they are having 404 or redirect-to-wikimediafoundation.org problems today on the 23rd, prolly they need to restart their web-browser (or clear their browser-cache or use ctrl-r to for a full page-reload). I'm not seeing such issues, but somebody re-opened 56006 this morning, maybe for that reason. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 15:00, 23 October 2013 (UTC) I have worked on wikipedia for many moons, and seen it go down (as in no longer accessible via the internet) maybe twice, when I happened to be actively editing and started seeing a variety of errors. With the 404 errors over on meta the other day, it was something different. Here is the nutshell story:    I went over to meta, to work on my being-blocked-by-a-bot problems, and to post some complaints about rule#50 in particular onto my meta-talkpage. I posted my talk-section about "request change from disallow to warn" in the 'final' version as of 17:53, 22 October 2013‎. But during composition, I hit the preview-button perhaps ten times (say). Two of the ten, I got 404 errors (roughly). If I hit back-button, and clicked the preview-button again, it worked fine. Even so, alarming that *any* 404 errors would occur. So I stopped my work on documenting my rule#50 problems, and suggested changes, and instead tried to alert you on your talkpage that meta.wikipedia.org servers were having trouble.    I was unable to send you a note there, due to bots preventing me from commenting. Still, I *tried* several times to fiddle with my note to you, seeing if I could trick the bot into letting me pass. During those preview&submit attempts on *your* meta-talkpage I received several more 404 errors, perhaps one in ten to four in ten. I did not keep an exact count ... but of course, as an admin on meta you can request a redacted copy of the raw webserver logfiles from the webserver-sysadmins over at meta's server-farm, which shows all the 200 errors and 404 errors which were returned to my IP during that couple-hour-timespan, if you want exact details... and those logs will also pinpoint which node(s) in the cluster are returning the errors, and which ones are working properly.    I never did get past the bot 'protection' on your meta-talkpage, so I eventually gave up and posted on your enWiki talkpage, clicking submit circa 18:46, 22 October 2013‎. Later, I continued posting in various places -- never got any errors on enWiki of any sort (not counting captcha), but got intermittent 404 errors over on meta.    Additionally, one time only, there was a "non-erroneous" pageview generated. Over on my meta-talkpage, when I made some new modification to a comment, and then clicked submit, after the freshly-modified page reloaded, instead of seeing the old talkpage comments, plus a new sentence at the bottom, I instead saw "There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, or search the related logs, but you do not have permission to create this page." This happened ~18:30 on the 22nd. Just as with the 404 errors (of which I had seen several by this point), I was able to click back, and then click save again, and the problem "fixed" itself (my historical commentary and my new sentence were visible again).    As of a few minutes ago, I created a new section on my meta-talkpage, and it handled 25 preview-button-presses and 5-or-10 save-button-presses, with no errors and no problems. So whatever the trouble was, at least from what this one test-session tells us, now is seemingly corrected. You might still want to request those webserver-logfiles, though... in case the 404 errors were load-related. Maybe there was a spam-storm during my 18:30 session on the 22nd, which was causing stress on the server-farm, and generating the somewhat-rare and intermittent 404 errors, plus the one "no text in this page" bug? If so, knowing which server-nodes were problematic may be helpful. I did not have the necessary HTTP-header-sniffing tools (or TCP-packet-sniffing tools alternatively) running on my box at the time, so I don't have any more info on this end about what server-IP was giving me the buggy results, but meta.wikimedia.org logfiles will show the problem (and you already know my IP and the timestamp range to request). HTH 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:38, 23 October 2013 (UTC) I never got around to asking for logs, but the problem seems to have ended. You have new messages at m:Meta:Requests_for_help_from_a_sysop_or_bureaucrat#AbuseFilter_review. πr2 (t • c) 20:47, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

the tale of the good editor who is migrating here from an external wiki

Notice of External links noticeboard discussion This message is being sent to inform you that a discussion at Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard is taking place regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. --MorrowStravis (talk) 18:37, 27 October 2013 (UTC) RE: justice wikia Hi. I opened a RFC that Qwyrxian suggested. --MorrowStravis (talk) 12:22, 1 November 2013 (UTC) Oh ho, a race, is it?  :-)     Well, there's nothing wrong with that, of course. But there is a long backlog there, as you probably noticed. If you want to help, pick one of the questions you see there, and offer them some advice, that will restore your RfC-karma back to even-steven. <grin> I have a few minutes, so I'm posting over on the article-talkpage, where you announced the link to your RfC. Thanks for improving wikipedia. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:32, 1 November 2013 (UTC) I replied on the two pages. --MorrowStravis (talk) 19:42, 1 November 2013 (UTC) I left you a small novel on the EL/N, and a brief reply on the (article) talkpage. I also put this over on Jack's page, since he seems to be the most active talkpage-elder -- User_talk:Jack_Sebastian#Young_Justice_article.2C_first-time_editor Since it looks like NikkiMaria was also potentially interested, you can leave her a nice personal note on her talkpage, in a new section, explaining that you misunderstood what she meant by "discussion" (on the *article* talkpage), and she misunderstood what you meant by "consensus" (the borderline-undecided discussion over at EL/N), but that you have now got it all figured out, and have opened up a discussion on the article-talkpage, with the rationale why your ELNO meets a valid exception, and give her the link if she cares to comment. Also, thank her for making wikipedia better, because even though she tangled with you, she absolutely does. Anyways, I've got to skedaddle, ping my talkpage if you need anything. Thanks for making wikipedia better, see you around. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:14, 2 November 2013 (UTC) Thanks for all your help and advice! --MorrowStravis (talk) 19:08, 3 November 2013 (UTC) No problemo. Thanks for improving wikipedia. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:56, 4 November 2013 (UTC) What now? Can we put it back? --MorrowStravis (talk) 21:10, 27 November 2013 (UTC) Almost, but I vote not just yet. The goal is to achieve WP:CONSENSUS, which ideally is unanimous-amongst-folks-who-care-enough-to-show-up. In practice, though, if a mob shows up, and say 2+2=5, whereas only one person shows up with policy and sources on their size That is different than WP:WIN. There is also the aspect of WP:NICE aka pillar four, and you are having a bit of difficulty there, which I'll cover at the bottom.   Partly, the trouble is because of what you are trying to accomplish, which is getting the link listed... which is very binary, either the link goes in, or the link stays out, which means somebody has to "win". Usually, there is considerably more wiggle-room, for changing the phrasing of a sentence, or the placement of a paragraph, or the surrounding sentences, and such. But in this case, we either put the link in, or we do not put it in, eh? So you and Lucia are getting involved in WP:BATTLEGROUND to a minor degree.   Well, there is a trick here, which is that we can offer Lucia the ability to contextualize the link. Here is one place that happened: Charles_IX_of_Sweden#See_also. The argument was about this guy was *really* a king of kvenland, or not. Just putting in the barelink gave the connotation that he was the king of kvenland, right? But in fact, he only claimed the title for the latter part of his reign, and his heir later dropped the title, and in fact the claimed title was king of the caijainers... which can be argued to be the same, but only linguistically, the actual meanings are lost in the sands of time. But hey, we can condense all that into a disclaimer, right? And that is what happened, and seemed to satisfy the one person who was pretty adamant about not-really-a-king-of-kvenland.   So what I suggest, is that you and I work on a contextualizing-disclaimer, in public, and let Lucia help us write it. Then, if we make her happy, maybe everybody will be happy. We damn well near *already* have everybody happy now, with our hard work: y, support. MorrowStravis (who was really a hard sell... they resisted and resisted, but with serenity and persistence, I eventually brought them around, so now they support adding the link ;-) _, not enough to overcome our generally tendency to keep out as many ELs as possible. But, if others disagree (I know that I'm on the strict side), I wouldn't fight about it. Qwyrxian 10 Oct y, not reference/citation but I think it's acceptable as an external link. So, that is a pretty weak, "It's okay by me". It's based on my opinion of its value, not WP policy. Liz 11 Oct y, Support... target provides a Unique Resource, beyond what wikipedia-the-repository-of-encyclopedic-content is ever going to contain. 74-whatever 12 Oct _, see what happens in discussion#B (see below). NikkiMaria y, cannot use YJW as a source, but an external link is just dandy. - Jack Sebastian 4 Nov y, I don't think another external link threatens creating a link farm. Chris Troutman 17 Nov y, high-quality wikis are an excellent external resource for precisely this reason ... tidbits that are wholly inappropriate for a proper encyclopedia. —Justin/koavf 21 Nov N, just don't find them [the external article-content] as significant. ...the little amount of information they have. --Lucia 22 Nov Now, that is a very good record. And policy is on our side, methinks, which is the real key -- sooner or later, wikiJustice always leads to the correct stuff being in mainspace. But we want Lucia on our side, also. She is making good-faith arguments (much like Qwyrxian did) about how wikipedia ought to work. She's directly addressing your contention, that YJW qualifies under the ELNO#12 exception. And she is correct, it does not, I totally 100% agree... but only because I've heard of some of the wikis that passed that test. They were gi-nor-mous, with as many *currently-active* editors as YJW has total editors-of-all-time. Obviously, the written policy-text doesn't make it very clear that the unwritten meaning of "significant" is utterly-super-duper-massive.   However, she's also now directly addressing *my* contention, that the YJW is a Unique Resource that contains a significant amount of stuff (again with that fuzzy word) that wikipedia never ought to contain. She agrees that is has stuff which doesn't belong in wikipedia, but disagrees that it is *significant* and points out that not many active editors are around to further flesh it out. You disagree... which is fine... but are starting to lash out in frustration, which is Not Good. According to WP:ELNO#12 open wikis such as this are allowed only if it has substantial history and substantial amount of editors. Lucia 4 Nov (which is fair enough... but of course not our only argument) I'm showing the illogic of your justification. --Morrow (badly phrased... which Lucia pointed out... and instead of apologizing you then went further) 'many whine and make a fit over the wiki they participate in. ...Don't call other peoples vote "illogic". it's rude.' --Lucia (called vaguely-specified folks whiners... lost the moral high ground) Vandalize a page and see how long they take to revert it. --Morrow (never a good idea to suggest this... although of course, logically, if security is never tested... but vandalism is a four-letter-word here) you didn't look too deep or didn't even look --Morrow (accusation and assumes bad faith... now you have *definitely* also lost the moral high ground) I did. i just don't find them as significant. ...I've seen all the links, but quite frankly, a list of characters can do the job much more effectively. Have you seen the little amount of information they have? --Lucia (she responds calmly... and that is good of her... but your final response was anything but WP:NICE, and pretty far from calm  :-)   Now, understandably, this is all taking quite some time for such a seemingly-small change, and causing you some wikiStress, so you are reacting to her arguments a bit badly. You are getting a bit hot under the collar, and feel like she is your opponent. That is bad. She is not. She is defending how she believes wikipedia ought to be, just like Jack, just like NikkiMaria, just like you, and just like me. You must really really assume good faith, and try as hard as you can to WP:IMAGINE. Keep your cool. This is not a debating society, nor a political campaign. This is wikipedia, and all the pillars apply, but the most important one is, if any rule prevents you from improving wikipedia, ignore it. Lucia is doing her best to improve wikipedia, and that demands respect.   I'll try and help out, and ask her if there is a possible disclaimer-slash-contextualizing-tagline we can add to the EL which would satisfy her concerns. You can also help out, in the obvious fashion, by fixing up your message, using the strikeout trick to get rid of what you changed your mind about saying -- since some folks including myself have already seen it after all that is perhaps the better way ... though you can also put (retracted) in the places where you make changes. Then, stick to WP:NICE, like a rock. Not everybody here does that; some folks will be quite rude. But the best bet is to stick to the high moral ground, stay zen, and concentrate on the pillars.   Anyhoo, another small novel for you. I think you've made some goofs, but that doesn't mean you're doing badly. You are doing exceedingly well, in fact. And I expect we will have success. But I don't worry about the WP:DEADLINE, and neither should you. It helps to take a deep breath, just relax, and remember this is only the internet.  :-)   I'll go stick my note onto the talkpage, and then we'll start to see if there is a way to satisfy all parties. Thanks as usual for improving wikipedia. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 02:56, 28 November 2013 (UTC) You are a great guy and know lots of things about Wikipedia. Why don't you have an account? --MorrowStravis (talk) 13:07, 29 November 2013 (UTC) Ah, you assume I'm a guy, and probably mammalian, but on the internet, no one knows when you are secretly an immigrant from Vulcan.  :->       Thanks for the compliment, appreciate it. on the somewhat boring story of why 74 uses a jersey number rather than a pen name   Part of the reason is related to my personality, but primarily it is a philosophical stance, which has hardened to intransigence recently. This is supposed to be the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, but that is no longer true. If you, or myself, comes to wikipedia and makes some obvious-improvement edit for The Good, we will be ninja-reverted simply *because* we are beginners -- or at least, perceived to be lower-caste.   The great virtue you have been touting for YJW's reliability, namely, that they reject anons to lessen vandalism, is actually a sign of significant weakness. They don't have the *personnel* to keep back the Visigoths, by manual reverts or by hand-maintaining bohts, so instead of thwarting their adversaries they have to inconvenience the good citizens of the wiki. Over on deWiki, the german-language-flavor-of-wikipedia, they have exactly the same policy, and it is deathly stagnant there.   Even here, we have had declining editor-counts for the past five years,[9] unbeknowest to moi. Well, *now* it is damn well beknowest to moi, and I'm planning to fix it. I want editor-retention to not merely level off, I want to invert the trend, and see it grow dramatically again, into the hundreds of thousands in the short-to-medium-term, and millions in the not-too-long-term. enWiki just fell below 30k active contribs, for the first time in years, yet we have hundreds of millions of readers... and growing!   Anyhoo, in order to complete my work, I need to be an anon, of the low-caste. That gives me street-cred, and lets me test the bohts here, 90% of which only restrict beginners. Plus, I need a photographic memory, for the five bazillion policies, so I have wiki-cred, too. I also need to learn to keep it short and sweet... oh crap... I just knew there was a catch, a fatal flaw in my scheme to revamp the wikiverse.  :-)   So perhaps that answers your question, or perhaps that just leads to more questions. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:03, 29 November 2013 (UTC) p.s. Your apology was fine, but once you realize your intent was not clear from your prose, strike the prose. (Isn't that a song? Nevermind.) So, go fix this stuff listed below, flattery will get you nowhere with me, but it might help us out with Lucia. Youre having a go right? WP:AAGF On what world is that little information? WP:NICE if you say that then you didn't look too deep or didn't even look WP:AGF Something like that must be supported with proof. WP:BURDEN And while you are at it, read that WP:BURDEN thing twice... since we're the ones adding stuff, we have to prove it. Lucia gets to do what she is WP:REQUIRED to do. (Hint: de nada.) over 20 ((kilo?))bytes of size data. Everything is covered to much in great detail. Plus, two bonus fixes while you are at it, for the bad-to-the-bone little grammar-nazi who lives in my heart. Methinks you prolly didn't mean 20 bytes.  :-) HTH. p.p.s. Guess I should be crystal clear about this topic. *You* can always go back and edit your *own* comments, later, as long as you don't change the meaning; you can even change the meaning of what you previously wrote, as long as you strikeout the old version (rather than potentially-misleadingly-delete-it). Nevah Evah mess with other folks comments, however, even to fix totally-glaringly-obvious typos; 90% will appreciate the help, but I learned the hard way that the other 10% will hate your guts forever, so best to avoid the risk. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:03, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

the tale of the determined beginning editor on their way to big trouble in little high school territory

Thanks, but ... Thanks for being nice to Pratham. But ... have a look at what you dismissed as "template spam", again, and you'll find my admittedly lengthy message trying to warn him about copyvio (and Begoon explaining why one image keeps getting deleted). He's headed for trouble very fast with images and the article was also full of copied wording in his versions; if you can get him reading, please try to explain that, too. Thanks and good luck! Yngvadottir (talk) 21:28, 27 October 2013 (UTC) Yeah, I skimmed down it. The signal was lost for the noise. His english is pretty solid, and he understand talkpages and such, but he just applied for his first RfA, to prevent speedy deletions of his images.  :-)   He seems WP:COMPETENT, and full of wikithusiasm. I'll explain the COI and COPYVIO ropes, if I can. Might take more than one go-round, but we'll get there. Thanks for improving wikipedia. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 21:35, 27 October 2013 (UTC) Got your message, did my best. The thing is, there are a lot of admins less wishy-washy than me; if you could see the deleted contribs they show a determination to use a pic taken from another school's photo set, and although the notion that on Facebook or Google means it's up for grabs is a common one, eventually the irresistable force will meet the immovable object of our policies on copyvio and the community's problems with "I didn't hear that." So I see that as the emergency, and, hey, I admire the chutzpah of the RfA, which is what brought him to my attention. You are probably better at this than I am, and feel free to delete this section now. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:12, 27 October 2013 (UTC) Yes, it's largely the prerogative of the talk page's "owner", with block notices being the big exception and with archiving being preferred. My concern was more that if someone finds they've been discussed, they might be emnbarrassed. Thanks for the invite to join the non-existent cabal; I've been aware of it since User:Dennis Brown either started or co-started it, but I avoid projects on Wikipedia: I'm not very clubbable, as was said of Mycroft Holmes, and when I see something blowing up at AN/I for example, rather than opine on policy and good practice, or gods forbid, hit the block button, my first instinct is always to go talk to the editor or just fix the article. And the one project I did get involved with ended badly from my point of view, so I've become even more of a loose cannon. Plus they rejected me at the Teahouse as not nice enough or something '-) So you may run into me again doing something nutty, but it's usually as a loner. That's how I keep that weird pie-chart, not to mention keep 'em guessing what I am qualified to teach '-) (BTW I snooped; there are actually quite a few academics already on Wikipedia, at least one faculty lounge's worth hang out at User:Drmies's talk page, some of them also with extra buttons.) Yngvadottir (talk) 12:39, 28 October 2013 (UTC) There's more lounging on my talk page than there is in my department, yes, and the drinks are much better. Drmies (talk) 13:54, 28 October 2013 (UTC) This time I responded at my talk page. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:45, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

the tale of the long grass of scepticm

Academic papers Articles about academics often have Bibliography sections. The one about Professor Sheldrake has one, but it doesn't mention any of his academic papers, which I'm told are numerous. Might it be good for Wikipedia if someone added them to the Bibliography? I am willing to do the work, within reason, but I hesitate to step on sensitive toes, or to do work that might be reverted without good reason. Lou Sander (talk) 15:06, 30 October 2013 (UTC) Yes, I started that effort, and have some links for his earlier papers (the mainstream ones). But yes, pointless to do the work if it will just be reverted. I will pass along the links I found to ICRIASTA-or-whatever-their-name-is, if you feel like it. But the real problem is the battleground, not the sourcing. We *have* plenty of sources, which are being ignored as 'not consensus'. I've never seen an article in worse shape than this one. I'm going to announce that I'm planning to bring in help, because vzaak keeps reverting my talkpage comments now, and is attempting to build the case I am disruptive. See previous bans of 71-whatever, Alfonzo, and of course Tumbleman... who unfortunately had "theatricalized a persona for dispute studies" which is quite reminiscent of my own *authentic* stance. Sigh. Anyways, I'll go talk to vzaak, and see if I can convince them I'm not Tumbleman. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 15:35, 30 October 2013 (UTC) Thank you for your wise advice. I think I shall pay less attention for a while to the triply united righteous defenders of science, and more to developing a bibliography of academic papers, mostly for my own enlightenment. Professor Sheldrake's website has a pretty complete list of them, with links to abstracts and full text versions of most. His own website isn't a reliable source overall, of course, but the bibliographic data cites verifiable papers in legitimate journals, and is therefore, I hope, reliable. I don't think you are disruptive at all, unless disrupting disruptive editors is somehow disruptive. Lou Sander (talk) 16:08, 30 October 2013 (UTC) That last sentence is hilarious, but not quite correct. Vast talkpage verbosity is absolutely disruptive in some cases, see WP:FILIBUSTER, named after the U.S. Senator Phil O'Buster who was a master of the technique in the 1790s and first portion of the eighteen-aughties. However, in my specific case on the Sheldrake page, the verbosity is a symptom of the basket-case nature of the article, and thus the talkpage. Very tough situation all around though... I cannot call in additional help from the WP:NICE cabal, because that would *add* to the verbosity... and thus drive good editors away like Dingo1729 for instance... besides, the *last* time somebody tried to bring in help, they got the WP:9STEPS treatment, right?     But I also cannot simply hush-ma-verbosifyin-maaouth, to let the BLP article stand as it is, non-neutral and screwed up. Sigh. Anyhoo, we'll see whether I can convince Vzaak that I'm a human, rather than Just An Annoying IP. They are clearly the current WP:OWNer of the article, having literally five *times* more mainspaced edits than anybody else, and they are *not* in league with Barney's WP:NPA tactics (despite failing to speak *against* said techniques per pillar four policy). Vzaak is just conflating a couple things, and thus slightly biased, but methinks they will come around, and once that happens, David and Josh-aka-QTv and Vzaak will quickly get the article back into NPOV-shape. Anyhoo, thanks for improving wikipedia, see you around. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:37, 30 October 2013 (UTC) p.s. here are my URL-notes-for-later, sorry they are very rough, most I have *not* visited, please treat these as POV-and-unreliable-until-proven-otherwise. HTH 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:37, 30 October 2013 (UTC) bunch of links that might someday improve the article some allegedly-POV stuff, but might not be WP:RS-enough per the hierarchy outlined in WP:FRINGE https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rupert_Sheldrake&diff=577954871&oldid=577883638#cite_ref-27 wp:aboutself facebook.com/RupertSheldrake "world-renowned author" with 11k likes http://dangerousminds.net/comments/rupert_sheldrake_speaks_on_the_ted_censorship_controversy "acclaimed author" edge.org/memberbio/rupert_sheldrake http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Sheldrake,_Rupert http://www.bizspirit.com/spkrfullbio/science08/si8_SheldrakeR.html publication counts http://oar.icrisat.org/view/creators/Sheldrake=3AA_R=3A=3A.html papers authored as a commercial researcher , 1974-1985 sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rupert_Sheldrake might be reliable http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/science/sheldrake-morphogenic-field-memory-lashley-collective-unconscious-3486.html http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/science/rupert-sheldrake-dna-843.html http://thesunmagazine.org/issues/446/wrong_turn http://www.williamjames.com/transcripts/sheldra1.htm http://www.salon.com/1999/11/23/sheldrake/ https://scimednet.org/the-science-delusion cites for controversial adjective "Rupert Sheldrake is the most controversial scientist on Earth." (Robert Anton Wilson, author of Prometheus Rising and The Illuminati Papers) http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/science/2003-02-26-mindmain-usat_x.htm "controversial scientist" ... "controversial biologist" http://www.sciencebase.com/nov00_iss.html cites for renowned adjective http://www.haverford.edu/calendar/details/214012 http://merliannews.com/Personal_Dialogues_34/Merlian_News_Talks_To_World_Renowned_Biologist_and_510.shtml http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xt0fyi_lumenz-networks-rupert-sheldrake-s-biography_news not to be confused with ...Philip Sheldrake, author of The Business of Influence... philipsheldrake.com ...Nicole Sheldrake, author of Red Catsuit... ...Wayne Sheldrake, author of Instant Karma: The Heart and Soul of a Ski Bum An Inspiring Tale of Letting Go to Gain it All... this basket-case article is making wikipedia infamous and sheldrake famous sciencesetfree.tumblr.com -- rupert sheldrake's official blog... number one article hints wikipedia is headed for a defamation lawsuit, same as he did with TEDx ... also, seems a reasonable guy, no wonder regular people like him. http://www.realitysandwich.com/wikipedia_battle_rupert_sheldrakes_biography https://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/the-wikipedia-battle-for-rupert-sheldrakes-biography/ http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2012/01/reputation-and-wikipedia/ (coincidence... this public-relations guy named phil-sheldrake apparently does not know about the more-(in)famous-rupert) "For years, dogmatic skeptics have portrayed themselves as defenders of science and reason, and have bullied journalists into accepting their claims. They have pretended to speak on behalf of the mainstream science. SCEPCOP is doing a great job in helping to expose these pretensions, and in revealing how the claims of militant skeptics are often unscientific and unreasonable, as well as being arrogant and ignorant." --Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, Renowned Telepathy/Consciousness Researcher, Biologist and Author (as quoted at http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/praises.php which is the SCEPCOP website) I don't know... But maybe that's just me. Lou Sander (talk) 18:23, 30 October 2013 (UTC) There is a warning I have, which I don't know whether it applies to any of the URLs I mentioned, or to any on Sheldrake's website, which is that some peer-reviewed-journals are scams, inventions for the purpose of cloaking an idea in the respectability of science without any of the actual trappings, such as the Peer-Reviewed Journal Of Bigfoot Sightings By True Believers... i.e. the 'peers' are not scientific, but social and promotional 'peers' in some cases. Very difficult to detect, but if you follow the cites, you can find these things out. I wrote up a FAQ about this problem, see Wikipedia_talk:Fringe_theories#Are_claims_fringe_if_no_WP:RS_calls_them_fringe.3F Thanks for improving wikipedia. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:54, 30 October 2013 (UTC) "Vast talkpage verbosity is absolutely disruptive in some cases" You said that. Yes, it is. Please limit the length and number of your contributions to Talk:Rupert Sheldrake. You're bloating up the page, and too much of your text reads like stream-of-consciousness. I'm asking you to slow down, and to edit your future contributions for clarity, reader-friendliness, and especially relevance. Your fellow editors are not perfect, but surely they deserve that much. Bishonen | talk 17:01, 31 October 2013 (UTC). Hello Bishonen, and I meant it when I said it -- I have studied WP:WALLOFTEXT deeply, and see myself described there; my userpage was once a redirect to that policy. I do attempt to keep a reasonable limit on my contributions, as simple as possible but no simpler... but I fully admit TLDR is definitely a disease I suffer from. Plus, as you point out, there are N readers of a sentence, for every one writer thereof.     That said, there are some mitigating circumstances here. I've never heard of Sheldrake or his morpho-stuff prior to getting sucked into the WP:BATTLEGROUND, so part of the reason that you see stream-of-consciousness in my posts there is that I'm trying to get a reality-check on whether my reasoning is flawed. This necessarily bulks out my posts, as I am a n00b about the topic, if not about wikipedia herself. I'm no longer a morphogenetics-n00b, by painful necessity, so I expect this particular mitigating circumstance is now largely solved. (However, that does not solve my tendency toward verbosity in general.)     The second problem, which I consider far more serious (and quite frustrating to me), is that even other editors with reasonable concerns very similar to mine, all of whom are registered usernames, and all of whom manage quite well to post without crossing the TLDR line, are also being ignored, as far as mainspace goes. WP:IDHT. User:David_in_DC has made several good-faith edits, attempting to get the problem of what job-title the BLP is going to get, and is insta-reverted every time. User:VeryScaryMary came specifically to the talkpage to ask about that same problem, and it immediately burst into flames, with nothing being done. Iantresman, Lou_Sander, and various others, same exact story with slight variations. Lots of talkpage changes, never resulting in any change in mainspace, goto ten. Skim the vast talkpage... which has at least five or six different sections specifically devoted to whether the current article's author-and-parapsychologist is NPOV, rather than the vastly-better-supported-by-sources biologist-and-author-who-does-work-in-parapsychology. If it was just the job-title, that would be one thing... but the badly-POV-flawed sentence on the Sokal hoax, the downplay of fellowships, the refusal to mention the Ph.D, and the elimination of mention of the 30 years and half-dozen-to-a-dozen-books... no matter the issue, the mainspace article just stays broken, and never improves substantively (enough to gain talkpage consensus! there are many edits... just none Solving The Problems... which leads to another round of talkpage frustration).     The third problem, which I am the only one attempting to address directly (at least one other editor having expressed fear of the admin-fallout which has led to three blocks/bans that I know about in the very recent past), is the root cause of the second problem. Sheldrake has always been a controversial figure. But if you compare his BLP article in May 2013, with his BLP article now (not to mention the recently-deleted article on the BLP's ideas as distinct from the BLP), you will notice a sea-change from a slight-pro-Sheldrake-lean, to a noticeably-significant-anti-Sheldrake-lean. That is *very* bad for BLP. It is not quite an attack-page, per se, since everything on it is more-or-less-true, and more-or-less-sourced. But there is definitely WP:CHERRYPICKING, and there is definitely WP:EDITORIALIZING. Because the page is such a warzone, it has been locked against me being able to make my own mainspace edits. Barney, who has the admirable goal (in all seriousness with no sarcasm intended whatever) of educating the wikipedia readers about true science, and keeping them from mistaking pseudoscience for the real deal, mentioned bringing an admin into the picture, with the oh-so-convenient idea (okay *that* part was sarcasm) that the talkpage should also be locked, because Some People Are Dangerous IP Vandals which threaten the sanctity of WP:BLPTALK. Sorry to disappoint, but my primary goal is WP:NICE and WP:RETENTION, and I see warzones as a problem to be solved, by ending the war... not by *winning* the war, but by getting mainspace compliant with WP:BLP, and sentences that everybody can live with aka WP:CONSENSUS. Which is impossible, in the WP:BATTLEGROUND environment, which started long before I arrived. some meta-thinking about this whole Sheldrake fiasco     Philosophically, distorting Sheldrake's BLP to discredit Sheldrake's work is the wrong approach, not just ethically, but pragmatically. There is not an organized guerrilla sceptic cabal, as Sheldrake opines on his official blog, complaining about his shabby treatment by wikipedians... but perceptions matter, and it looks bad, despite the fact. And the facts are, I truly believe that the various folks who are trying to hold the fort, and keep mainspace the way it is, are trying to Do Good, and are not troublemakers. Quite the reverse -- without constant patrolling by pro-science anti-woo wikipedians, many regions of our mutually-created mutually-defended encyclopedia would quickly degenerate into dangerous-to-wikipedia-herself unreliably nonsense. They have a thankless job, and I thank them for doing it. But our staunch defenders of true science, individually acting as they think best, have mutually crossed the line in the Sheldrake BLP, trying to WP:OWN mainspace, and trying to assert that their skeptic-worldview is The Consensus. I'm unhappy that it will take longer to fix the article; the longer mainspace is POV, and fails to reflect the bulk of the reliable sources, not least because we give Sheldrake a platform, longer. Wikipedia is not supposed to promote wild claims, but we cannot *censor* what reliable sources actually say; that will only end up with wild claims being more widespread!     I have edited wikipedia for quite some time now, from my earlier dynamic addresses, and earlier houses. The message from Barek at the top of my current talkpage, about HTML comment within an HTML comment, was the first time I have *ever* talked to an admin, or indeed, received a personal-talkpage message (template-spam or otherwise). Your visit is the first time anyone has *ever* tried to ban-hammer me. I fully understand that this is not at all your fault, Bishonen. I fully understand that you are short-handed, and do not have time to investigate cases deeply. But this Sheldrake article is a basket-case. Absolutely, I admit that my verbosity is not improving the situation... but I am reasonably convinced that my failure so far is simply because the situation cannot yet be improved. I'm a beginner at the WP:RETENTION thing, but there have been at least three other members that tried and failed before me: Liz who left before I came, IRWolfie who just gave up and left today, plus Lou Sander who is staying but has decided to research source-material rather than argue-loop further on the talkpage. Just like the pro-skeptic folks running the mainspace now, we pro-nice folks are not an organized cabal... I found Sheldrake quite by accident, after arguing about Steinbeck, and making friends with David_in_DC thereby (a budding friendship which is at risk of going sour due to the WP:BATTLEGROUND over at the Sheldrake page I might add). But our WP:RETENTION cabal is organized around pillar four, and pillar two, not around Righting Great Wrongs. Of course, the anti-Sheldrake forces trying to defend mainspace from change, see the WP:NICE folks like myself as invaders, because we want 'PhD' in the lede. I cannot convince them I'm a human, unfortunately.  :-/     Yet, anyways. Hope springs eternal.     So, having absolutely positively justified that charge of verbosity... <grin> ...I will await your advice. I'm against banning, and blocking, of anybody. I'm against boomerang. I'm against admin-involvement at all, quite frankly, if it can be avoided. (Thus I provide you no diffs here, nor investigate further myself to find my exact accusers, or what they said; if you think diffs from me will *help* you improve the situation, then they do exist, and if you want answers about some particular accusation, ask and you shall receive, I'll try to keep it terse.) Fundamentally, I want everybody to leave the page satisfied, at the end of the week or month or however long this basket-case takes to fix, not leave holding grudges and plotting revenge. I've been debating whether or not to call for reinforcements... but the last time somebody tried that, they were instantly brought before a noticeboard on WP:CANVASSING charges. I will not attempt to bring help to the Sheldrake fiasco, without first discussing a neutral method of 'jury selection' on the article-talkpage. (Never thought I would have to worry about such things....) Furthermore, I'm halfway convinced adding additional voices can only hurt. The talkpage is already way too crowded, and the problems and personalities too complex.     If you have advice, please offer it. This is not the worst article I've ever seen on wikipedia -- in fact it is *incredibly* well-sourced if a bit disjointed -- but it is, bar none, the worst talkpage I've ever seen, including all of the 2012 senate and house and presidential election pages. Those were a walk in the park, by comparison. Sorry to talkpage your ear off, thanks for improving wikipedia, appreciate you not chopping my access off, and instead just giving me some friendly TLDR advice. I'll do my best to take it to heart, even if my answer to you here on *my* talkpage seems to flout the general idea.  :-)     — 74.192.84.101 (talk) 19:24, 31 October 2013 (UTC) Oh god. Maybe on a good day I'll read all the above. I have some health problems, and don't want to make them worse. :p. I'm afraid I don't have any advice about the article. I should think very few people are prepared to read that talkpage by now, and I agree that throwing more people at it can only hurt. I should mention that you and I don't seem to be on the "same page" (see what I did there?) a lot, since you apparently regard VeryScaryMary and Iantresman as forces for good on that page (unless I've misunderstood you) and I frankly don't. I thought I understood what you meant by WP:NICE, but maybe not, if you see IRWolfie as affiliated with it. Whether or not, Wolfie didn't leave because of the Sheldrake page. See the current disaster on his talkpage. Bishonen | talk 20:51, 31 October 2013 (UTC). Heh heh heh... yeah, sorry about wall-o-text. Please feel free to skip the above entirely; I'll try and tone down my floodgates on the Sheldrake talkpage. (And in fact, you can skip the rest of *this* message, which is explaining who the forces-of-good and the forces-of-misguided at the moment are, if you care to know the gory details.) I realize that Iantresman and VeryScaryMary tend to lean a bit on the pro-Sheldrake side... everybody has bias so that's no shame... but calling the man a biologist, since he spent 21 years post-undergrad doing that (and still is experimenting and a visiting professor and winning grants and such) is *fair* rather than pro-Sheldrake. Up until this summer, that is just what the page said, right at the top, as well as listing the N books that Sheldrake has authored over the past thirty years. Since the emergent behavior that looks like the Grand Sceptic Conspiracy but is really just disconnected individuals all reacting to the external-TEDx-censorship-furor, Sheldrake is *never* allowed to be called a biologist except in the decades-past-tense, *never* allowed to be called a highly successful author. That's distorting the truth, and playing into the hands of people who want to see Sheldrake as the persecuted genius.     So, yes, absolutely, at this moment both VeryScaryMary and Iantresman __are__ forces of good-for-wikipedia on the talkpage right now, because they want the article to say the plain truth! That makes the skeptics the bad-for-wikipedia guys, trying to distort the truth for POV reasons, and turns them from defenders of reason (and champions of wikipedia!) into defenders of we-pick-the-sources-that-says-what-we-likes. That makes Sheldrake look good, and wikipedia look bad. But at least a few of the skeptics are so frustrated they're also stooping to personal attacks, and sarcasm as a drive-away-others tactic, and especially IDHT... which as a WP:RETENTION champion is what drove *me* nutty enough to dive in headfirst, and I'll stay till it looks fixed. (Even those that do not so stoop... stay complicit through silence.)     Grrrr. The longer the talkpage warzone goes on, the better Sheldrake looks, which is the opposite of what the pro-skeptic forces want. As for IrWolfie, he *is* on the WP:RETENTION members list at #67, and he *does* do some good things, like leaving personal notes on talkpages rather than template-spamming (ahem... more on milquetoast another time perhaps). But although honestly interested in WP:RETENTION, he is not above trying to use the ban-hammer to create a win for skepticism, or watching silently while other shred pillar four... Not Good. He's a very competent editor though, just prickly about specific topic-areas, and the rest of the forces-of-reason on the Sheldrake page are also crucial to wikipedia's long-term health... just misguided in tactics, where Sheldrake is concerned (his highly respectable science-credentials coupled with his telepathy-like theories push the Big Red Button of raging emotion). The way to silence mystic voodoo is not to censor it, and drive away proponents from wikipedia, the best way is WP:NICE, and reliance on sources, not WP:9STEPS. I'll skip reading IRWolfie's talkpage, but they *are* an asset to wikipedia, if they can just keep WP:NICE in mind. p.s. Is it true you know the famed Bishzilla, awesome titan of the deeps? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 21:55, 31 October 2013 (UTC) Bishonen: It is worth it to read 74.192.84.101's lengthy posts, especially the ones in this section. I am agnostic on VeryScaryMary and Iantresman, but their posts here are civil and thoughtful, as are 74's. Lou Sander (talk) 22:04, 31 October 2013 (UTC) 74.192.84.101. Well, if you'd looked, you'd know Wolfie is no longer an asset to Wikipedia. He's left. :-( I've met Bishzilla, yes, and even travel in her pocket sometimes. Cosy! Bishonen | talk 22:12, 31 October 2013 (UTC). Sigh. See, *this* is why I hate warzones, because of casualties we cannot afford. Gotta go trick-or-treat now. Thanks for improving wikipedia, folks. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 22:19, 31 October 2013 (UTC) What you really need to do is to write your walls of text so that you get it out of your system, put in the tiny edit summary which sums up what you've said, then delete the wall of text, and press "Save page" You seem to be good at summarising into that small box, so much so that I stopped reading the walls of text days ago. All my love - Rox. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 00:21, 1 November 2013 (UTC) (please see edit-summary :-)     74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:33, 1 November 2013 (UTC) You see, I'm right. You could edit mainspace too. Create an account, and we could hold you to account better too. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 00:36, 1 November 2013 (UTC) (Ummm... edit mainspace without WP:NINJA insta-reverts?) Well, sure, I could create 74zillaKrakenFromTheDeepsTheOneWhoSwallowedBishMwwuaahahaaa, and link it to this IP, and make myself a userpage, and so on and so forth. (There's some practical difficulties, nothing *too* horrid.) But that's never been interesting to me. And philosophically, I've always been in favor of the-encyclopedia-anyone-can-edit. Creating an account violates that principle. In the last year or so, however, is when I became a WP:NICE nazi... and it became very clear to me, from looking at WP:RETENTION and the RfA process and metaWiki stuff, that wikiCulture has become a caste-system. I intend to fix that, and part of doing so means I *need* to be Just Another Anon, 74-blah. There's actually another user I noticed on the Sheldrake talkpage, QTvX-whatever aka Josh, that has a philosophy somewhat similar to mine. Anyhoo, I'll stop typing now, and concentrate on distilling the essence into my edit-summary. Also, imagine that I'm resonancing my edit-summary in your direction, morphically implanting it so you can actually remember what it said *before* you bother reading it, which will *really* save you a lot of time, going forward, now won't it?  :-)     Thanks for improving wikipedia, see you on the talkpage. p.s. If my IP were to dynamically get re-assigned tomorrow, and 47-blah showed up on the Sheldrake talkpage, posting huge walls and demanding wp:nice, could you *possibly* not think it was moi? Methinks the trouble here is that some folks aren't too 100% sure I'm not secretly tumbleman, back from the dead, out to transhumanize myself er elzzz... I'm not o'course... but I'd say that if I was riiight? Sigh. You know that story already, though, methinks. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 03:07, 1 November 2013 (UTC) Wars and rumors of wars There is a rumor that the BBC has, within the last day or so, interviewed a well-known author/lecturer/scientist who commented pretty specifically on a well-known BLP and its argumentative talk page. It's only a rumor, of course, but keep yer eyes on the telly. Lou Sander (talk) 04:56, 1 November 2013 (UTC) Well, I've always heard, do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes, is the old rule. Plus, the teevee is not my friend -- I keep a sharp eye on 'em, to make sure they stay off. I'm hoping the rumors are wrong, but I won't be too surprised if they turn out correct... bound to happen sooner or later. I'd rather any mainstream coverage that DOES happen, wait to happen until *after* we get the article cleaned up by NPOV standards, though. The talkpage discussion may finally turn into something that will substantively improve the actual text of the actual mainspace article... rather than just a bunch of talkpage heat, with little light, and no mainspace progress, goto ten. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:36, 1 November 2013 (UTC) Further review of my source shows that "BBC World Service" might be radio instead of teevee. My source is impeccable, but is a more-or-less primary one. I don't want to share it here, but could do so by double top secret email. (No sharing Source's contact info, fer example). It might take your breath away, which might be a good thing, since I hear that long-windedness is disruptive, cause for banning, etc. (though I don't have a WP:RS on that). ;-) Lou Sander (talk) 19:12, 1 November 2013 (UTC) As a old time radio nut Lou, you know full well that BBC World Service is radio. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 22:31, 1 November 2013 (UTC) (edit conflict... Roxy, pay attention, I morphed you not to click save until I finished! SRSLY  :-) Actually, I've heard their broadcasts, a few years back... BBC-world-svc is 24/7 news-radio, paid for by the UK govt, but re-broadcast (partially) in the USA on various NPR/PBS stations (subsidized by the feds in the Colonies). Depending on how much secondary coverage the interview gets (which is right now still just a rumor by that guy with the Commodore key-layout memorized :-) it might or might not be considered "slow news day" stuff. David_in_DC and I had an inclusive-as-yet discussion about a not-very-notable copycat novel, over on the Steinbeck page... some lady had written a book, and it got onto the local teevee broadcasts in her hometown in Nebraska, her residence in Connecticut, and once in Iowa (for unknown reasons). So it was more than the trivial nightly newscast... but it was also just a burst of coverage, WP:BLP1E, and may not have risen above WP:SPIP to the level of WP:NOTEWORTHY, and *certainly* was nowhere near WP:N. Anyways, we'll have to wait and see. BBC does have webcasts on their website, methinks, but I don't know if they have written transcripts, or just streaming audio... and they may not have any search function.     The coverage alleging wikipedia-the-bastion-of-biased-unreliability has *so* far been limited to Sheldrake's blog (which is actually quite mild... but does hint that defamation is not off the table... and even if there *were* no such hinting WP:BLP is clear as a bell that nothing should cross that line)... as well as Weiler's blog, who apparently personally knows Sheldrake, and must be famous/infamous thereby, who personally edited -- talkpage only per WP:COI -- from mid-Sept until mid-Oct, leaving about a week before I got sucked in.     In *other* news, more important to me personally than whether Sheldrake gets some BBC airtime, TRPoD has just offered a very useful revised-draft sentence, which is close enough to NPOV that it should definitely go into mainspace, methinks. Progress. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 22:50, 1 November 2013 (UTC) Roxy: Yes, I guess I do know that; that's why I corrected myself. But back when I first listened to the BBC World Service, there WASN'T any television. I just jumped to the conclusion that they had kept up with the times. Lou Sander (talk) 23:23, 1 November 2013 (UTC) TB Hello, 74.192.84.101. You have new messages at TheRedPenOfDoom's talk page. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:49, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

the tale of WP:RETENTION and changing the WikiCulture caste-system
TB Again. And again. Hello, 74.192.84.101. You have new messages at Yintan's talk page. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. TB Hello, 74.192.84.101. You have new messages at Sp33dyphil's talk page. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 02:09, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

the tale of the nazi, the nude, and the false poz

November 2013 You have been blocked from editing for a period of 1 week for abuse of editing privileges. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the following text below this notice: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. However, you should read the guide to appealing blocks first.  AGK [•] 13:18, 8 November 2013 (UTC) If this is a shared IP address, and you did not make the edits, consider creating an account for yourself so you can avoid further irrelevant notices. reason for block is unclear Hello again Anthony, I'm also in the dark on your reasoning. User_talk:AGK#User_74.192.84.101. Your block-message specifying 'generally disruptive editing' and your edit-summary specifies WP:NOTHERE. Instead of specifying a diff that was an example of behavior leading to the block... or, if I might point out, first opening a discussion about that behavior... you just gave a generic rationale. Can you be more specific please, where you are seeing problematic behavior? hide rules away, no longer relevant Narrow self interest and/or promotion Focusing on Wikipedia as a social networking site General pattern of disruptive behavior -- A long term history of disruptive behavior with little or no sign of other intentions. Treating editing as a battleground Dishonest and gaming behaviors Little or no interest in working collaboratively Major or irreconcilable conflict of attitude or intention Inconsistent long-term agenda I assume you are specifically-and-only worried about number three in the list above? What particular "other intentions" do you see me lacking? As you may have guessed, my defense before this unofficial-ArbCom-action is partially -- although not entirely -- WP:NOTNOTHERE, since even a cursory review of my edit-history will show that I *have* continued to made constructive content-contribution edits to mainspace, just like always, in addition to my recent intense activity concerning advocacy-for-a-better-wikipedia-thru-policy-and-tool-changes. Some users may be interested in building an encyclopedia in accordance with Wikipedia's principles, but with different areas of focus or approach to some other users' goals or emphases. Differences that arise where both users are in good faith hoping to improve the project, should not be mistaken for "not being here to build an encyclopedia". 1. Focusing on niche topic areas. A user may have an interest in a topic that other users find trivial or post contents that are difficult to comprehend. Diversity in interests and inputs from specialists in many fields help us function as a comprehensive encyclopedia. 2. Focusing on particular processes. A user may have an interest in creating stubs, tagging articles for cleanup, improving article compliance with the Manual of Style, or nominating articles for deletion. These are essential activities that improve the encyclopedia in indirect ways. Many "behind the scenes" processes and activities are essential to allow tens of thousands of users to edit collectively. Some articles do not belong in Wikipedia, others should be improved, and new articles are often appropriately created in an unfinished state. 3. Advocating amendments to policies or guidelines. The community encompasses a very wide range of views. A user may believe a communal norm is too narrow or poorly approaches an issue, and take actions internally consistent with that viewpoint, such as advocating particular positions in discussions. Provided the user does so in an honest attempt to improve the encyclopedia, in a constructive manner, and assuming the user's actions are not themselves disruptive, such conversations form the genesis for improvement to Wikipedia. 4. Difficulty in good faith, with conduct norms. A number of users wish to edit, but find it overly hard to adapt to conduct norms such as collaborative editing, avoiding personal attacks, or even some content policies such as not adding their own opinions in their edits. While these can lead to warnings, blocks or even bans in some cases, failure to adapt to a norm is not, by itself, evidence that a user is not trying to contribute productively. 5. Expressing unpopular opinions -- even extremely unpopular opinions -- in a non-disruptive manner. Merely advocating changes to Wikipedia articles or policies, even if those changes are incompatible with Wikipedia's principles, is not the same as not being here to build an encyclopedia. The dissenting editor should take care to not violate Wikipedia policies and guidelines such as WP:SOAPBOX, WP:IDHT, and WP:CIVIL in the course of expressing unpopular opinions. My pre-fall-2013 editing history has always been niche (see exception number one), primary politics and computers, but with drive-by forays elsewhere when I noticed something wrong. That continues to be the case, although recently my particular niche has expanded beyond mainspace-only-edits. The motivation is that I've noticed -- call me slow -- an increase in WP:NINJA reverts, indefs, and in general WP:BITE. This got me curious, and when I looked into editor-retention-statistics since mid-2010, horrified. Since that time, I have been trying to understand how the grey areas of wikipedia work, so that I can fix them. This includes edit-filter-bots (and before you point out the technicality... I understand perfectly well that wikiJargon insists on calling only *other* sorts of software 'bots'), fringe science topics where I met DougWeller/BobRaynor/IrWolfie/Vzaak/TRPoD/Barney/Roxy, leading to my first-evah-admin-warning-for-conduct (per WP:TLDR and WP:WALLOFTEXT), as well as BLP topics where I met David/MontanaBW/Flyer22/etc. My understanding is that blocks are not supposed to be used for punitive purposes, but are supposed to be a way of forcibly opening dialog, when other methods of opening dialog have failed. Well then, consider the forcible dialog opened. But you could have just asked nicely, that I refrain from editing whatever-was-the-trouble, while you explained your concerns.  :-/ I'm in the middle of trying to reply to Mark Miller (also of WP:RETENTION) on his question about whether the Second Amendment is for "the people", for "individual americans", for "citizens", et cetera. p.s. You and I once exchanged a couple of emails, concerning an old ArbCom case, at one point. I assume this block today has nothing to do with that? Thanks for your help. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:16, 8 November 2013 (UTC) I didn't know we'd exchanged e-mails, so this does not relate to that, no; and this action was not on behalf of ArbCom. I blocked you because this edit seemed threatening, or like trolling, to me. If it wasn't, please explain the edit and I will happily reconsider my block. Regards, AGK [•] 15:50, 8 November 2013 (UTC) I suggest you go away for a while, and get a proper login when your ban expires. Anon editing isn't intended for serious long-term editors. Barney the barney barney (talk) 16:04, 8 November 2013 (UTC) I'm a serious long-term editor, too, Barney. But as I've explained in your vicinity before, I edit as 74 because of philosophical and advocacy-for-change-related-reasons. I suggest, that you stop suggesting, that people you disagree with about content (or philosophy) should go away. WP:RETENTION, I'm a one-note flute on this subject. Driving away editors is a Bad Thing. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:59, 8 November 2013 (UTC) AGK, the user in question previously flooded Talk:Rupert Sheldrake with comments[10] while treating it as a battleground,[11] and was asked to tone it down per above. The user has continued at the Sheldrake talk page and has since made false allegations toward me there.[12] The Sheldrake article is permanently semi-protected, so the user is not there to contribute. (stat script) vzaak (talk) 16:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC) Hello again Vzaak. ((Update: have not seen your complaints on the Sheldrake talkpage per #11. While there might be honest mistakes about the dates, and if so I will apologize, the lede is currently heavily biased, and downplays the BLP's highly respectable academic credentials very often. I'm still against involving upper-level admins, but AGK is about as upper-level as you can get, so if they feel like delving into the changes to the Sheldrake-family of pages since April -- myself on there since the end of October -- then that is up to you Vzaak, if you wish to invite such.)) 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:59, 8 November 2013 (UTC) Well, I can certainly understand your confusion, Anthony.  :-)     I'm sorry if anybody took offense (to include yourself!); that was certainly not my aim. The entire intent of that diff was humour, although it was ha-ha-only-serious in minor ways. You will note that the previous couple comments were also humorous -- Bish and User:Darwinbish/Stockfish, after MontanaBW was referring to WP:WADR which *currently* is a soft-redirect to the dry truthful wiktionary definition... but my understanding is that (given the context of our conversation about friendlyism and freedom of speech), is that they were referencing a much older satirical definition, found here now -- Wikipedia:WikiSpeak#WADR. "respect, noun. Often used as in with respect, or with all due respect, euphemisms for I think you're talking bollocks." ((Later update -- turns out there was a third WADR, an essay that Bishonen deleted, which was not the satirical-WikiSpeak-dictionary. User_talk:Bishonen#The_Wrong_Venue. Not sure what this version used to say, but prolly a serious-essay and not a humor-essay, which means MontanaBW was not joking in their reference. Bish's stockfish comment was still a humorous one, however.)) 74.192.84.101 (talk) 23:47, 8 November 2013 (UTC)    After chuckling at that, I read some of the rest of the page, and then posted a humorous-to-me-anyhoo response to the thread on Bishonen's talkpage, which involved Wikipedia:WikiSpeak#J in the picture-section (collapsed as a swipe at the anti-pornography arbcom cases tho I doubt anyone got that), as well as my own bit of doggerel-singing which is a lightly-modified version of Wikipedia:WikiSpeak#collaborate, which defines "collaborate, verb, to agree to work productively with another editor, following ten talk-page threads, nine reports to ANI, eight RfCs, ...two angry blog posts, and a partridge in a pear tree." The use of allcaps in the edit summary was also supposed to be satirical, and while I certainly can grok how, seeing SHOUTing, plus "big guns", plus WP:NICE nazi (which is self-referential btw), and then all the battleground-flavored words of the supposed-to-be-entirely-satirical song itself, plus the naked man with the photoshopped head.... hmmmm.... perhaps I should consider toning down the silliness? But I must admit, *I* still think the song is funny.    Still, my only intended "threat" was to caterwaul in a horrid singing-voice. Are you still worried about disruptiveness? And, more importantly, did I accidentally offend Bish or MontanaBW or Aunva? (I've only just interacted with Aunva in that conversation....) I will be happy to self-revert and apologize all around, if so. And I'll try not to combine nudity, nazis, and silliness in the future. But my more serious point was, that WP:NICE is not something that can be rubberized. We need good editors, with brains and competence... but if they cannot follow pillar four, and are driving away *future* good editors, then we're shooting ourselves in the foot. I strongly agree with the serious-point-behind-the-satirical-gist of the song: doing battle on the noticeboards is NOT 'collaboration' and isn't the right way to run the wikiverse. The five pillars are the right way, and pillar four is right up there at the top, in my book. Anyways, apologies for the lengthy reply, hope this clarifies that diff, please feel free to ask further questions if not. Thanks. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:59, 8 November 2013 (UTC) In that case, no, I am not still worried about disruptiveness, and I have unblocked your account. Thank you for explaining yourself, and I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you. Regards, AGK [•] 12:38, 9 November 2013 (UTC) Gracias. Will reply on your talkpage, as a field-test. :-)   — 74.192.84.101 (talk) 13:59, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

the tale of the colorado high school

Valor Christian High School Glad to see I help keeping you busy, but I suggest you read this info on the talk page of Barek, the admin who semi-protected Valor Christian High School, because there's some valuable info about that article there. Thomas.W talk to me 15:27, 9 November 2013 (UTC) Well, seriously, please feel free to ping my talkpage when you run across somebody that needs hand-holding. I'm trying to figure out how to boost WP:RETENTION, we get over 1000 new editors a month, and *lose* slightly more... every month. I'm trying to write a one-page Wikipedia Survival Manual, and in the meantime as part of that effort, am personally trying to help beginning editors, so I can figure out what they do not understand. I also recommend giving folks the WP:TEAHOUSE link, in case they need instant response.     The controversy section on Valor looks reliably-sourced to me, and I'll explain to Dina that notability is not temporary, and that the SCHAA thing will *always* be somewhere in the depths of wikipedia mainspace. That said, it does look like the controversy-section could be edited to be a little more neutral: right now, it mentions no dates whatsoever (except in the footnotes), so the paragraph on the controversy makes it sound like the school has *always* done these things, and *will* always do such things. They'll always teach algebra, but they prolly won't always do whatever caused the Great Sports Controversy of 2012, or whatever this is all about. Rather than you or me making the edits, though, I'll try to walk Dina through how *she* can make them, so that she ends up thinking the section is fair and NPOV. Because, quite frankly, neither you nor I is going to want to watch over Valor HS the rest of our lives, so we need at least one local who knows how wikipedia works. Maybe Dina is the one? Anyways, thanks for improving wikipedia, by keeping folks from deleting reliably-sourced stuff. It's appreciated. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:42, 9 November 2013 (UTC)     p.s. If the page-protect expires, we can always just explain the situation to some other admin, and get it put back in place. Are you willing to put the Valor talkpage on your watchlist, so that Dina can make her rough-draft-edits there as 199, and once she's got them neutral, you move them into mainspace? If not, no prob, I'll rustle up somebody else. Dina may have some COI, and the bright line rule suggests she should not be putting things into mainspace personally, if she does. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:42, 9 November 2013 (UTC) The article already is on my watchlist (one of several thousand items on the list), that's how I keep track of what the people at Valor are doing. I realise I can't "patrol" all of WP so I restrict it to my own watchlist. A list that keeps getting added to since I always check the contributions of people who do bad things, to see if they've done mischief on other articles too. Which they all too often have... Thomas.W talk to me 18:56, 9 November 2013 (UTC) Yes, it's a dirty job, and seems to grow bigger every day. But don't let it grind you down! We lose too many people, who get burned out. My longer-term goal, over the next few years, is to increase the number of 5+edits/month people from 31k to double or triple that number. Beginners are the seed-pool, where all our vandal-fighters come from. Part of the reason your watchlist is growing so fast, is because you don't have enough reinforcements coming to watch with you. Anyways, wikipedia thanks you for your work, and I thank you as well. Take it easy on the poor beginners, that merely suffer from WP:NOCLUE, that's all I ask. Hey, I was going to ask at the teahouse, but maybe you know: where are the notability guidelines for high school and two-year vocational-technical-trade-schools, and such? WP:NSCHOOL suggests that every school must meet general Notability guidelines, but rumor has it that pretty much every high school can have an article, if they want one. Is the rumor wrong? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 19:33, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

the tale of the semi-protected page and the true meaning of WP:TALKNO

I think you’ve gotten the wrong idea older 74, when I said that Vzaak asked me to leave I was actually referring to a comment he made on Sheldrake’s talk page. I wasn’t referring to the template that he left on my talk page. 76.107.171.90 (talk) 06:52, 11 November 2013 (UTC) Well, yes, I kinda guessed that you were more put off by the poorly phrased 'you are not helping' comment on the article-talkpage, than by the template-spam. On the other hand, I still assert that Vzaak is not asking you to leave the article-talkpage. They just want you to stay serious (which is what the not-a-forum-template-spam was about), if you decide to stay. As for myself, I also want you to stay, albeit for different reasons.     TLDR -- we would all like you to stay (even myself though I disagree with you about the mainspace in this case -- WP:RETENTION is way more important than this one dumb article), but you pleaase gotta stop insulting/attacking/etc other editors, and be WP:NICE, plus really really WP:AGF about all the other folks. Win the content-dispute on the merits of your logic, not on the wit of your verbal barbs.     Longer rationale. Vzaak, while themselves scrupulously careful to stop short of war, are under a lot of pressure from myself and from other wikipedia editors to stop letting other folks ***act*** like militant sceptics, as opposed to remaining silent when folks on their side of the content-dispute violate some wikipedia pillar. When you appear, and start supporting vzaak's side of the argument, that is good for vzaak's case -- unless you "support" vzaak by insulting a good editor like David, or indeed, any editor at all. That is *very* bad for vzaak, since insulting David violates pillar four, and lends credence to the Chopra/Weiler/Sheldrake narrative that the BLP page is being controlled by ORGANIZED sceptic badguys. Please don't be the editor they pin that label on, eh? I truly believe that Vzaak, and you, are acting independently as individuals, just like PhilosophyFellow, and so on.     But even individuals acting individually will spontaneously form cliques, and take on roles. Vzaak's role is chief editor of mainspace from the SkePOV, and so -- through no fault of their own and completely unintentionally -- have become Darth Vzaak and figurehead of the sekret sceptik konspeersee.  :-)    It ain't true, but that doesn't keep editors inside wikipedia from perceiving it, nor folks *outside* of wikipedia from capitalizing on such perceptions in real-world media. The oxygen of publicity, as I keep harping on, elsewhere.     Vzaak does not want folks on *their* side of the content-dispute violating pillar four, because it makes their side look bad (and look like a *side* in a WP:BATTLEGROUND which in and of itself is inherently bad on any wikipedia article), and this article is already on umpteen different admin-noticeboards, *everybody* is subject to insta-discretionary-sanctions-from-trigger-happy-admins. They want you to stay, they just want you to be *nice* in your comportment, and civil in your arguments. Keep the high moral ground, in other words. Hope this helps.     p.s. Vzaak is under the mistaken impression I'm a horrible troll formerly known as Tumbleman, who was recently perma-banned for using wikipedia as some kind of weird personal-debating-society-experiment. It ain't true, but perceptions yada yada. You, uh, might therefore wanna verify with Vzaak that I'm not putting words in their mouth here.  :-)     Tell 'em I tender all my apologies for mischaracterizing their stance Yet Again, in advance. But I'll say my sorry afterwards, too, just in case. Anyhoo, thanks for improving wikipedia, please stick around, but keep cool, there is a lot at stake here, not just this one WP:BLP article. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:23, 11 November 2013 (UTC) 74, despite what my user contributions might suggest this is not the first IP I’ve edited from nor even the second. I’ve been around for a while, and I spent more than a year reading talk pages before I ever contributed to one. I’ve learned that different pages need different kinds of help to sort out their problems. Sometimes they need a bad cop. Sometimes they need someone to be more assertive. Sometimes they just need someone with a lot of time on their hands. Look at it this way: Over at Cold Fusion they have forty five archived talk pages. The cold fusion crew has to contend with Brian Josephson the Nobel laureate turned Wikipedia editor. Cold Fusion has been a fantastically contentious issue. And yet, the talk page is a fairly quiet place, and the article is relatively stable. Rupert Sheldrake, on the other hand, is a war zone. The situation has gotten so out of control that it’s actually newsworthy. It’s become an eyesore. And Tumbleman was able to flat out troll the page for nearly two months. Vzaak, Roxy, Red Pen, and Barney all seemed like competent editors, yet they had been ineffectual in dealing with the situation. I figured that they just needed a little help. I thought that they needed someone who didn’t care about their reputation to help bring the situation to a head so that there could finally be peace. But the thing about Wikipedia pages is that they’re like a planchette on a Ouija board. There might be many fingers on the planchette, but who’s actually controlling it can be very hard to determine. Your assertion that Vzaak attacked me over the situation with David is incorrect. My comment to David was in direct response to his attack on me and Red Pen whereby he characterized our comments as “bleating”. If you want to fathom Vzaak’s motives then consider the events of two days ago: 20:09- Philosophyfellow posts on WP:BLPN. 21:33- CM-DC appears to side with Philosophyfellow. 22:11- Vzaak posts a commet on WP:BLPN, complains about people not contributing constructively. 22:27- Vzaak attacks me on Sheldrake’s talk page. 23:28- Vzaak posts on WP:BLPN. Blames “both sides”. 00:35- Vzaak posts again. Implicates both sides again. Initially it kind of seems like he’s trying to throw me under the bus, but the comments about both sides being at fault, and Vzaak’s history speak of a bigger issue. Vzaak’s trying to play both sides against the middle. He’s developed a serous WP:OWNership issue with Sheldrake, and I think that, on some level, he may not really want the conflict to end. I think Vzaak may be the type that revels in controversy. Perhaps he likes being at the center of a dispute so heated that it has attracted media attention. At this point I’m pretty sure that I don’t know how to help improve the situation on Rupert Sheldrake. Usually both sides actually want the conflict to end; they just want it to end in their favor. However, if Vzaak actually wants to continue the conflict then I have no idea how to resolve that situation. 76.107.171.90 (talk) 21:13, 11 November 2013 (UTC) (butting in here) Have you looked at Vzaak's contributions? He's on some anti-Sheldrake mission. It's all he/she works on. I tried to temper the most aggressive voices on that talk page a few months ago and I think I created enemies for life. The odd thing is that I don't care about Sheldrake, I simply went to the talk page because it kept coming up at AN/I and I was wondering what everyone was fighting over. Instinctively, I ended up defending Editors I thought were being dismissed and bullied but that didn't help them and only brought me grief. I keep waiting for things to calm down and then return but it doesn't sound like anything has gotten better over the past two months. Liz Read! Talk! 00:20, 12 November 2013 (UTC)     ((edit conflict)) Hey Liz, welcome. And I've been breathing damn morphic stuff since October 24th, so yes, I've looked over Vzaak's work in depth. Swear up and down, though, he's not anti-Sheldrake, he's just pro-truth, and believes there is no such thing as WP:SkePOV. Vzaak wants the reader to not be misled, and assumes -- quite rightly -- that the average reader is *easily* misled. There has been some excruciatingly slow progress, this past week, from TRPoD and Roxy... scientist got put into mainspace, several times, for instance... but in real-world blogs and magazines and the BBC, the *real* pro-Sheldrake folks have been beating the publicity-drums. Anyways, it's a mess, I got there like you from noticing weird noises elsewhere ("edit war over largely 'been' centered"). Nothing wrong with Vzaak having a niche-topic focus; once the warzone is resolved, one way or another, they will branch out elsewhere, and be a big asset methinks.    Like yourself 76, I've been around. Unlike yourself, I pretty much *never* visited talkpages, until very recently when I noticed something wrong in WikiCulture, sensing a disturbance in the wikiverse, as it were. (Proof of morphic wiki-resonance! Woo!) Long ago, I read the five pillars, and then stayed in article-space, communicating only through edit-summaries. A nice wikiLife. I get the sense that the four folks you named first dove in deeply this summer; they are very competent, but have a couple subtle misunderstandings of pillar two... I had very similar misunderstandings myself, back in the day. some bleating, about a subject, on which nothing further can be accomplished by moi, and yet I bleat on anyways....     :-)     ...sigh    As for the specifics of the Sheldrake page, I agree Vzaak is not trying to throw you under the bus, but they are not *trying* to continue the conflict either. WP:IMAGINE. They simply flat-out don't understand *why* there is a conflict, because they want mainspace to reflect the truth, and think everybody else does too. While it is true that Vzaak has ownership of mainspace, I really do think that is a Good Thing -- they do very competent work. Every revamp is an improvement. There's just one downside: Vzaak thinks that this is truth-o-pedia, and that we need to convey the Real Facts to the readership, even if that means we have to exclude some otherwise-reliable sources, or downplay some ancient job-history, or get some uncooperative-about-The-Truth editors banned. Problem: that's just not how wikipedia rolls.    But I definitely agree with you about this: there is nothing either you nor I can do, now. Either vzaak will see the light, and everything will calm down in 48 hours, or vzaak will tighten their grip on mainspace, and eventually some hair-trigger wikiCop admins will come in, see the basket-case warzone, and pull out the big ol' discretionary ban-hammer for "both sides". That's the real trouble brewing.    I put both sides in scarequotes, because there are *four* sides here... or five, if you count the former participation of Tumbleman, who was a side all to themselves. #1. There are a few people that are actual Sheldrake fans. I'm not one. I don't get the feeling that PhilosophyFellow is one, either, but that remains to be seen. Alfonzo definitely leans-Sheldrake, but is quite reasonable most of the time, although a little hot under the collar.    #2. Barney is definitely anti-Sheldrake, as are you from what I can tell... and you both lash out at editors not on the anti-Sheldrake side, which is Bad, of course. Vzaak *believes* themselves to be in the middle, striving to keep mainspace truthful.    #3. But in actual fact, *David* is in the "middle" of the NPOV spectrum (and he's a genuinely nice fellow -- if instead of lashing out when he implied you were bleating you had just left him a talkpage message saying that was uncalled for I'm sure he would have apologized and self-reverted), striving to maintain NPOV-as-defined-by-the-sources, no exclusions, no cherrypicking, no undue weight, following policy as best he can. David and vzaak *can* work together, if they can just get their underlying philosophical problem worked out, which is that wikipedia mirrors the sources, not mirrors TheTruth. David's getting frustrated, because he wants mainspace to reflect the sources, and Vzaak wants mainspace to reflect The Truth, and wikipedia policy is on David's side.    #4. As for myself, and Lou and Liz and a few others in the past, I'm one of the WP:NICE nazis, trying to eliminate the warzone, and failing miserably at it.  :-/    Sounds like you also have a bit of the stop-the-warzone streak in you... but no, BadCop is never the way of beboldo. Don't think using a dynamic IP permits you to do so, either -- WP:CheckUser follows your contributions around, even if your IP changes. (Not to mention PRISM!) Until I came into the picture, Barney was playing that role, and to a mild extent TRPoD (who like David is getting frustrated), trying ... though methinks mostly unintentionally ... to drive away competing views. They weren't assigned to defend Vzaak by some Darth Susie, they just, well, Vzaak was doing prose, Barney took the cites-role, TRPoD took the comms-role, and they both guarded the flanks while Vzaak guards the center. It's an emergent phenomena. Bitterly blackly humorously fascinating to watch. Wish I was smarter, or had come sooner, maybe it could be fixed yet.    So, at the end of the day, my gist is that Vzaak is not trying to play both sides against the middle... but he does see himself as the 'middle' and the current mainspace as 'neutral and fair' ... because he does not believe there *is* a skeptic POV, and does not believe that Coyne *articulates* the skeptic POV ... just sees it as True, and wants mainspace to reflect the truth. Vzaak is plenty smart, but they aren't playing sides off against each other: they are caught in the trap, with real-world media falsely accusing them of being some kind of evil skeptic mastermind (or worse some kind of cog in the skeptic war-machine), when in fact it is all just a disagreement about whether WP:FRINGE can apply to a man's PhD and his religion, or if in fact WP:FRINGE is solely applicable to scientific theories claiming to *be* scientific theories, and not at all applicable to every field of inquiry. (TRPoD has a similar difficulty, thinking that the "omit" sentence fragment in WP:VALID means "omit from wikipedia entirely" when in fact it just very specifically means "omit from unrelated articles".) Caveat, I only figured out this was the *real* difficulty a few days ago. So maybe I'm still wrong.    Oh, and I almost forget, but there is a side issue, which is that 22:27 comment you mentioned... Vzaak thinks that I'm only on the Sheldrake page to argue, because as an anon I cannot directly edit mainspace, and prolly they assume the same of you. This again boils down to lack of exposure to the subtle workings of wikipedia; Vzaak misinterprets pillar one, and thinks that only *mainspace* matters. Again, I used to hold the same stance, so I have trouble blaming them much. Wrong-headed, but not intentionally being mean; they are just frustrated that IPs like us who cannot even "contribute" would bother to show *up* on a semi-protect article. <shakes head> Anyhoo, I like Vzaak in spite of them trying to ban me -- a first for me -- but methinks time is running out for the warzone to resolve itself. If you try to stick, and Vzaak gives you guff about 'not contributing' and using wikipedia as a 'forum' then just point them at WP:TALKNO: "Do not use the talk page as a forum...The talk page is for discussing how to improve the article." Nobody said we *personally* have to implement the improvements ourselves; we just have to stick to talking content, not get lost talking opinions, plus of course stay civil while doing it. Some of the other advice there, about explaining the consequences But Going Not One Step Further, might be worthwhile reading, if Vzaak is already in the area... hmmmmmmm.    As for your summary of Sheldrake, and his claim that morphological development is directed by telepathy... well, both Vzaak and Alfonzo are wrong, that is *exactly* Sheldrake's claim, as long as we clarify it by saying "unconscious natural telepathy". He believes that the adolescent-plant takes an adult-shape partly governed by DNA, and partly governed by the evolution-directed disturbances in the morphic fields of current and past adult-plants; they morphic-ancestor-plants are 'communicating' their shape to the morphic-descendant-plants across spacetime. Bet you USD$10K we cannot get this into mainspace, no matter how 100% truthful it is.  :-)    My sense is that Vzaak hates the conflict, and would LUUUV for the warzone to go away, and in fact just flat does not grok why it hasn't already... which is because wikipedia reflects the sources, which is not identical with reflecting the truth. You said something, along those lines, about how Sheldrake cannot be both a scientist, and a not-a-scientist, because those categories are mutually exclusive. But wikipedia cares not for logic, all it cares for is WP:RS and WP:V. Using logic is WP:OR, waaay beyond WP:CALC of simple arithmetic. We have sources that conflict, so we must quote both sources. "As of 2013, $foo says[1][2][3] Sheldrake is a biologist, but $baz says[4][5] Sheldrake is not." That's NPOV in wikipedia, which was called that, instead of truth-o-pedia, for good reason.    Anyways, enough bleating outta me.  :-)     What sort of pages do you edit when you are *not* trying to tamp down the heat (heh) on the Cold Fusion and Subquantum Telepathy talkpages? Got any interest in VTOL aircraft, per chance? Some fine folks asked me to help mess with their fine work, see below. You're welcome to join, if you like. None of that BadCop crapola, though, purty please.  ;-)   74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:04, 12 November 2013 (UTC) 74, When I mentioned different IPs I didn’t mean that I’ve been doing something unsavory. I just meant that I have literally edited from different places. My job has me moving around a lot. And, what you witnessed wasn’t “bad cop”. That’s not the way bad cop works. In order for there to be a bad cop there must be a good cop as well. What I was trying to do was to be assertive. I figured that since the Sheldrake crew had such difficulty dealing with a simple troll that they probably had assertiveness issues. I don’t think that Vzaak sits down each night and thinks to himself; “how shall I make the Sheldrake page an even more contentious place tomorrow?” That’s not the way that self-saboteurs typically operate. People who thrive on disharmony derive a certain high from conflict. They have a tendency to find ways to create or prolog it. But, like I said to David, psychology isn’t always an exact science. I think Vzaak’s trying to prolong the conflict. You think he’s trying to end it. Perhaps time will tell who’s right, or perhaps it won’t. Either way I think we can both agree that whatever Vzaak is doing hasn’t brought peace to the Sheldrake article. As for the future, I’ve got some things I plan on doing in real life, so you probably won’t be seeing me around for a while. So long, for now. 76.107.171.90 (talk) 03:59, 12 November 2013 (UTC) Errr, yes, apologies, when I was talking about checkuser, it wasn't to imply you had been unsavory somehow (sounds like a pork-roast... savory mhmmmm... unsavory mehhhh). It was just to say, even though you and I are 'anons' in the sense that we don't login using some alphanumeric pseudonym, but just get assigned some dynamic jersey-number from the great ISP in the cloud, we still have to watch our behavior. (Actually, because we are low-caste IPs, we have to watch our step more carefully than an arbcom member.) But the point was, there *are* ways to figure out what the old IP numbers were, even if your job takes you from place to place, using browser cookies and user-agent strings and language-analysis and article-visitation-patterns and so on. So it's important to always retain the high moral ground. Besides, bad behavior from one anon, automatically transfers to the rest of their caste-group... gag me with a spoon.    And... not to segue or anything... but if that was AssertiveCop, then I would hate to see BadCop!    :-O     >:-o     B-|     ;-)    My big WP:RGW goal is to keep people from reverting each other, and work together nicely. Being assertive *is* possible, without violating pillar four, methinks. But being assertive should not mean stooping to the homo sapiens hominem level. As for psychology being a science, I've read some of the Freud and Jung stuff... plus more modern stuff... and psychology is positively a pseudoscience, with psychiatry the equivalent of the voodoo-witch-doctor-potions. Best to avoid both sorts, whenever possible... but how else can we figure out how to interact with other humans, than through amateur psych? Sigh.    Have enjoyed talking with you, and hope your real life plans go well. Drop in any time. p.s. With luck, if you come back in a week, or well okay dammit maybe a month, the Sheldrake talkpage will be as boring as the Cold Fusion portion of the wikiverse. Hope springs eternal. Thanks for improving wikipedia, see you later. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 04:23, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

AV-8B

This is likely to be much harder than either of us thought!

It's great to have an extra non-aviation-specialist looking over the article, as that's exactly one of the deficiencies identified in it at the last FAC (which is worth reading).

A problem though, is that the lead is the one part that's been repeatedly refined by prose experts. So I've resisted changing the parts that were deemed good before. That's not to say they can't change, it just means some careful thought might be needed.

Some thoughts on your thoughts:

• Why "NATO" rather than Anglo-American? I can see the logic (four different NATO countries had some workshare, IIRC, rather than just the UK and USA) but, what do the sources describe it as?
• Beware lengthening prose that's written to be minimalist. ("Prose needs tightening" is a phrase sometimes used.) Just as an example, does adding "itself" really make the text clearer for the reader? Or is it just an extra word?
• The lead is a summary. It's currently about the right length (one large paragraph in the lead per major section in the article body). Not everything in the body can be mentioned in the lead. There might be an argument for a very brief mention of the key points of how the 8B evolved in the lead, ... but I've already had Phil add details in the "Development" section that summarise some of what's in the "Design" section, so we don't want to go too far. Likewise with other additions.
• The horsepower of the various engines is definitely worth mentioning if it can be sourced. But probably not in the lead. Is it already mentioned elsewhere?

Probably more when I have more time. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:19, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I knew the lead would have been carefully combed, I picked the hardest part so you could show me where the unwritten boundaries were. And I know NATO is not quite totally correct... and some of my other changes, were also likely to be only partly constructive, hence my self-revert. But to take the portions that jumped out at you in order:

1. I don't much care about whether *NATO* is specifically mentioned, but there *is* a specific reason for the AV-8B to exist: it was a *very* expensive project, cancelled in the 1970s over money, but kept alive, and then went into production right around 1981. Seem to recall, wasn't there some old guy that became President, trying to spend money like it was going out of style? Cold War? Pounding a shoe on a podium? Aircraft carriers? Hmmmm. The lead is very tight prose: it skips all the context that the everyday reader wants, namely, who paid for it, why, and the usual tell-us-a-story stuff. Right now, it is a dry story about the engineering of a fighter aircraft. But *why* was VTOL needed? *Why* was it intended for ground support? Vietnam? There's tight prose, and then there's excluding relevant historical-political context.
2. Minimalist I would agree with. The use of "itself" to refer to the USMC/Spanish/Italian flavor, and "variant" to refer to the RoyalNavy flavor... are they identical? Or did the UK variant have some differences? Manufactured in the UK, by BAE factories, rather than in the USA by Boeing? There are actually a *bunch* of different aircraft involved. Original harrier AV-8A... cancelled-super-Pegasus in 1975 ... second-gen-USMC in 1981 ... british variant on second-gen in 19xx ... radar variant of second-gen in YYYY ... some other variant (mentioned near radar). These latter five flavors are all "the same" jet, and the subject of the article. But apparently they are different enough that the British variant was considered distinct from the USMC original, whereas the Spanish aircraft was just a rebadged USMC, right? So, you tell me: do we need "itself" in that sentence? Or was the UK variant referred to as the AV-8B, and manufactured by Boeing, like the very first sentence says?
3. Agree the lead is a summary. But perhaps, if you'll glance over my talkpage, you'll notice that I'm not the person you want in charge of terseness? I'm the person in charge of VERBOSITY.  :-)   So please, let our strengths be complementary. I'll add 100 words, and you take away 95, and we'll have a super-duper paragraph.
4. Don't know if the horsepower figures exist, since that might be top secret data, but I'm mostly objecting to vague-weasel-peacock-wording. Don't tell me the 1975 engine was dramatic; just give me the facts, what was the horsepower (or whatever facts we know) differential? We don't have to use horsepower/kilojoules/lb-ft ... but we should specify the difference with some precision, like saying "23% more powerful engine than the AV-8A was cancelled... later, the redesign work used the same airframe but still managed to fit a 17% more powerful engine..." *That* is useful info that explains to me the difference between the 1975 failed-variant, and the 1981 original-success. If the UK variant fiddled with the engine specs, we can say 2% more powerful, or 3% thicker armor-plating around the cockpit, or whatever. But there's a lot of stuff right now about "greatly/dramatically/significantly/superlatively/uberwhateverly" ... and if we *have* no data, and we can cite some sources using those words, that's cool. But I like numbers.  :-)

Anyways, I'm real easy, I'll make suggestions, and won't be offended whether you take one out of ten, or nine out of ten. (If you take zero out of ten, well, you get challenged to a WikiJoust. :-)   I'll go through the article, and fiddle with this or that, paragraph by paragraph, until I hit the bottom. You follow along, and cut out the fat, plus correct my mistakes (not really a NATO project? Well, then, maybe that's worth saying... *why* was it not a NATO project? Was the VTOL stuff purposely kept from the French slash Airbus folks? Hmmmmm. Hope this helps start your wheels turning. Do you have a sandbox we can put the article in, so that my flailing doesn't mess up mainspace? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:47, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Replies

Letting you know you have replies at my talk page and at Thomas.W's - well, that one is more of a sticking my nose in. Since I am aware you have no watchlist. Not that I scintillated in any of those replies, but ... Yngvadottir (talk) 06:26, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Hehehe... catch you later, scintillater. Don't tell spouse-of-Drmies. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:21, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for stalking!

The suggestions you've left for editors on my talk page are mega-helpful. Thanks for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully and comprehensively - particularly as regards the Walt Odets article. Stalk my page anytime! Julie JSFarman (talk) 16:47, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Julie, appreciate your appreciation, gracias. If you see something that needs my particular nutty brand of commentary, please ping me here.

    p.s. Actually, I'm trying to put together a fun-quick-teaming scheme, where small groups of beginning editors can try their hand at something reasonably easy and fun, and the AfC queue seems like a great place to send in wiki-swat-teams to wreak havoc. Nothing even vaguely good-faith-helpful gets reverted in the AfC queue, there is plenty of low-hanging-fruit that obviously needs help, and there is a three-week-backlog that needs reducing, right? Does this sound like: A) great idea, B) maybe productive if they have an experienced team-mommy, C) whatta you outta yer gourd?  :-)     74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:30, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

You're totally outta your gourd but I'm completely in - great idea - fill me in - let's do it! That backlog is scary. JSFarman (talk) 21:06, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Also! So many submissions I'm perplexed by. A lot of times I end up doing some clean-up and leaving the submissions for someone else to review; don't want to decline anything that's good faith, borderline, and represents a lot of work. Would LOVE to get your help/feedback. JSFarman (talk) 21:09, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Your perception of my status vis-a-vis the gourd is insightful-yet-painfully clear! Congratulations on your high intelligence.  :-)     Most folks take at least ten conversations before they can definitively say I'm out of my gourd. <grin> 74.192.84.101 (talk) 07:10, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Anyways, yes, if you are perplexed by any submissions, or just see something needing help you don't have time to give, feel free to ping me with a link, and I'll try and see what is up with them. Once I get some sort of fun-quick-teaming system in place, maybe there will be a central place for submitting such AfI requests. (Articles For Improvement.) When you send me an AfC submission that needs wikiLove, please include:

1. URL of course ... could be Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Les_Pendleton but better to use [13] if that is easy-enough, since changes might happen between the time you make your request, and I get around to looking over the page in question
2. minimum level of wiki-expertise reqd (in terms of wiki-markup and WP:PG -- just use expert/medium/beginner for starters I guess -- but instead of specifying expertise-level-of-the-editor we can say hard/medium/easy as a way to specify the expertise-level-demanded-by-the-fix-in-question), and
3. priority-ordered keywords for what the article needs most (cites / tone / copyEdit / expand / clarify / etc). Feel free to write sentences instead, or to just list 'top 3 problems' or whatever works best for you.

For example, if you have an article that is ready for mainspace, but needs some additional citations in a highly technical portion of the topic, you might ask for

1. URLz: cleanup on aisle four aka Lenticular
2. GeneralSkillz: needs medium wiki-expertise to create mainspace-grade refs
3. SpecificProbz: math-expertise-reqd + clarify the concepts

But you don't have to type all that out, instead just use some sort of shorthand, maybe like this:

AfI; Lenticular#Math; med/cites; math expert, clarify.

Along the same lines, example #2, if you have an article in the AfC queue which is just a mess, but already has good refs as bare-URLs, you might ping this subsection of my talkpage with something like this:

AfI; [14]; easy/all med/cites; copy edit, tone, clarify, cite-cleanup, expand.

Anyways, please feel free to suggest better shorthand, or an alternative approach/system, or whatever. After you and I get the basic language-of-AfI-communication hammered out, we'll try and get Mabdul or one of the other javascript wizards to upgrade the AfC gadget, so that you can submit an AfI request automagically right from your AfC-helper-wiki-tool. That way, instead of you manually sending me a talkpage message, you can just hit some key-combo or click some checkboxes, and the AfI request will be put into the wiki-hero-mission-kiosk app (which does not exist yet but will be used for the fun-quick-teaming thing I mentioned earlier). Maybe instead of using template-tagging at the top of articles, or using the category-system, we can figure out a way to use WikiData for the AfI-communication-language? Hmmmm.

p.s. Guess I should ask this first. Do you actually use the Wikipedia:AFCH for your work, at the moment? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 07:10, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

---

AfI

1. AfI for AfC-rescue; [15]; easy/all med/cites; double-check WP:N, complete rewrite, tone, cite-cleanup. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 07:10, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
2. AfI for AfD-rescue; [16]; easy/all; cite-verify,[17] tone, special request,[18][19] expand, copy edit. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 07:10, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
3. AfI for AfD-rescue; [20]; med/all; cite-verify,[21] tone, train creator[22]. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 20:37, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

...and speaking of aortae

Have you ever heard the lyrics to Mason Williams' You Dun Stomped on My Heart? The chorus has one of my favorite rhymes in all of comic music. David in DC (talk) 23:14, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

"...And you mashed that sucker flat / You just sorta stomped on my aorta..." Hooo boy. What happens when you spin the turntable counterclockwise? I like the Smothers Bros. (especially the yo-yo), and wikipedia alleges that Mason 'Jar' Williams was in their band, but I have never heard this particular tune he wrote. Wonder if there was ever a combination-remix from all John's greatest hits. "You fill up my senses / like a stomped-on aorta...." — 74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:20, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

When I saw them in Vegas, he led their back-up band. They took a break mid-show for Williams and the band to play Classical Gas, with the Bros. explaining who he was and why they were doing it, first. Grrrreat show. David in DC (talk) 13:54, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Heh heh heh... I know that song but I also, just like the article says, have always thought it was Clapton. Huh. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 15:44, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

the tale of the parallel development question and the essay on connations of consensus

Barnstars for you! The Writer's Barnstar This barnstar is for many of your lengthy write-ups as documented at this user talk page and elsewhere. Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 00:21, 14 November 2013 (UTC) The Userpage Barnstar This barnstar is for this user talk page and should be self-explanatory otherwise, but anyways: much of this page is very witty. Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 00:21, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

DUROMAC article

hey, thanks for helping me to improve my DUROMAC article. as you mentioned, you would like to hear anything about DUROMAC from newspaper, government article. I would like to tell you, yes, you can find it! firstly, here is a link of DUROMAC has been certified by Directorate General Technical Airworthiness, which is Malaysian government. "AMO Certification of DUROMAC(M)SDN BHD". Secondly, there is a article called " good and thorough job" from the local newspaper,"The Star", published in 11 January, 2013. I saved my DUROMAC page in my sandbox, please go thought it and tell me what I still need to change it. Because I really want to make an appropriate content in order to meet the requirements of Wikipedia. Thanks in advance!--Clover1991 (talk) 01:34, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

No problem, glad to help. Our first steps are to find some more newspaper-articles and similar things. I found one from 2008, but there are probably others, we should search for more. Our second step is to write brand-new sentences (never copying from www.duromac.com , never copying from www.theStar.com.my , never copying from non-wikipedia sentences in general) because of the laws about sentences and authors. See my longer explanation below. After we have written up the facts, and listed the sources for those facts, we will submit the article to the AfC reviewers, and they will help you get everything looking nice and professional. I expect it will take a little bit of time, but if we can find enough in-depth coverages, Duromac should be an article in wikipedia by the end of the year. Sorry everything seems complicated, but wikipedia is an important website, so there are good reasons for the strange traditions we have here. Welcome to the tribe, we are glad to have you, and thanks for helping improve wikipedia. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:42, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

copyright versus cut-and-paste

Wikipedia servers are in Florida in the United States, and they have very strong laws in the United States about authors. To make the Duromac article properly, we need to write it ourselves. We cannot copy what we write for wikipedia from www.TheStar.com.my -- we have to write our own sentences, from scratch, and then put our wikipedia-sentences under the wikipedia license, for everybody to own.

This also means we cannot copy sentences from www.duromac.com -- because wikipedia does not own that website.

Instead of copying sentences, we must write new sentences, of our own, that use the facts from the Duromac website, and the facts from TheStar newspaper. Does this make sense? It is very important, because wikipedia can get in big legal trouble, if editors like you and me cut-and-paste sentences (or pictures or videos or music) from some website that is outside wikipedia. You did not know this, of course, so it is fine if you did that already, fixing such things is easy -- but you and I need to always write original sentences, never copy sentences, from now on, okay? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:42, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

mentions of Duromac, or the Duromac founders/managers/products, in reliable sources

Do you have a URL for the "good and thorough job" article in TheStar in 2013? It sounds like a great source, but somebody needs to verify the contents; I looked at www.TheStar.com.my but had trouble finding the article itself. I also manually found two older articles:

Mention of duromac opening a branch-office in Kuala Lumpur in 2008, attended by Samy Vellu, in google-cache.[23]

The first 2008 article in TheStar is mostly about politics and Samy Vellu, who was the Works Minister from 1995 through 2008. This is WP:NOTEWORTHY.

Couple paragraphs about Duromac, including photo-op of the sweeper-equipment, and quote from Vellu.[24]

This is significant coverage, good enough for WP:N, if we can find others. South_Klang_Valley_Expressway was the larger project covered in the first half of the article; but the press conference about the expressway was held immediately after Vellu attended the opening ceremonies for the Bandar Kinrara branch-office of Duromac, so the second half of the article is all about Duromac's role.

However, I had some trouble, when I search for "duromac" in the archives[25] there is a bug in the software (it says "Sorry no record found" even though there are articles in 2008 and 2013 at least). Are you able to search from your location? Maybe I get the error because I am not in Malaysia.... 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:42, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I also had trouble looking up the Duromac certificate from the Malasian Air Force, it seems they changed their website around.[26] I was able to find some evidence in this blog, Duromac is #17 in the list.[27] However, wikipedia does not allow blogs as sources, because they do not have a professional editorial staff (like TheStar newspaper). That means we cannot use MalaysiaFlyingHerald at wordpress -- we need something better. It is okay for wikipedia editors like us to *verify* the former content of websites from cached copies. In this case, I was able to find the DGTA announcement in the google.com cache (see also[28]), which is a reliable source.

There is only a paragraph, but it covers a real-world event, making this our second WP:N reliable source: the conditional award of the maintenance contract in January 2012 for RMAF runway-sweepers, successful RMAF DGTA audit completed in June, full certification approved in July, and the official certificate-handover-ceremony in September, held at the Bandar Kinrara branch-office, with RMAF Brigadier General Teoh Siang Chang[29][30][31] personally delivering the paperwork to Managing Director Arul Das (accepting on behalf of Duromac). Do you have any other government website or printed-publications that mention Duromac? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:42, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTEWORTHY mention in Financial Express of India.[32][33]

WP:NOTEWORTHY mention in the New Straits Times.[34] Reliable dupe?[35][36] Reliable dupe? [37] Dupe?[38] Dupe?[39]

Maybe useful if translated? [40][41][42] 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:42, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe useful per bi-directional WP:ABOUTSELF? [43][44][45] Confirmation of ACMAT connection, not sure if this is a reliable source or not.[46] European supplier chamber-of-commerce listings.[47][48][49] 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:42, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Exhibitions and shows.[50][51][52]

Thanks from Clover

Hello, thanks a lot for helping me to find all the reliable sources, I really really really appreciate it. Meanwhile, I would like to show you two more references I found of DUROMAC. Firstly, as you already know, DUROMAC has been involved in Malaysia-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. There is a magazine called " MGCC PERSPECTIVIES", in page 34, there is a article about DUROMAC, called" DUROMAC AWAEDED AMO CERTIFICATE". I think this is published by government. I am sorry, there is no link for this article online, I only could show you this [53] BTW, if you think the original picture of 'AMO CERTIFICATION' is important, I can scan and update to Wikipedia( since there is no original picture of this certification online before, I think it is useful?) do you think is it necessary to do it?

Secondly, here is a link [54] called "first woman driver of 16-tone road sweeper". I am sorry this is in Malay. There is a English version in newspaper , but I can't find it online.

Since the sources you gave to me and also the references I found by myself, I am confused right now, how can I use all the relevant information to approve all the content I wrote for DUROMAC? Could you please give me some suggestion?

All in all, I am really appreciate what you did for DUROMAC, you are the person with the warmest-heart ever!--Clover1991 (talk) 03:50, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello clover, thanks for your kind words. No, there is no need to scan the AMO certificate; I verified the facts from a cached copy of the site, and that is good enough for wikipedia. I will split my other replies into subsections, thanks for your efforts. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

worthwhile step -- make sure to mention any relationship with Duromac Sdn Bhd that you may personally have

Because of concerns about the reliability of articles, many wikipedia editors are worried about bias. There is nothing wrong with being biased; everybody is. It is perfectly normal and natural. But it is a special problem for wikipedia, if editors work directly on articles in mainspace where they are inherently biased. Editors should not directly edit articles about their employer, their customers, their family, or even their local politicians or their local city, especially if they have strong feelings about the topic. For example, editors should not directly make changes to an article about their own grandmother: because they love their grandmother, the article would become biased, instead of maintaining a fair, neutral, just-the-facts tone.

  In your case, it sounds like you care about Duromac, so you should probably do two things. First, instead of editing Duromac directly, yourself, you should try to suggest changes and additions and sources, so that other editors (who are not in any way involved with Duromac and will therefore have an easier time being neutral) can actually perform the edits, and make the changes. Does this make sense?

  Second, you might consider helping other editors out. Perhaps they are working on an article, and they are too close to the topic to stay neutral -- maybe you can help them, like I am helping you. See my list above, if this is appealing to you. Maybe you can make some edits to the article on Les Pendleton, or on TrackIt. Or maybe those are boring to you, and you would rather help somewhere else? Just ask, there are plenty of people that need help. Or you can try answering some of the questions over at WP:TEAHOUSE.

  Of course, you do not have to. You are required to be WP:NICE to other editors, but you are not WP:REQUIRED to do any editing-work that you do not feel like doing. But it helps you to learn how wikipedia works, if you help other folks out. Plus it is fun meeting new and interesting people.  :-)   74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

next step -- how we can turn the relevant sourced information into a Duromac article in mainspace

I believe we are ready for you to kick off the phase where our Duromac article will begin to go through the AfC process. This takes a couple of weeks, usually -- there are 2300 articles waiting to be approved. However, the Duromac article needs to be looked over by someone with experience, who has no relationship with the company, and AfC is the best way to do that.

  We are going to rewrite the Duromac article, as part of the AfC process. There are two reasons for this. First, some editors are worried that the content you wrote for Duromac in your sandbox, has some sentences which are too close to being copied from the www.duromac.com website, and are worried about wikipedia getting into legal trouble from Duromac Sbn lawyers. To be safe, the best way is to write brand new sentences.

  The second reason to write the article again from the beginning, is that we have a lot more sources now!  :-)   Wikipedia should reflect the sources, neutrally and without bias. Because you are proud of Duromac, it is hard for you to be neutral, just like it would be hard for me to write about an important company in my country. The best approach is to let uninvolved editors check over our work. So here is what I suggest:

1. Let us agree on a good sentence or two, just as a rough draft (we can always improve and expand it later).
2. I suggest this: Duromac (formally known as "DUROMAC (M) SDN. BHD") is a Malaysian corporation founded in 1996 which supplies road-sweeping equipment and services for city streets in Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding area. Recently, they have also been awarded equipment-maintenance contracts for military runways and military 6x6 vehicles. Do you like these, to begin with?
3. If you think that is a good beginning, then we should put those two sentences -- and only those two sentences -- into the WP:AfC wizard.
4. Because of the worries about copying sentences without permission, you should not copy your sandbox content into the AfC submission.
5. We have a lot of sources, but our *key* important sources, where Duromac has in-depth coverage, are the following.
6. Reliable Source #1 to prove Notability, Duromac certified by RMAF for equipment-maintenance contract involving runway-sweepers.[55] Dead link at present, but User:74.192.84.101 verified the former contents in google-cache. One paragraph, but covers a real-world event.
7. Reliable Source #2 to prove Notability, Duromac branch office opening attended by the government's Works Minister, including speech and photo-op.[56] Couple of paragraphs and photo; covers a real-world event. Second mention, this one only in passing.[57]
8. Potential Reliable Source #3 to prove Notability, "Good and Thorough Job" in TheStar newspaper 2013-01-11. Did you find a URL for this one, so I can verify how many paragraphs are about Duromac?
9. Those are the key important sources we know about so far, and of course we also have several WP:NOTEWORTHY mentions-in-passing, plus plenty of WP:ABOUTSELF material that is usable.

Does this approach make sense? We should first concentrate on sources that have *paragraphs* of coverage, specifically about Duromac. Then, we can add in more information. But to start with, we should start with a blank article in the AfC queue, with a couple sentences, and a couple key sources. Then somebody like FiddleFaddle or Acroterion or some other uninvolved editor -- with more experience than me -- can come along and make sure we're starting out properly. Once our first couple sentences, and our first couple of sources, look good... then we can add another paragraph. We will grow the article slowly, like a tree grows from a seed. Sound like a plan? Let me know if you like this idea, thanks. Then I will explain AfC further. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

MGCC article is probably WP:ABOUTSELF because money changed hands, they are not 'independent' enough

The MGCC Perspectives magazine is probably not useful as an independent reliable publication, because Duromac has to pay membership fees to the MGCC, and the articles in MGCC Perspectives are not written by journalists and fact-checked by an editorial board. Does this make sense?

  If somebody from Duromac wrote the article, and paid to have it published, it counts as information that *might* be okay to go into the article (see the WP:ABOUTSELF information), but it does not qualify as WP:RS because it is partially self-published, or at least, paid-publication. Wikipedia does not cite press releases except for WP:ABOUTSELF, which cannot contain anything laudatory. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Bharian article is WP:NOTEWORTHY but not quite WP:N

Never a problem that the material is not in English; my apologies for not being multi-lingual, and my thanks for bringing the facts here to enWiki. There are some tools on the internet that permit machine translation from most languages. Open this link[58] and then select "auto-detect into English", then finally paste in this URL of the story[59] and you will have the badly-mauled-pseudo-english-version. Here are the facts from the story:

1. Salmiah Mat Saad, age 50, grandmother, wins an award for her job-performance as the driver of a road-sweeper in Kuala Lumpur, where she is responsible for a 70km stretch
2. the award is from Buchaer-Scholing, Switzerland-based supplier of the type of machinery she drives at her job
3. the text on the award was "first female driver in the world of 16-tonne road-sweeper" (question: is this only the first female driver in the world for Buchaer-Scholing 16-tonne road-sweepers, or for all models and all vendors of 16-tonne-and-up road-sweepers everywhere?)
4. there was a real-life appreciation ceremony for Salmiah (question: was it held in 2010?)
5. the ceremony was held at the Wisma office-location of DRB-HICOM corporation. (question: is this sentence correct?)
6. the award was presented to Salmiah by Arul Das, director-general of Duromac
7. noteworthy attendees included Ahmad Nadzarudin Abd Razak, head of Corporate Services Division at DRB-HICOM
8. noteworthy attendees included Mohd Zain Hassan, CEO at Alam Flora Sdn
9. there was a press-conference following the ceremony; Salmiah was quoted , saying she appreciated the outside recognition , as a welcome change from past attitudes
10. the CEO is quoted saying that the Malaysian government has plans to increase the number of female road-sweepers, who are especially good at being patient with the large machinery
11. the CEO is quoted saying one of the purposes of the appreciation-ceremony was to entice other women to apply for employment in these future road-sweeper-positions
12. one of her daughters(?) was also quoted; (named Perak or maybe named Selama?);
13. this person worked for Alam Flora Sdn as a hand-sweeper(?) for 5 years, mini-sweeper-driver for 3 years, then tractor-trailer driver, and is now also a road-sweeper-driver
14. the daughter(?) said at first it took them three months to get the trust of their male co-workers, but since that point, the same folks are the first people to support them

So from this list of facts, we see that most of the article is about Alam Flora Sdn (or employees thereof). Buchaer-Scholing is mentioned as WP:NOTEWORTHY. Duromac is also mentioned as WP:NOTEWORTHY. Furthermore, there was a WP:NOTEWORTHY mention of Arul Das, who played a key role in the award-ceremony, as the representative of the machinery-suppliers. But it was only one sentence, so although it helps support the case for Duromac, it does not quite qualify as "significant in-depth coverage". Does this make sense? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

DUROMAC new article

Hey, thanks again for your help! I have a URL of " good and Through job".But the problem is,in this link you cant find any where mention about" DUROMAC" and even there is no single pictures. However, this article in newspaper "The Star" do have pictures of DUROMAC's road-sweeper. Now I am confused that maybe this is not enough to approve DUROMAC's notability. Don't you think so?

I can't find " AFC" you mentioned, could you please forward me a link?

Since I can't find " AFC" right now, then I decide to write it here and first let you know to check how is it. Is it ok?

Hello Clover, certainly you can start writing new sentences here. Your draft below looks good. Here is the link to create the new Duromac article -- WP:Article_wizard. Paste in your sentences below, and your sources below, and then send me the link to the AfC submission that the software creates, and we will go to the next step. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:42, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Start with article

DUROMAC (formally known as " DUROMAC(M)SDN BHD)is a Malaysian corporation founded in 1996, which supplies road-sweeping equipment and services for industrial in Puchong and the surrounding area. In 2008, DUROMAC's new building opening attended by Samy Vellu, who is government's Works Minister.[60] In 5 September 2012, they have also been awarded equipment-maintenance contracts for military runways by RMAF. [61]

So this is like basically what we can find all the relevant sources to approve DUROMAC. What else I can still write down for DUROMAC?--Clover1991 (talk) 05:23, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

This is just the start. These are our *best* sources so far. To have a dedicated article called Duromac, we need in-depth coverage. We have two good sources for that. It might be enough, but three sources with in-depth coverage is better. We should keep looking for more press-reports. Do you know somebody who works at Duromac, that we can ask? Maybe they will know of other newspaper articles, or television coverage, where Duromac or the managers are mentioned.

  Once the article is in the AfC queue, we can start adding other sentences. For example, we can write a new sentence about the award to Salmiah, which was presented by Arul Das. That is WP:NOTEWORTHY and belongs in wikipedia. However, it was only a brief mention of Duromac, so by itself that particular source does not prove WP:NOTE. Do you understand the difference here? In-depth coverage justifies creation of a new article about the topic. Brief-mention justifies adding another sentence to such an article. Let me know if this makes sense. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:01, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

DUROMAC (formally known as "DUROMAC(M)SDN BHD") is a Malaysian corporation founded in 1996, which supplies road-sweeping equipment and services for industrial and government clients in Puchong and the surrounding area. In 2008, DUROMAC opened a new building; Samy Vellu, the government's Works Minister at that time, attended the ceremony and spoke at the press conference afterwards. In January 2012, DUROMAC was awarded an equipment-maintenance contract related to military runways by the RMAF.

hey, I tried to copy and paste the article we made it for DUROMAC into " article-wizard", but it said invalid content. Is it something wrong?--Clover1991 (talk) 01:55, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm. Try starting very very simply. Just put this: DUROMAC is a Malaysian corporation founded in 1996. We can edit the page, and expand it with our full paragraph-so-far, once the AfC submission is created. If you get the error again, tell me the URL and the step you were on please. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 02:37, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Articles for creation

Hey, I made a draft version in Articles for creation, here is a link [62]. please check it. We can still edit and once we done everything, we can send it for review, right?

btw, I know the CEO of DUROMAC, actually, all references I founded is offered by him. So I think these two sources are most useful. hmmm, then what we are going to do the next step? --Clover1991 (talk) 03:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Hey, please check my articles for creation, I made the final version of DUROMAC. Please help me to check it and tell me what I still need to improve.... thankssssss!--Clover1991 (talk) 01:49, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Whisperback

Hello. You have a new message at Kudpung's talk page. JianhuiMobile ^talk 03:01, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

PK

If you can succeed with the massive influx of help you have my complete support. It was important to get her attention. Now we have it. Now, if she is willing, we can work. Or, probably,m you can, since I doubt she will accept help from me despite my offer being genuine. Fiddle Faddle 19:04, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, appreciate it. However, I will quibble: if she refuses your help, and holds a grudge, then she is not worthy to be a wikipedian, because she would not yet truly grok pillar four. Being WP:NICE does not mean secretly plotting revenge whilst being polite to your frenemies in public... it means letting bygones be bygones, and every single day, really really assuming good faith. Your actions have at all times (well -- that I've seen -- maybe you too were once a beginner... :-) have clearly been a shining credit to all wikipedians, and I expect PrincessK to live up to the same high standards. Pillar four or hit the door, is my motto. HTH. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 20:43, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

I appreciate the points you make, and the trouble you have taken, 74. I am experiencing some off-wiki real life stress at the moment, but I will be addressing the points on the relevant page very soon. I would appreciate it, if you can hold the fort there for a little bit till I contribute further. Cheers! Irondome (talk) 22:26, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Sure, no problemo. I'll see if I can find somebody to watchlist this one. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:24, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Cool. I am already watching the page and have added Syrian navy, too. But all of my 27 various intelligence handlers, except the woman from Uzbekistan, think I should just stick to gnoming for a bit, so I will be doing a watchiong brief :) Seriously, a few real life issues have cropped up, so my temper and judgement may be temporarily affected on stressy subjects. Cheers! Irondome (talk) 18:24, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

You lucky.[63] Me not.[64] Sigh. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:52, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I had him. Hard work. Does he still try to slap you? Luckily, he must be slowing up slapping-wise. There is some good RfA admin board chats on, so going there to chill out a bit. Cheers! Irondome (talk) 19:34, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Notice on Wiki-PR editing of Wikipedia

Hello, I would like to inform you that a requested move proposal has been started on the Wiki-PR editing of Wikipedia talk page. I have sent you this message since you are an IP user who has participated in one or more of these discussions and have expressed interest in the topic. Thank you for reading this message. --Super Goku V (talk) 07:56, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Toolserver and labs

Here's the main Signpost report. There has been vacillation back and forth since then on funding and staffing - for example - but Toolserver has been dying (it goes down frequently, lags develop, etc.), and labs is still not ready, much though it seems to attract tool programmers for technical reasons. Here's the relevant page on the meta discussion wiki, last edited 11 November. Complicating factors: Toolserver still has the policy that if someone doesn't edit there for 6 months, their tools all lapse. TParis in particular have taken over orphaned tools (such as the edit counter) as this happens, but that adds to their workload in migrating tools to labs, where they have to be written differently, and it means the taken over tools get moved over there immediately, so they stop working as they did - because labs still doesn't replicate toolserver in functionality. (And appears to have been subject to delay after delay as WMF takes its own sweet time developing it and as the usual missed deadlines in a programming project pile up.) Increasingly obvious examples are the edit counter lacking deleted edits and the hinky replacement for "show contributions in all projects". I don't know what happened to the two sysadmins in Amsterdam who were minding the Toolserver machines; I hope they found other good jobs. I feel bad for Wikimedia Deutschland. I appreciate the hard work programming stuff on labs. But it is a big old mess caused by WMF insisting (procedurally and by withdrawing financing) on substituting their own space with its own newer! better! programming environment for something that had been set up independently and worked well ... and then letting the community down by not having it fully ready by any of their own deadlines (as most had predicted would be the case). Yngvadottir (talk) 05:21, 18 November 2013 (UTC) ... P.S.: I know I owe you a long reply. But I keep getting diverted by stuff, not to mention moping over things. Yngvadottir (talk) 05:32, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Talkback: Honda D15B8

hi. not sure how to message people or "ping" you so I'm doing it this way. you asked about the D15B8 ECU. I answered on my page. where/how do we discuss your needs? thx — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.136.28.106 (talk) 14:22, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello, thanks for your reply, appreciate it. (Leaving me a note like you did is usually called "messaging" so you got it just right. There is also a way to "ping" people, which you can see somebody did in the section right below this one where Purplewowies sent me a little template-thingamabob. I can show you how to do it, if you care, but they are just a frill, so I never use them personally.)

  I saw there was some trouble about getting the ECU code into the article, which seems a shame, so I tried to look it up. Honda publishes almost no information online, as you prolly know. I have some Haynes manuals, and I think the library prolly has Chilton, but not specifically for the CX. Here is what I was able to unearth, but it contradicts what some places say, so now I'm just flat confused.  :-) Some sources say P05 and some say P06, but these guys have them all.[65][66][67][68]

• D15B8 can accept OEM#
  • for 1992-1993 models
    • 37820-P05-A00/L00/A01/L01,
    • 37820-P06-A51
    • 37820-P06-A50/L00/L01/L50/L51,
    • 37820-P06-A00/A01,
    • 37820-P09-A00/L00
  • for 1994-1995 models
    • 37820-P05-A02/L02 sans-MT,
    • 37820-P06-A52 sans-MT,
    • ((missing?))
    • 37820-P06-A02 with-M.T.-emissions (CA?),
    • 37820-P07-L02RM with-M.T.-emissions (CA?)

Other places would talk about P05 and P06, but this place used the fullsize part-numbers. Does any of this look right to you? Does your vehicle have the A**/L** suffix stuff? Gracias. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

1. Thank you for being WAY super cool. (why aren't people like you in power instead of Drmies?)

2. I will thank you more and talk about your wonderfully funny points when I have time. (got stuff to do today)

3. Glad I said I'm not an ECU specialist because I had no idea there would be so many ECUs for a puny 8-valve!

4. Before answering your question... Need to clarify that there were two different CXs. You seem to understand that you are focusing on the CX models with the D15B8 engine, made from 1992-1995. Just pointing out that the 1996-2000 generation Civic line also featured a CX, but the engine was the noticeably more powerful D16Y7. (I owned one of those cars too and although significantly faster than the 92-95 series CX, you paid for it, in higher fuel consumption). You're talking 92-95 only, right? Just checking.

5. Answering your question... I don't know. I like to say "I don't know" when I can't be absolutely sure. I have two CX engines w ECUs and two VX engines w ECUs. (I also have a D15B7 - the DX engine). Since this topic is only about the CX then here's what I can disclose: I have a "92" and a 95. The '92 is in quotes because I'm not the original owner. I bought the engine and ECU from a guy off CL. He said it was a 1992. I saw the car the engine was from so that was enough [citation needed] for me. I seem to remember the car did not have a passenger airbag so it's either a '92 or '93 at the latest. The seller also plugged the ECU into another hatchback, started the engine, and saw it work perfectly. So there's my "proof".

6. Label from that aforementioned '92 CX I acquired:

 37820-P05-A00
   730-508063
        =IPT=

and to the right of the above code was the double-sized APT.

7. Details... It was a manual transmission, probably not from California. The date was stamped (in ink) "MAR 1 1 '92". And molded into the alloy chassis is a "1" over a "91" in a circle that looks like a little sun dial. I took photos of this ECU. If you would like me to upload them (to appease stubborn skeptics like Mr.choppers) I'd be happy to. (just tell me how).

8. the other D15B8 ECU is a 1995 and still in the original CX car. I'm reluctant to spend the time pulling the carpet off (and who knows what other parts) to gain access to it. I'll photo that one too but only if you really want me to. I don't like doing time-consuming things for free.

Sorry for the lengthy answer :/ The behavior of the two listed below has me feeling compelled to list every detail, right down to the last baryon, gluon, and meson.

-the D15B8 guy who's tiny additions keep getting undo'd by the undudes Mr.choppers and Drmies. 24.136.28.106 (talk) 15:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, right now I'm just working on the D15B8 for the 1992-1995 CX. I'm no specialist either, and you have the part-in-hand knowledge that was crucial. We can expand from there, later, once we get the rhythm going. Rather than call you the D15B8 guy, how about I call you 24, after the first part of your computer-number? Think of it like a football jersey; you can call me 74. Length is no problemo for me, I suffer the same disease.  :-)

  As for the proof that you supplied, gracias, the numbers from the 1992 ECU were the thing that clinched it for us. No need to upload the photo of the '92, everybody trusts you can read "p05-a00". But the reason I wanted you to check, was to see whether it showed the same numbers as the www.autopart.com folks were claiming. They have the best data available online, and they are an official ECU-remanufacturer for Honda. That's called a "primary source" in the wikipedia jargon -- Honda is also a primary source, whereas Chilton's and Haynes are secondary sources. If some mechanical-engineering-professor wrote a paper summarizing all the Chilton/Haynes/Car&Driver datasets, that would be a tertiary-source.

  As for the 1995 ECU, no need to pull up the carpet, let alone upload a photo. We can pretty well trust now that autopart.com has their info close enough, and get the ECU codes put into the D15B8 section of the page. Of course, first I'll need to talk this over with Drmies, and get the page unprotected (or maybe they will put the stuff in for us -- if they're still nervous about Honda folks adding information all wild-n-crazy-like). Wikipedia is kinda like the IRS, unfortunately... all that matters is the paperwork. That's not all that matters to me, so I wanted to make sure autopart was likely *true* as well as paperwork-compliant.

  Now, my next question is, before we talk about rev-limit and teeth-counting and such: do you have a service manual for your Honda, or at least, an owner's manual? Cause that sort of paperwork will be extremely helpful to us in our quest. And no, you don't gotta become a librarian for this. We'll get somebody else to do that part. :-)   But I don't have the manuals, and I want somebody to be able to double-check our librarian's work.

  p.s. We're still gonna have to work on your WP:NICE pillar-four-stuff a bit. WP:BATTLEGROUND is worth a skim, but basically what it says is that wikipedia is not supposed to be about fighting. This ain't about winning, or who is in charge. Everybody here is in charge. Wikipedia is for the readers! Drmies is an admin, but they don't run things; admins are No Big Deal, as the founder will tell you, straight up. Admins have been around the block, and have a good clear understanding of how wikipedia is supposed to work... which means it should be straightforward to get this ECU stuff worked out with Drmies.

  And again, I can swear, MrChoppers is trying to help; they got in a fight with you, because they spend a ton of time doing the thankless cleanup-task of keeping the Honda article (and the Toyota articles and a ton of other stuff) from getting junior-high folks that change the numbers to say a-million-horsepower, and other stupid horseplay. They should not have fought with you, of course... but they stayed within the rules. They're prickly, because they are a wikiCop, and that is a tough job. Anyways, you and I need to focus on the content + facts + sources; after that, the rest is easy-peasy.

  Hang onto the photo-files... we don't need them for proof now, but if you don't mind adding them to wikipedia for other folks to have the freedom to use, they prolly belong over in the ECU article. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:34, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

sending private thank-you-messsages

Hello, 74.192.84.101. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:Notifications/Thanks.
Message added 07:13, 19 November 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

- Purplewowies (talk)

Mike's requests

I don't know what the deal is with Mike's requests - maybe he uses a device that makes it hard for him to format references correctly? I've helped him a few times, and so have a number of others. It seems harmless, but I don't share his love for the aristocracy articles :-) Yngvadottir (talk) 01:18, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the formatting of the wiki-markup looks like it could be accessibility-related. Actually, one might suspect editing from a tablet/smartphone, where punctuation is sometimes incredibly painful to get to. Anyways, glancing at their edits didn't cause my red-alert-whiskers to twitch any, and clearly they are here in good faith. Did a bit of looking, and as of 2012 baronets are no longer, for the moment at least, under threat of insta-ban-hammer.[69] Still, always best to watch your step in those areas. Mike's interest seems to be more related to ancestry and genealogical stuff, than The Resurgence Of The British Empire To Once Again Rule The High Seas (And Recapture The Thirteen Colonies While We're At It). Still, since you've worked with them before, maybe you could leave them a friendly note that will make them aware to stay careful, keep cool, and avoid at all costs getting involved in any edit-warring, even by accident. Safer to edit the baronet-articles of the 1600s than to edit the Israel-articles of the 1960s, for sure.

  Anyhoo, I wish Mike well, they seem savvy. Isn't there a wikiProject for British Royalty, or something like that? ((Update, there is one, WT:WikiProject_British_Royalty#Inquiries, and they explicitly welcome "todo requests" on their WikiProject talkpage. See especially WP:BARONET subset within WP:WikiProject_Peerage_and_Baronetage, as well as [70][71][72][73][74].)) There's nothing wrong with leaving notes on pages of folks they know, but methinks Mike might just be picking somebody at random from the edit-history of the article in question, and often as not, prolly ask for help from some vandal-fighter who habitually ignores any sinebot-assisted messages from anons. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 02:35, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Replied

Hi. I replied on my talkpage on Meta-Wiki. BTW m:Special:AbuseFilter/history/71/diff/536/601 works now, the bug was fixed pretty quickly after I filed it. πr² (t • c) 15:42, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Any comments? πr² (t • c) 16:22, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Mentorship proposal

This grant proposal seems like it may match with some of your ideas. Of course, you may already know of it, but I only learned of it from Ocaasi's obituary for Jackson Peebles, who died last month :-( Yngvadottir (talk) 20:02, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to hear about Jackson, although I did not know of them; any wikipedian lost, is a loss to this world. In some ways you are correct about the match. But there are some crucial points where the proposal diverges from what methinks is absolutely required. Key errors: begging for USD$18k. Before starting any work. Begging for help from WMF, at all. See also, the people who threw millions into VisualEditor. Most crucially, just like the caste-system wikiCulture insists they do, just like all the *existing* failed-to-improve-retention programs, this is yet another scheme where the experienced-important-editcountitis REAL wikipedian, charitably and magnanimously gives their precious time and attention to some basically worthless, totally stupid, clueless groveling moron mentee. The last factor is the real problem. It means the system cannot be fun. Only some fun-quick-teaming will increase wp:retention, and this proposal is not it.

  Rather than join their effort, which will go into the black hole of the WMF, never to return, why don't we instead just steal the best people, steal the best ideas, and build something on a shoestring that will attract enough other developers to finish the work entirely with volunteers, without any of it beholden to WMF politicians and lawyers?  :-)   p.s. I've never heard of this project, because I don't think the WMF grant-begging boards are anything but a dead-end. That said, anything you run across like this, please let me know, I will be most grateful. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 02:29, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

list of potentially-interesting folks to contact at some point

Would also appreciate your half-sentence take on the names mentioned, in terms of whether they would see my crazy not-a-cabal guerrilla schemes as somewhat-appealing-yet-scary, or alternatively, flat-out nuts-no-way. not-a-cabal material? name notes fmr MedCabal Steven Zhang has mentored editors both voluntarily and as part of mandatory arrangements, and will work with metrics, implementation, and as project leader ((currently runs DRN ... has refused to become an admin ... possibly too wise to get involved with Yet Another Not-A-Cabal in the startup phase)) unk. EpochFail is providing software & analysis support. The newcomer retention issues in Wikipedia are both concerning and complex. While personal support of promising newcomers is a clear solution in theory, in practice, it's hard to see any clear, positive outcomes of the current mentoring system. Musicant/Ren/Johnson/Riedl. Mentoring in Wikipedia: a clash of cultures. 9 pgs. ACM WikiSym'11. The proposed project would both solve some underlying problems in the current state of mentoring and serve as a unifying space for other newcomer support activities within the Wikipedia community (e.g. Teahouse, Snuggle, etc). possible Matty.007 is helping wherever he can. Many contributors on WP are made by passing editors, who make only a few edits. If we have a system to encourage editors not to make a few contributions then leave; we can teach them the tough policies and guidelines which are hard for newcomers to understand on their own. ((have seen them around)) unk. Gabrielm199 interested in supporting analysis and relating relevant experience from education program. Socializing newcomers in open online communities remains a challenging proposition. Researchers and practitioners continuously explore new ways to make such informal and ad hoc environments less chaotic and uncertain for newcomers. I think this project will be a valuable addition not only to finding new ways to help newcomers on Wikipedia, but to the broader community of researchers and practitioners exploring similar issues in other open online communities. maybe Go Phightins! is interested in helping wherever possible including providing resources from his personal adoption course (en:User:Go Phightins!/Adopt) if necessary as well as being a resource as someone who has experienced Adopt-A-User as both an adopter and an adoptee. ((have seen them around)) possible Technical 13 is available for any technical support involving templates, scripts, or extension development. ((have seen them around)) maybe Tech13 suggests: Theonesean was working on a similar matching software/process to match mentors with those looking to be AfC reviewers last I knew. no but a powerful allied force Tech13 suggests: Kudpung is very active in new proposals and may be helpful to get some insight or opinion from here. ((working on AfC and NPP and RfA and WER ... wise enough to stay away from nutty not-a-cabal crapola... but the not-a-cabal can be valuable to kudpung's related-but-orthogonal goals)) unk. Siko unk. likely Ocaasi ((battling for trademark-freedom)) unk. Slventura original idea creator. unlikely? Slowking4 ((commented without joining)) Go ahead and edit the table directly, please, if you have the hankering. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 02:29, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Yah, that's why I pinged you about the proposal - I reckoned you had no more heard about it than I had. Afraid I can't lend any assistance with assessing people's possible interest: I try to avoid building profiles of editors in my head for two reasons above all: it's a volunteer project, so people's level of interest, attitudes, and priorities will change even more than otherwise likely; and I believe fervently in the right to on-line anonymity (one of many things on which I disagree with the WMF) so I try hard not to put 2 and 2 together. You may have the best success asking people. However, the WMF aspect is touchy - they regard us as working for them and some folks have no problem with that, while others reasonably enough think some variant of "Right, then! Let's take some of that money they're waving around". (Just as some newbies like mentorship, whereas I just futzed around and asked some silly questions at a help board that seems to no longer exist. Takes all kinds :-)) There are a (to me) surprising number of technically adept Wikipedians who might be happy to help program stuff - the disaffected Kumioko, for one. By the way - I assume you know about Flow, which is hanging over our heads like a sword of Damocles? It will likely muck up everything involving collaboration except for unorchestrated joint editing in mainspace, so it will impact both planning and implementation of the two-person edit blitzes you envision. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:48, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Taking the last bit first, I *was* envisioning 2-person buddy-system blitzkrieg. No longer; it proved to be too difficult to explain, in several different ways.

fun quick wiki-teaming, based around the metaphor of the space shuttle mission, time-constrained precision-teamwork with assigned-but-rotating roles

One group assumed it meant, patriarchal patronizing badness, aka whoever had the bigger editcountitis score would order the morally-lesser editor around. Other folks assumed it would be them leading, and others following, like wp:adopt only briefer. Some people could not see how it was different from wp:adopt / wp:assist / wp:mentor, or even typically-two-person-at-a-time things like wp:teahouse / wp:refdesk / wp:helpdesk. There were other complaints and misunderstandings, too.   So I've junked the idea of putting the *focus* on pairing. Instead, the new focus is on teams of approximately five editors, organized like the space shuttle, to give people the idea of "missions" and time-constrained and precision-teamwork for a good cause. Here is close to what I'm thinking about nowadays. One person is the pilot, who gets to pick what article the team works on... but only for N minutes (where N==15 or something short), after which the pilot-role rotates to somebody else on the team. Most of the other people are mission-specialists, who focus on something they enjoy: writing new sentences is the adder-role, finding refs for existing sentences (perhaps just-added tho) is the cite-role, clarifying & grammar/spell/punctuation-checking of existing-or-just-added sentences is the redpen-role / fixup-role, deletionists who check for link/infobox/ref-spams and wp:peacock/wp:spa/wp:tone violations are the bluepen / cleanout-role, and so on. finally, there *might* be a bodyguard/diplomat/anti-ninja role, who looks out for vandals during the 15-min timespan, watches out for whether somebody on the team is getting reverted (either by editors outside the team or editors within the team), and in general helps in a wikiCop role, walking the beat, to serve & protect One person, typically whoever the pilot was last time, is the capcom that helps interact with other editors that might be on the page during the 15-minute span (regulars or other teams), but more importantly helps the team communicate with itself despite the limitations of wikipedia's communication-system. Capcom is not the commander; they are a passive/descriptive role, sending FYI notices. In a real space-shuttle mission, there *is* a commander, who orders everybody else around; this is wikipedia, so the commander-role is reserved for User:Jimbo_Wales alone.  :-)   In practice, he may opt to choose some particular mission-specialist role, for any given 15-minute-mission, rather than sit around "being commander". But actually, I think beginners would get a kick out of having Jimbo on their team, and the "commander" role is pretty easy; you just say "go team rah rah" at the beginning of the mission, and at the end of the mission you say "good work sis-boom-ba" plus from time to time comment on something or fix something or remind somebody of the five pillars. So with luck Jimbo will show up from time to time, even when simultaneously busy with something else in real life.   Every cycle, the first minute is spent deciding which article to work on; the pilot can unilaterally decide, can take a wp:poll, or whatever. If the pilot wants the gods to select the mission, they click Special:Random and report the results to the other team-members. Capcom is a volunteer role, with the pilot Once the mission begins, everybody travels to the article in question, and starts to work on it. The capcom puts a note on the article-talkpage in a standardized format, to let regulars know that a blitz-team has arrived, and to handle any disputes with wp:ninja folks that may arise. The capcom also creates a new section on their own personal talkpage, for team-related chatter which does not belong in the "permanent record" of the article-talkpage. Everybody including the pilot -- but excluding the capcom -- picks a role from the usual set of adder/cites/fixup/cleanout/diplomat/combo, with "all" being allowed as a role... but discouraged since 15 minutes is such a short timespan. They announce their role-choice on the capcom's talkpage, and get to work.   Everybody on the team plays their role for 10 or 12 minutes, improving the article. In the final three-or-fewer minutes, everybody on the team reviews the overall diff, making sure that the article *was* improved, discussing amongst the team, performing any last-minute fixes, writing up a one-sentence summary of the changes for the article-talkpage, and optionally a todo-list for some future blitz-team to work on. Then the 15-minute-cycle begins again, with the old pilot retiring (perhaps becoming the new capcom by default?), and the new pilot being selected by some TBD mechanism which is both fair and flexible.   The obvious advantage to this sort of scheme is that it permits large teams: pilot-slash-adder, cite-specialist, fixup-specialist, cleanout-specialist, diplomat-specialist, and capcom... and of course, nothing prevents you from having multiple adders/citers/fixers/cleaners/diplomats, which means teams of over a dozen editors are quite feasible out-of-the-box. You can even imagine a military-style hierarchical structure, with multiple teams working on a page simultaneously, coordinated by a super-capcom and a super-diplomat... but in practice I hope that teams will just pick an article which nobody else is working on.   The subtle-but-crucial advantage is that there is no *lower* bound on the teamsize. The metaphor of the six roles is just a metaphor; if you only have five people, one person can take on a combo-role of diplomat-plus-cleaner. If you only have four people, one person is the cites-plus-fixup. If you only have three people, then you might have the capcom-person acting as the diplomat-plus-cleaner-plus-capcom, or you might have some null-roles (commander is always a null role sans Jimbo... diplomat is *usually* a null role unless the-revert-heard-round-the-wikiworld actually occurs). But you can play the game with two people. And most of the time, especially in the early days, folks will play with two people. So the rules and the roles are, as best I can, organized to optimize the two-person case, and *permit* the dozen-person case.   Interestingly, even a *single* person can play the one-player-version of fun quick wikiTeaming, where they are simultaneously the pilot, capcom, adder, citer, fixer, cleaner, and diplomat. This is not much different from the usual way folks edit wikipedia, with one key exception: work is done in fifteen minute chunks (no dancing across half a dozen different articles simultaneously as I sometimes do), and at the start of every chunk, a standardized article-talkpage message is created by the "capcom" who in this case is also playing all the other roles as well, of course. That message is key: it allows us to implement a search-function, so that somebody who *wants* to try wikiTeaming, can perform a straightforward search to find other people that are *already* playing, and join their existing mission.   For instance, if at 3:00pm Mike starts working on baronets, and is generating the "I am on a single-person wikiTeam" message every fifteen minutes, when I wake up at 3:33pm and do a search at 3:35pm, I will see that Mike has worked on some baronet-article at 3:00pm and at 3:15pm and is currently working on his 3:30pm mission-chunk. I can then immediately go to the page, add myself to the team, select a role for myself, and help Mike finish the already-partially-completed-mission-chunk. When 3:45pm rolls around, if he and I agree to form a team, we can flip a coin to see who is the pilot, the other one will act as capcom, and we can divvy up the mission-specialist roles as we see fit. If you get back from shopping, and check out who is wikiTeaming at 3:52pm, you'll notice Mike and me ... and can join in immediately if you wish. When 4pm rolls around, I may be tired of the aristocracy, and go off to work elsewhere, but you and Mike can keep going, or Mike can keep going in single-player mode, waiting for somebody to come along.   The flip-side scenario is a bit harder, and I'm still working on it. The example above talks about a person who is looking to *join* a team, and how that works. Most beginning-editors will be in that boat, so I'm most worried about solving that scenario properly. But what about somebody looking to *recruit* a team to help? We can use Mike in this example, too... he has completed doing some offline work on the topic of the Conyers baronet, and is ready to add the new info to the article... but he needs a cite-specialist, to format the stuff!   How does he recruit one? Well, one way is to do a search for people that are currently wiki-teaming, and then do a search for which wiki-teamers have the 'cite specialist' banner on their userpages, or have taken the 'cite specialist' role in their recent wiki-teaming-history. Then, he can join the team of some particular cite-specialist, wait until he becomes the pilot, and then fly the team over to the Conyers baronet article. This is not as farfetched or complex as it sounds; in the usual case, there will be some known cite-specialist playing single-player-wikiteaming, and Mike can join them for a few minutes to help complete their current mission, and then ask for their help completing his Conyers baronet mission.   But, in case there is no cite-specialist available immediately, or if Mike needs something complex like (say) a team of four particular specialists for some difficult mission, it makes sense that there should be some way for Mike to submit a mission-description, and a team-specification, and then over time engage in recruiting and team-building work, until he has enough specialists signed up, and can schedule the mission-start. Alternatively/additionally, there should be some way to record "unfinished missions" where some parts of the team did some parts of the work already, but another specialist can come along later to clean things up.   Anyhoo, wall-of-text alarm is ringing madly, so I'll stop here. If you have any ideas or criticisms about the space-shuttle-style fun quick wiki-teaming, please let me know. Will it be shot down, by enemies of the article-rescue-squadron, or similar? Will it be mistaken for yet-another-mentoring-thing-doomed-to-failure? Hmmmm... looking over what I wrote above, methinks that single-player-capcom messages should be placed on the user's own talkpage, rather than on the article-talkpage. That will keep folks who are watchlisting the article-talkpage from getting a bunch of 'informative' messages. That sounds like it would be some people's idea of fun. But: edit conflicts up the wazoo. volunteer / hobby activity, on the internet, means an unknown number of us are doing this around offline (and else-net) competition for our attention. 15-minute blocks of uninterrupted time? Dream on. Factor in dropped connections here, too (not to mention Wikipedia itself going on the fritz because the WMF keep rejiggering the software.) perhaps less significant for most, but I for one am congenitally unable to work on a single thing in isolation. Not so much that I edit multiple articles simultaneously, but that I almost always fix more than one class of problem at a time. It's the way my mind work. What sources I find and what they say affects the wording I use and often causes me to move things around and reorganize them; I automatically fix typos and tweak style and fill out incomplete refs and ... and ... one of the advantages to the wiki-method is that it accommodates that style as well as the person who makes a pass through the entire encyclopedia fixing instances of "teh" and then proceeds to another typo, the person who uses high-tech tools to add categories to 50 articles in 30 minutes ... and not unrelated to that, the person who only edits soccer player articles. There are a plethora of ad hoc teams on Wikipedia. A well functioning WikiProject either is one or functions as the sort of search-for-a-group-operating-now that you are thinking through. At least two groups that I know of have made their own Wikiprojects to coordinate team article development and improvement: Wikipedia:WikiProject Rosblofnari, Wikipedia:WikiProject Quality Article Improvement. I am pretty darned unclubbable in the Holmesian sense, but found myself collaborating first with Drmies (many edit conflicts, gah, we expanded it in alternating edits) and then with Dr. Blofeld, Eric Corbett and Giano (and a knowledgeable local IP with a technical COI) at Bramshill House, and I started Rumskulla oak after someone proposed it as a neat topic on Drmies' talk page, and by the time he came back from an errand, three (IIRC) of us had made it pretty much what it is today. But the off-wiki interruptions and the edit conflicts get in the way, and it can be really hard to mesh your editing with someone else's. I think structure would help some and turn off others. (Eric, Giano, I, and to a lesser extent Drmies all tend to make big sweeping edits. The first two are probably what they mean by WikiDragons.) Yngvadottir (talk) 13:52, 25 November 2013 (UTC) Yes, the edit-conflicts are a definite problem... but the capcom is supposed to help with that, and the role-selection work. Most of the team-chatter will be something like "I'm working on adding a new sentence to the 'History of $foo' section now so the rest of you keep out" sort of thing. Then when that is done, the adder-person will say "I'm working on the lede" and the capcom can tell the cite-person or the redpen person to please fix up the freshly-added sentence. In the long run, my plan it to build to tools to manage the process; wikipedia's edit-conflict-resolution-software, yea verily doth it sucketh.   Your second and third points I completely dismiss as irrelevant. :-)   Wikipedia is a hobby to *us* because we are already addicted. My target is specifically beginning editors, that are not yet addicted. The fun-quick-wiki-teaming thing is designed to get them addicted, and then help them get others addicted, and so on. And although I tend to edit "as my minds work" (you had a typo in your prose above where you forgot the plural on minds... which suggests a similar 'problem' in your editing), in point of fact I can edit on one article for fifteen minutes. But instead of picking a single role, I'll prolly usually just list "all" as my role, and then do as I please, being careful not to step on the toes of anybody else.   But heck, fifteen minutes is pretty short. Enough time to look up one, maybe two sources, and add low-hundreds of words with good references and copy-editing and such. Are you congenitally unable to work on the Pele article for fifteen minutes of wall-time, if some beginner is the pilot and picks that one? If so, just drop out of the team, to pick another team, or to go be a single-person-team for awhile. If the lock-step fifteen-minute-chunk structure gets you down, don't do single-player. Just join teams midway through a mission from time to time, make a few changes, then drop them like a rock.  :-)   If I've done it right, nobody will even *care* about you 'abusing' the system that way, because it won't be seen as abusive, by anybody.   Instead, folks will be grateful for your help, and not at all distressed when you leave them to their own devices. Does this make sense? And, does my space-shuttle metaphor implement what I'm describing? The downside to the space-shuttle metaphor is that it suggests one is trapped in a claustrophobia-inducing environment with deadly dangers all around.  ;-)   By contrast, the wikiprojects you mentioned (and wikiprojects in general) are designed for experienced self-selecting hobbyists. The quality-folks are kinda-sorta close to what I'm aiming for... except they only work on articles that are *already* good, furthermore they *only* permit deity-caste wikipedians to participate (every one of them an addict already), and they spread their work out across many weeks (or often many months).   The edit-history of Williamette River in the NW USA is a good example. Nominated for quality-improvement the 25th, admin-only protected 26th, one+one sessions by admin#1 on the 27th, four+one session by admin#2 on the 27th, one session each on the 28th, one session on the 29th, one session on the 30th, became GA the next day. Got two soccer-jokes by 86, one complaint about WMF-spamvertising from BillyBobbyMoo, and one misguided rewording by Truthanado (plus a bot-generated-mistake). Also got a useful link from 68, a factual fix from 99, clarity-improvement from PiledHigherAndDeeper, and four people that made changes which seemed wiki-tool-driven (date reformat and pronunciation and so on). There were some talkpage comments, additionally, which admin#1 put into the article. Looking through the article, nothing jumps out as being particularly in need of help, though some parts are a bit awkward perhaps, and the weight given to environmental concerns seems undue (e.g. compared to tourism/entertainment/etc which is the other major modern function of the river nowadays -- that stuff gets one sentence).   But the point is, besides minor one-off corrections -- and only then if they have specific knowledge of the topic -- most beginning editors would have nothing to add to the article. It's pretty decent! Which means, it is a terrible article for fun-quick-wiki-teaming. The best articles for *that* are the basket cases in the AfC queue, which generally need a ton of help. And most beginning editors, besides being unable to contribute much to GA-class articles, would be unable to act as anything but second-class-citizens compared to Gerda/Dianna/MontanaBw/PumpkinSky/etc. There is currently a discussion over at the bottom of the WP:RETENTION talkpage about starting a WikiProject For Anons.  :-)   I didn't do it! But I suggested some goals for such a project. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:18, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

lonely rivers Flow / to the C / to the C / to the open arms / of the C

I think you underestimate the impact of Flow. It's meant to destroy the talk pages; we will not be able to be sure others are seeing the conversation as we are seeing it, and it will substitute a Facebooky idea of threading for the clustering nodes we have, for example, in this section of your talk page. Ironically or deliberately, it will, I believe, reduce collaboration to the level of co-editing a Word doc. I can't offer a solution here other than actually forking the wiki, which I actually proposed. But you should be forewarned. The WMF had no idea removing the Orange Bar of Doom from IPs would mean IPs wouldn't see their warnings and have a chance to stop or explain before getting blocked. And when it was pointed out to them after the notifications change to Echo, the response was "The programmers went home already, this will have to wait." The WMF had no idea there would be a problem with Visual Enema making it impossible to add a reference with an addition to an article, and still don't seem aware how at odds their priorities are there with those of people writing an encyclopedia. They don't care. I'm told Wikipedia is actually a problem for the developers, most of whom work on more lucrative applications. They can and will do serious damage to the community; whether they actively want to or just don't see what they're stepping on in the name of whatever they do care about, is unimportant. Be aware that Flow will muck up your plans. Yngvadottir (talk) 13:52, 25 November 2013 (UTC) So what devs have you not-profiled, that *do* seem to care? Because those are the ones that I do definitely not-want in the not-a-cabal.  :-)   What lucrative apps are you speaking of? Commercial work, or WMF/wikia projects that are for sale outside the bounds of wikipedia.org?   Choose the form of the destructor[75] I appreciate the warning about Visual Enema... which is hilarious... and you can add the Flow Of Vomit into the list of wiki-tools best avoided. But part of my decision to pursue the not-a-cabal, and avoid WMF, is also based in the reasonably-well-founded knowledge that most of the existing Chuck Norris disciples are in fact happy with the caste-system, happy with the WMF, and unlikely to perceive the not-a-cabal as worthy of their time. There are some exceptions, and I'm diligently seeking them out. But I don't expect to be able to convince them on user-talkpages, for the majority. The only thing that will convince them is hard evidence: implementing it, and proving it valid, first. But that's no problem; developers are everywhere, and a good percentage of the hundreds of millions of uniques enWiki gets every month *are* programmers.   Forking wikipedia.org into totallyKoolpedia.com would be a worst-case scenario (where is a link to your proposal? I'd like to see who responded), but I don't think it will come to that. Instead, we can implement all the functionality we need as part of client-side-javascript-gadgets, plus in the worst case some off-wiki servers that those gadgets depend on for specific heavy-lifting which is too computationally intensive to do on the fly. What happened when VizEd came out? People complained, and went back to the old way, and the VizEd "final deployment" was pulled. What would have happened, if somebody had produced a *good* external tool, which did most of what the VizEd was supposed to do, but more importantly, Failed To Sucketh? I think we can still support traditional talkpages, when Flow comes to town. And if we provide that feature, which Flow tries to crush, we'll get a lot of converts, eh? Motivated to help the not-a-cabal succeed in making our flow-alternative into the mediawiki default. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:18, 25 November 2013 (UTC) I wanted to just have us leave the Foundation, who are now a vast impediment except in two areas: they own the servers (could be remedied with our own fundraiser - the Foundation represents the fundraisers as for that but takes in hugely more than they spend on that) and they provide legal services (although they've been saying recently that they won't necessarily assist individual Wikipedia admins who get sued - thanks for nothing, overpaid execs). It will be in my contributions to the Wikipedia namespace - it was at Village Pump (Proposals) but I'd rather not look at it again; as I expected I got lambasted, and it hurt, although I had kind of expected calls for my desysopping. I did it because having been somewhat reluctantly made an admin, I consider it my duty to defend the encyclopedia, and I believe the WMF are endangering it. However, I don't share your sanguine view, and I'm afraid it may be too late to save it from them now. As I said earlier on my talkpage, I've been a bit down, and this is why. (I keep discovering more, too.) I fear some folks may have noticed that I've almost stopped creating new articles that are my own idea; there doesn't seem much point now. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:58, 26 November 2013 (UTC) And by "us", you mean the 31k... now 29k it seems[76]... active editors of enWiki, including the 634... now 620 it seems[77]... active admins on enWiki. Which is quite a lot of people, right? But I will note one reason I am sanguine -- that is roughly one-tenThousandth of the readership of enwiki. For every active editor, there are literally 9999 readers! Surely at least a few of those folks are interested in preserving wikipedia. Many of then are prolly *formerly-active* editors, who were driven away by bureacracy, constant WMF-advert-campaigns, clunky buggy wiki-tools, ninja-reverts, or whatever the particular problem was in their own individual case.   People love wikipedia. If they knew she was in danger, they would rally to save her. We would have more volunteer wiki-hackers than we could shake a stick at. We would have more pro bono lawyers than mother teresa. We could probably get gratis server-space if we were willing to let the webhost spy on the traffic... and of course the NSA already has that server-side power (and both the NSA and the major telcos plus to a great extent Google/Microsoft/Yahoo/Facebook/etc have spy-power on the client-side already) so it's actually not as evil an idea as it looks, at first glance. That said, server-space does not cost all that much money; out of hundreds of millions of endusers, surely we could get around a million bucks a year for very-professionally-serviced hardware, and use volunteer software-sysadmins to manage the rest.   But why leave, when we can subvert? If particularly-high-handed WMF behavior is pissing off you the admin, Anne Delong the librarian-programmer-AfC wizard, Mabdul the javascript-hacker, and so on... perhaps we can engineer a bloodless coup. 93% of the readership depends on enWiki, if memory serves, even in countries where English is not the first language, because enWiki is the biggest and the best and the first, and English is the language of the internet. We have the vast readership that the other wiki-projects only dream of. But we take what the WMF dishes out? We bow down to Chuck Norris, may he live ten thousand years, and accept FlowTalk? That's because we don't realize where the true power lies, just yet. Organize even a small fraction of the hundreds of millions of readers, selected as Good Eggs, and the wikiCulture here will be overturned. Pretty soon, the WMF will once again be the servant, rather than the master.   And hey, don't lump all the WMF folks into one basket. A large fraction of them... lawyers and devs and overpaid folks fully included in this accounting... perhaps even a *majority* of them... love the old classic wikipedia, the paradise of classic liberalism, and of classic GNU-style freedom, and of a community based on merit and idealism, not based on wikiPolitical-pull and pessimism. <wiki-patriotic music swells> Let not the great Jimbo go quietly into the night! <cannon blast> Let not our beloved wikiverse go down without a fight! <coconuts galloping> Stand, I say, stand for editor's rights! <rockets red glare> The time! <music abruptly ends> Has come! <deep breath> wiki-YAWWWWWP!!   So there it is.  :-)   Lose not your hope, as Yoda would say. Time there is, still. And hey, if worse comes to worse, and the servers of en.wikipedia.org go down the tubes... the WMF goes down the tubes... even the enWiki community goes down the tubes amongst infighting and retention-crisis and funding-slash-leadership crisis... the content itself, the articles we all slaved over, at least the text-portions, will live on. CCBYSA and GFDL guarantee us that much, as long as at least a *few* contributors are willing to sue to keep their work from being proprietarized. So go ahead and create some new stuff. If it all goes bad, that work will survive... and like a phoenix, some new entity will arise, to once again host it, grow it, and wikiLove it.   But I do not plan to let anything go down the tubes. This is my wiki. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My wiki, without my edits, is useless. Without my wiki, my edits are useless. I must aim my edits true. I will. I know that what counts on the internet is not the characters we write, the count of our edits, nor the flames of our discussions. We know that it is the truth that counts. We will be true. My wiki is alive, even as I, because it is a part of my life, and a part of the lives of all the other editors. Thus, I will treat my wiki as my family. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its users, and its tools. I will keep my wiki clean and ready, even as I stay clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will. My wiki and I are the defenders of knowledge. We are masters of friendlyism and neutrality. We are the saviors of freedom. If any rule keeps me from improving my wiki, I swear to boldly ignore it. So be it, until wisdom is everyone's, and there is no enemy of truth.   Now, if *that* doesn't scare ya, then nothing will.  :-) &nbps; To be fair, not all of the above is truthiness, some of it is a bit tongue-in-cheek. But most of it is true, and all of it has a kernel of truth. Now quit reading my posts of woe, and go write some nice content. We can discuss specifics of the glorious wiki-revolution later, and in particular, I'd like to know about the "more" you hint at, and the reasons you believe time is up. To me, it looks like we have all the time in the world, because wikipedia is for the ages. So although I believe WP:TIAD, it ain't tomorrow, eh? Hope this helps, and as always, thanks for improving wikipedia. — 74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:03, 27 November 2013 (UTC)   Flow was "supposed" to be in beta during July, and deployed as an option (live edits to mainspace... err "talkspace") next month, then fully *replace* old-school talkpage wikimarkup by summer 2014. How is that fanciful schedule going to look when reality hits, and people realize the VizEd promise to retain wiki-markup, was just a dodge that FlowTalk would quickly invalidate? The promise that VizEd would R.S.N. be totally super-math-n-physics-friendly already fell through. The damn thing cannot even work with tables, let alone equations! Here are the four goals of Flow: 1A. auto-signing. SineBot already does this! We just need to tweak[78] the format; ctrl+f sigSpam, which appears the short table-form nutshell-summary (you can ignore surrounding wall-o-text). 1B. "obvious & consistent comment-authorship". Basically they mean borders & background-colors. Pretty dern easy. Should be implemented in CSS, not by screwing up the rest of the wiki-markup-world. 2A. reply-button. Easy. That they even list it as a goal... sheesh. 2B. notifications of replies to all discussions. Not as easy, but not very friggin hard to implement, either. If my reply is immediately below yours, or indented so as to be at "reply-level depth-of-indentation", notify me. There will be some false-notifications, but few and far between. 3A. "A simple comment field". By which they mean, no wiki-markup. But also, no capability to edit somebody else's comment. Again, this is best done with a layer on top of wiki-markup, not by destroying it. Any false-positives can easily be over-ridden, dropping the user back to full-page-view. But actually, simply color-coding the comment-editing window (see CSS above) and using javascript to position the cursor in the appropriate place, would go a long way towards fixing this problem... if the real goal is improving usability, rather than the underlying goal of destroying wiki-markup. 3B. "Rigid predictable technical restrictions on who can edit what". Ahhh, now we get to the meat of it. Controls begat more controls. The encyclopedia 'anyone' can edit, unless I say they don't count. Caste-system-wikiculture raises its ugly head, yet again. 4. "Easy to distinguish topics". This is literally and figuratively impossible. *Topic* of discussion is entirely controlled by the natural-language *content* of that ... hey by the way, have you ever seen what happens when a young llama gets into the altiplano for the first time? They are totally shocked at the change! Which has nothing to do with easy-to-distinguish-topics, beyond proving the point. When you look at the 'feature' they are *actually* trying to implement, it turns out to be wordpress-style-max-indentation-depth. After two replies, every subsequent reply is forced to be only that deep. In other words, complex discussion becomes impossible; arbitrary-section-breaks are inserted every three or four comments. Facebooky to the max. Methinks we can implement good-enough versions of feature #1 and feature #2, plus the *important* parts of feature #3 ... without the "Rigid Restrictions" that are oh-so Ridiculously Repugnant, of course. As for the fourth 'feature' it is actually a bug, pure and simple. Has no place on wikipedia. But do we have enough *time* to catch up? After all, WMF has been spending incredible amounts of cashflow on the paid employee workflow which is intended to implement WP:FLOW... for months, if not years!   What if the Flow stuff actually works? I'm, uhh, not too worried, that umm, their "scheduled completion" of Flow is imminent. Even staunch long-term supporters of WP:FLOW are backpedalling now.[79] Frankly, there is no way the WMF can implement FlowTalk without extreme levels of pushback. It is a recruiting dream for the not-a-cabal. But hey. I'll be frank. If the WMF employees can turn their VizEd+FlowTalk disaster around, and fix tables, and fix math, and fix talkpages, and improve WP:RETENTION, before next springtime... or even look like they *might* come anywhere *close* to that... well then, the not-a-cabal is cancelled.   Instead, I'll go start helping them create the turnaround. But by nature I'm a critic, and a pessimist, one of those people who is never satisfied... and the WMF strikes me as being so far from satisfactory, in how they are trying to revamp the wiki-tools to fix the crisis of down-trending editor-count, that I will literally be shocked out of my gourd if it happens. Pleasantly shocked, I will note!   But I'm preparing for the worst, because I think we're coming close to the point where our steady decline in net-editor-retention is going to push the folks that pull the levers at the WMF into putting banner adverts into mainspace (aka wikipedia getting acquired by Google) or otherwise selling out. If anything like that happens, a slow trickle will turn into an exponential decline... perhaps masked by the exponential growth in new Bad Egg editors here to take advantage of the new laxness in morality.

Although your point about editor-profiling is well taken, but I'm actually engaged in pure uid-profiling, which is a slight but crucial distinction. I do not assume that User:Stephen is actually named that in real-life, for instance, tho prolly they are. And truth be told, I could care less who they are in real-life, I only care about what they'll do in the wikiverse. Harsh of me.  ;-)   And yes, I can ask them, but I'll ask them one by one, to not-join the not-a-cabal, as it were. Like wikipedia, it is a temporary anonymous catch-as-catch-can system.

  Some of them will say no, which means yes, in this system of semantics. :-)   The really clever ones will say !yes which means not-yes, but in the not-a-cabal not-yes means not-not-yes which means yes. Hence the reason for my question about whether you'd heard of them before... their boolean answers alone, will not tell me whether or not they are interested/interesting. Your mention of the mentorship-thing is directly related. If they are involved in mentorship, that's a good sign, it means they care about retention, and are trying to fix it. But if they *believe* asymmetric mentorship is going to work Some Day, if they fervently *wish* that the WMF would just supply more and more and More Funds, along with more and more and more bureaucratic strings... then they are not going to be on the same page as me, are not going to appreciate the not-a-cabal, and so on.

discussion of the not-goals of the not-a-cabal, and what that means in terms of who will *want* to join, versus who will only *believe* they want to join, and vice versa

Mainly, the reason is *because* the WMF has had since 2010 to implement their retention-plan. They've spent roughly a million bucks on VizEd. But retention is still steadily trending downwards. Your point about who-works-for-who comes into play: methinks it is the *explanation* for why they failed to fix the retention-trend. There are people that care about editor-retention... but what they mean is, *their* kind of editors. They want to keep their friends from leaving wikipedia, by changing wikipedia to be more in line with what their friends are after. So for instance, if they and all their friends believe that only WMF-confirmed identities, using their full legal name as their username, should be permitted to edit wikipedia... well then, to *those* folks editor-retention means getting rid of all the anons. Which to you and me in Just Wrong... but more important, in the pragmatic sense, is guaranteed to kill *net* retention, by driving away the majority of folks who don't want the WMF to have their fingerprints on file somewhere.   Anyhoo, I'm looking (well... non-looking) for a particular brand of wikipedian. First, they must care about wp:retention in the specific sense that they want to see a net increase of editors, reversing the 31k-and-falling trend into a new 32k-and-doubling-every-couple-years trend. The *only* way that will happen, is if we encourage and help retain beginners, like Pratham. Of course, just because it is the only feasible way, does not mean that everybody who wants to regularly double editor-count during the next five years will admit that such is the case! So I guess the second criteria is that they must be data-driven, or reality-driven, or whatever you want to call it: they must want to see a net increase, and they must be willing to do what it takes to make that happen, rather than just be willing to keep *wishing* it would happen using whatever their preconceived notion of a mechanism thereof might be.   Along the same lines, there are some mechanisms that must be ruled out, a priori. Because, the goal here is not simply doubling editor-count repeatedly by *any* mechanism; the goal is for the additional editors to be *Good* for wikipedia herself. This is a morality-question, in other words. The ends cannot justify the means, here. Wikipedia could easily have a hundred times as many editors, if we would just drop any one of the five pillars. Destroying pillar one would also dramatically boost the number of editors: wikipedia could become like a clunkier version of facebook, a repository of useless trivial crap, woo hoo. This scenario is equivalent to getting bought out by google. Alternatively, Wikipedia could easily start doubling editors, if we got rid of pillar two, and just let people write their own biographies, edit the articles about their employer, and so on. One sort of person that falls into this category believe that we should let PR firms 'donate' large sums of cash to wikipedia editors & admins & WMFers, to 'helpfully' keep wikipedia running smoothly. If we let people upload copyvio stuff, like PirateBay, that would boost our editor-count, right? But that's a bad strategy, because it will be bad for wikipedia herself, in the long run. It's equivalent to destroying pillar three, to improve retention; Not Good. The reverse scenario, where instead of violating copyright, wikipedia starts *enforcing* copyright (rather than copylefting and enforcing copyleft) is the equivalent to getting bought out by some syndication-publisher-hyperconglomerate. To my mind, people that want to lock wikipedia down, and only allow WMF-bureacracy-approved editors, and kick out anons, and kick out pseudoynms, and so on, are out to destroy pillar four -- they don't care about WP:NICE anymore, they don't care about WP:AGF, the don't care about this being the encyclopedia anyone can edit, they want it to be they encyclopedia anyone who *they* approve of can edit. This is equivalent to getting nationalized by the government, which enforces draconian political correctness on the surface... but only because the caste-system demands it. And just for completeness, there are plenty of folks around nowadays who believe that pillar five is obsolete, and than wikipedia's Supreme Laws Of The Land are the WP:PG, that anybody who won't memorize all five bazillion pages does not belong here, and that *everything* added henceforth must be MLA-cited. Sigh. This is equivalent to getting bought out by Microsoft, and encarta-izing the wikiverse. There is also the goal-slash-motto, of the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, containing the essential summation of human knowledge, recording the history of Progress, as it happens, neutrally and fairly. Good summary, in the main, so I'll put this here. Pillar Four is crucial. We have a set of problems. The WMF are clueless and chasing feel-good theories: their research on gender balance was laughable and they have politically powerful people including the outgoing director doing stuff to address this unproven but sexy imbalance that manages to alienate many editors of several sexes, and they are spinning loss of seasoned editors as inevitable and to be fixed by a laser-like focus on new! new! new! editors, whom they assume like everything to be different from how earlier editors like it ... none of this stands up to examination and all of it is alienating editors mighty fast, oh, and they think they want experts but how does that play with the above? Maybe they reckon they don't have any? Or maybe they reckon the only experts that count are those Jimbo invites personally? I dunno. But I think the WMF are more into getting new editors - they just don't care about the existing ones that much - rather, I think it's some of the editing community who are imposing the standard of "anyone we approve of". Partly this is the usual impatience with newbies starting up a learning curve; partly it's the even more regrettable but also natural impatience with those one defines as younger (the number of times I read the word "immature" on here - bah). Also we are a massive collaborative experiment, I believe unique - the Internet has taught some of us, at least, that there is a tremendous range in backgrounds, assumptions, and ways of thinking out there among our fellow typing humans, but this project really confronts one with it. (Silly example - the people who look down on those of us who can't code. Why on earth would anyone assume everyone can, or should? I can't strip down an engine either. Whoopdido.) I believe civility - in its basic meaning of respect in order to work together - is extremely important. But part of that is - we need every kind of editor. Not just your good eggs, but also the curate's eggs, if you're familiar with that old-fashioned joke: those who are "good in parts". We can't go sifting and sorting. That means we somehow have to get and keep working together the folks for whom there is a list of verboten dirty words the utterance of which makes a person forever a pariah and a project associated with him a den of iniquity, but snideness, sarcasm, and the use of verbal tactics learned in competitive forensic debate or by studying politicians are the way business is done, and the folks for whom a well chosen epithet is a point of pride in class, honesty, and intelligence; and the folks for whom everything is about competition and showing oneself to be better, and the folks for whom a job well done is a job well done and chest-beating is icky. Right now ArbCom and AN/I bloody the noses of great swathes of our editors, and no, "There are 4 million articles on the English Wikipedia, go edit another one" is not good advice. We need folks to respect diversity and work together, or we will have more and more of the encyclopedia written by entrenched cliques and of course we will hemorrhage new editors and long-term editors both. Bah. I hope even half of that was clear. We need the newbies and the long-termers, and the crotchety and the sweetness and light. That's what the project is. I don't believe many of my fellow admins have any idea how much entrenched bias has developed around here, but the last lot I want deciding anything about editor retention is the WMF. (If I were a politician I'd say our best shot at uniting the community is against the WMF, but sadly we have a lot of Stockholm syndromers and I am not a politician.) ... Anyhow, they're right about one thing - we have problems. And I agree with you that the answer is not to sell out (which, by the way, is not the top reason I don't want there to be an infobox on most articles, but it's one of them.) Yngvadottir (talk) 16:56, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Anyways, what this boils down to is that, #1) we must start doubling editor-counts, and therefore #2) we must focus on what works in practice, but #3) without jettisoning any of the pillars along the way. Because the WMF has proven incapable of implementing a centralized top-down solution that will reverse the trend, despite spending a ton of money *talking* about such things, we can add #4) the solution must be decentralized and bottom-up. And that is about it, I think. The way to improve friendlyism around here is to double and double and double and keep on doubling the number of active editors, until we are over a million people making 5+edits/month. There will be plenty of helping hands to go around... as long as we make *sure* that the growth is mostly composed of people that live by the five pillars! Tough balancing act. Along the same lines, the vandalism-burden and the spam-burden and the promotionalism-burden, and the corresponding risks, will all evaporate in the face of a vast increase in the number of Good Egg editors. Ditto for the AfC backlog, the NPP shorthandedness, and the dearth of RfA successes.

  Retention of 900k Good Egg editors is definitely a silver bullet, for the majority of problems in the wikiverse. Course, any dramatic change like that brings New&Improved problems... wikipedia will be under more pressure than ever to bureacratize, when we go from 30k up to 900k active editors! But if we succumb to that pressure, we'll see the trendline flatten and then start to fall again, with the folks staying around the ones who *enjoy* paperwork... bad! Whereas, if we keep the rules minimal, and editor-liberty maximal, the trendline will still gradually flatten... but will stay monotonically upward-bound. Besides, the problems of having Too Many Good Eggs are vastly preferable to the problem we are soon to face, which is Not Enough Good Eggs To Keep Wikipedia Alive Without Selling Out To SearchEngines/PR/Syndicates/Politicians/Hypercorps.

  p.s. I'm not worried about Flow, it will not even be a factor, methinks; almost all of the programming I'm planning on doing will have to be 'external' wiki-tools rather than 'official' parts of wikipedia, in the short-to-medium-run. If anything, Flow-stuff will *help* the not-a-cabal, by drawing away folks that don't belong in the not-a-cabal. As with the "reimagining mentorship" proposal my goal is to poach away their "best" people (by the not-a-cabal standards outlined above), once I can figure out which ones are matches. As with everything, it will take longer than I wish, but methinks there is a good chance that some portions of the not-a-cabal scheme will be up and running and live next month... whereas I expect that flow and reimagining and whatnot will still be trying to squabble over funds. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:40, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi

Hi 74. Nice designing of your talk page. Anyway, you should log in to Wikipedia and become an admin; you would be a really good admin. Best wishes, 50.12.24.16 (talk) 22:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Appreciate the kind words; insert shermanesque statement here, however. I replied over at your talkpage, feel free to respond either which way.  :-)   74.192.84.101 (talk) 01:48, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Add witty-yet-appropriate headline here, as mine went missing

Gladly, I did find an appropriate yet witty barnstar for you. Then a bear ate it. :(

Just wanted to leave you some random wiki-appreciation/wiki-love. Been seeing you a fair bit on some talkpages I stalk, even if I think we've yet to interact. Good job on not letting yourself be scared away by the anti-IP-bias, your willingness to ask questions that ought to be asked, your wise words, such as, but not limited to, those you left on Kudpung's talk page a few days ago and of course your somewhat unique but much appreciated brand of humor. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 06:44, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

trademark policy

Hey 74.192!

Just wanted to let you know I left a bit of a response on the cake question in the lovely translation thread. Thanks again for the smiles and I hope to see you on meta ;) Jalexander--WMF 20:33, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, 74.192.84.101. You have new messages at 50.12.24.16's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Tb

Hello, 74.192.84.101. You have new messages at King of Hearts's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Study

Do you happen to conduct, or are capable of conducting, studies? --Sp33dyphil ©^hat_ontributions 11:42, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

This seems vague. If you're asking whether I can do some test-pilot work, you know, study of flight characteristics, study of strafing-run accuracy patterns, that sort of thing, on the harrier you just purchased on the black market... the answer is definitely yes.  :-)   But presumably you mean some sort of editor-survey thing, or some sort of programmatically-parsing-wikipedia-metadata thing. I know something about the latter, and User:Liz knows something about the former methinks. What are you thinking of getting done, specifically? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 12:45, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

AN/I notification

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Consensus by exhaustion at Rupert Sheldrake.

The Arbitration Committee has permitted administrators to impose discretionary sanctions (information on which is at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions) on any editor who is active on pages broadly related to pseudoscience and fringe science. Discretionary sanctions can be used against an editor who repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, satisfy any standard of behavior, or follow any normal editorial process. If you inappropriately edit pages relating to this topic, you may be placed under sanctions, which can include blocks, a revert limitation, or an article ban. The Committee's full decision can be read at the "Final decision" section of the decision page.

Please familiarise yourself with the information page at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, with the appropriate sections of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures, and with the case decision page before making any further edits to the pages in question. This notice will be logged on the case decision, pursuant to the conditions of the Arbitration Committee's discretionary sanctions system.

This is a warning: Please note that your contributions are disruptive and if they continue on the Rupert Sheldrake page you will face blocking or banning. Please see Tumbleman and Philosophyfellow if you think this isn't serious.

Thanks for the warning, anonymous person. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:20, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Ah.[80] Good to know somebody cares, I guess. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 18:58, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Articles for creation (DUROMAC)

Hey, I made a draft version in Articles for creation, here is a link [81]. please check it. We can still edit and once we done everything, we can send it for review, right?

btw, I know the CEO of DUROMAC, actually, all references I founded is offered by him. So I think these two sources are most useful. hmmm, then what we are going to do the next step?

Hey, please check my articles for creation, I made the final version of DUROMAC. Please help me to check it and tell me what I still need to improve.... thankssssss--Clover1991 (talk) 00:42, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Hey, are you busy these days?? Haven't heard anything from you a while!--Clover1991 (talk) 01:09, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

hey, hello. I don't know why you didn't reply me for a while :(, but I submit my article to AFC already, waiting for review. If you still want to help me, please take a look at here[82].still, thanks a lot!--Clover1991 (talk) 01:50, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello Clover, I'm actually in the middle of a reply to you, in another browser tab, but have not clicked save yet.  :-)   It's the holidays here, and I've also been busy with work, plus there are some other articles that need help, and some other editors that need help.

  You should not be sad. I still like you. I still want to help you. In fact, part of the reason you are getting less help from me, is that you are on the right pathway already. You do not need as much help from me, because you are starting to figure out how to do it on your own.  :-)   That is good. But in general, you should expect that wikipedia will be a place where people will help you, and then disappear.

  There is a thing called WP:REQUIRED, which says everybody is here to pursue their own interests. That includes you! It includes me too, of course. Everybody else, as well. For instance, you asked for help over on AGK's page, but never got a reply from them. That is perfectly 100% totally fine. They are busy. They are helping wikipedia. They are, quite frankly, juggling chainsaws balanced on a tightrope. Wikipedia is lucky to have them. And besides, somebody else noticed your message, and helped you. So the system works out, in practice.

  But in general, my goal here is not to help you, every step of the way. My goal here is to point you in the right direction, and then let you choose how best to accomplish you goals, and how best to improve wikipedia. Does this make sense? You are always free to drop in and see if I have time to help, of course. You are also free to drop in and see how I am doing, or see if I need help with anything.

  As a matter of fact, I am trying to work with somebody right now who speaks Tamil, and if you would like to assist me with that, while we wait for your article to get through the AfC queue, that might be fun for you. But this is not WP:REQUIRED, it is totally up to you. I won't be offended if you are busy, or if you would rather do something else, or anything like that. It would be nice of you to say so, of course, just a quick 'sorry I am busy elsewhere' is more than enough... but even that is never required.

  Perhaps the key point is this. Wikipedia is for the ages: there is no WP:DEADLINE, partly because it is such a gigantic project (we don't want to rush the job and botch everything), and partly to keep stress levels low (we don't want people to burn out). Now, the downside here, is that obviously wikipedia sometimes seems slow, as slow as molasses in the coldest winter. You are not the only one who wishes things would happen quicker! There are a lot of projects where I get frustrated, because I want instant gratification, but I don't usually get it, because Wikipedia takes time. The good thing, is that wikipedia is well-suited to letting me work on something else, while I wait for the thing I wish was going faster.  :-)   So the bad news is, I have not made time for further work on Duromac yet, but the good news is, there is still plenty of time. Even better, you are starting to understand how things work around here, and soon, you will be an expert, so even if I never find time, Duromac will be a success, and wikipedia will be better for it.

  I'll try and pay Duromac a visit in the near future, if I can, but if I cannot, somebody else will appear to help -- perhaps David or Julie or Anne or one of the other AfC reviewers -- or perhaps Tim or Acro or someone who helped you in the past -- or perhaps an entirely new person. As always, thanks for improving wikipedia, and thanks especially for your friendly attitude, it is much appreciated. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 04:57, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

DUROMAC HAS BEEN DELETED AGAIN!

hey, I'd really want to help you with another article, but I am really sad right now, coz my article has been deleted again in AFC. they said the product section seems like advertising. I really have no idea what I need to improve. Maybe I delete the whole product section? Or you have better suggestion?? Please, help me. see the link here [83]--Clover1991 (talk) 01:51, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Don't panic!  :-)   Duromac is not deleted, the "decline" just means not yet because there is still work to be done. This is a learning process. Take heart, Clover. Declined with a constructive comment is good. We just fix the problem, and then resubmit. Sooner or later, we will get to the heart of the matter, I promise. There is an old saying, Rome wasn't built in a day.  :-)   Take a deep breath. Relax.

Now. What is the thing that they said? "Reads more like an advertisement than an entry in an encyclopedia." And they are correct, it is more like an advertisement, than a wikipedia entry yet. Too much of the article is not neutral, not sourced. In particular, TKK said to look at the list of products. Well... look at them. What do you see? No sources! No citations! Is that neutral? Does the product-line satisfy WP:NOTEWORTHY? Maybe not.

  So maybe we should minimize it, or just take the list out. But then... but then... how will the readers know about all the great things that Duromac does? That is an improper question. Wikipedia is not the place to talk about all the great things Duromac does -- the duromac.com homepage does that job, quite well. Wikipedia has to be just the facts, has to stay neutral.

  This is hard for you, to write in a neutral tone. Why? Easy! Because you are proud of Duromac. It is hard for *you* personally to write in a neutral tone. But wikipedia must be neutral -- that is pillar number two. So what to do? Well, you need to ask for help. Somebody else, to write up the article, and stay neutral. Somebody who finds it *easy* to stay neutral.

  Maybe I can help you, but I'm still busy at the moment, there is an ArbCom case and an ArbCom election right now. So why don't we ask Tikuko? I will put a message on their talkpage. Many of the AfC reviewers like Tikuko are busy, but they also like helping people, otherwise they would pick another job. If not them, we will find someone. Slow and steady, wins the race. Persistence. Grace. Steady as she goes. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 02:20, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Hey, I got your point. I also leave a message on TTK's page, hopefully he has time to help me. I also leave message on Wikipedia article of creation help desk. I hope some one can help me. I really appreciate you help me a lot! since I am a new here, I am really lost in Wikipedia. Thank you!!--Clover1991 (talk) 03:48, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I saw your message to TTK, it was good. My main message to *you* is, that you can probably learn to help yourself, if you can train yourself to write neutrally, just the facts, stick to the strongly to the sources. Over on the left, there is a community-portal link. In this case, you are looking for help with fixing up your AfC submission. You can post a question at WP:TEAHOUSE every couple of days, to see if folks have time to help you with specific questions. But probably the best thing you can do, is look at *successful* articles about companies, that were just approved from the AfC queue.

  Here is the list -- Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/recent -- you can see DigSin and Middlesex Water Company in the list. You can also click on the 'view history' link at the top, and look back to previous articles. That will give you a rough idea of what is acceptable, but more importantly, what you do not see there, is probably stuff that was usually unacceptable. Learn by example. Of course, there are many companies in wikipedia now, that might be useful to look at, such as Toronto_Works_and_Emergency_Services and maybe even Zoomlion, but these are actually *less* useful of a guide, because they may not have been as-recently checked over.

  I will drop in when I can spare a bit of time. You can reply to TTK's comment in the AfC queue, and you should explain there that because you know the CEO, you are having trouble with keeping a neutral tone. You can also list our other sources there, the ones we have not put into the article, so people trying to help you will have a quick way to get going. Thanks for improving wikipedia, keep striving, let me know if you get stuck. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 04:45, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, 74.192.84.101. You have new messages at Timtrent's talk page.
Message added 15:13, 28 November 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Well not exactly for you, but I thought you might like a new challenge! Fiddle Faddle 15:13, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

That is either very inviting, or very forboding.  :-)   Guess I better find out which. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 15:21, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Finally

I have an infobox on my user page, with one of your great ideas ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:42, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Okay, now that is hilarious.[84] I don't really mind so much when one person gets topic-banned, and at least theoretically I can see how infoboxen could be disruptive. People have strong feelings about how stuff *looks* here on wikipedia, which to me is pointless, what matters is whether it is *correct* info, and the laid-out-optimally-for-informing-readers stuff is always going to be subjective and fuzzy, because different readers find different kinds of layout optimal.

  The worrisome part is the "editing-by-telepathic-proxy ban" upon all *other* editors. If they visit some music-related article, and think to themselves, hey, there should be an infoboxen for this... BAN-HAMMER FALLS. (Which is totally nuts.) Anyhoo, apparently there is a problem with telepathy-like phenomena elsewhere, so I gotta go. Take it easy Gerda, and keep your infoboxen in their quiver. p.s. Since I may one day wish to add an infoboxen to some page, perhaps even my very own userpage, if it were editable, I will be shortly be deleting this evidence that we ever spoke.  :-)   Siggggghhhhhh. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:06, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

p.s. Just today I discovered that there were some similar editing-by-telepathic-proxy bans related to metrication, and rumor has it similar things happened with cold fusion, back in the day. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:10, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I like to be hilarious, and - as pointed out many times before - having written on Kafka (did you try the link in the box?) helped to take some absurdities. I entered a battleground and knew it, but does it make me a warrior? I never requested that all articles have an infobox, only that all would be more informative with one. I never added one where I thought it would not be wanted, sometimes I noticed that I was wrong. Did you see the Planyavsky case, with a diff making it to the support for a ban? I asked all arb candidates what they saw there. (Click on "vote" in the box.) Some didn't (dare to?) look. One said what you see if you don't look deeper. ALL the others got it right! There's hope for the next group. The case (shortened only a bit):

I add an infobox to "my" article.

It's reverted.

I improve it and return it.

It's reverted.

A friend restores it.

It's collapsed at the end of the article.

Andy uncollapses it and puts it in the normal position.

Who needs to be banned? Andy, of course. So said one arb in his vote to ban ("concerns me deeply"), and none of the colleagues questioned it. - Andy wrote a new article, and someone who dares to give a journalist an infobox is needed, - that's not proxy, that's improving Wikipedia, I started on the talk. - And to finish the case story: the uncollapsing ended the dispute. See also, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:02, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Arbitration Request Notification

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Persistent Bullying of Rupert Sheldrake Editors and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Requests for arbitration;
• Wikipedia:Arbitration guide.

Thanks, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Askahrc (talk • contribs) 19:59, 29 November 2013 (UTC)