User talk:Iridescent

An administrator "assuming good faith" with an editor with whom they have disagreed.

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Improving Etty

Hello! Thanks for your detailed response on @Johnbod:'s talkpage. The Wrestlers was almost certainly rephotographed with colour calibration in advance of the gallery reopening on 1/08/2015. I am trying to get access to this copy in advance of the normal release process (at which point it will appear on the collections page: The Wrestlers on the YMT Online Collection). There are also a number of William Edward Frost's paintings in the online collection that currently lack accessible images.

How useful might Etty's sketches and works on paper be? There's one on Commons already and one by William Holman Hunt of Etty sketching: Works on paper in the York Art Gallery. A collections search indicates that there are nearly 700 more that might be photographed but may have dubious quality. If particular examples would be really useful it might be fun to hunt them down.

It would be great if Etty or related articles could hit TFA around early August as the gallery reopens? Let me know if there's anything else I might help with? Cheers PatHadley (talk) 16:12, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

PatHadley, I can try to get William Etty up to FA status by August 1, but it would be cutting it fine. Because the existing article is so poor there's nothing to build on, it will need to be written from scratch which I'd estimate will take around a month, and the FAC process will take a minimum of two-three weeks and probably longer as the article will be quite long, so people are more likely to spot issues. That pushes an earliest-possible promotion date to late July, which is cutting it very fine.

Unfortunately none of the three articles completed so far (Sirens, Destroying Angel and Candaules) are in the YAG, so they're not ideal. I'll ask the TFA schedulers (pinging Brianboulton, Crisco 1492 and Dank) to avoid scheduling any of those for the next couple of months to allow us to run something at the start of August without prompting "you're featuring too much Etty" complaints. If all else fails, we can always run Sirens, which is such a striking image it will almost certainly get quite a lot of pageviews, and will hopefully drum up some interest in Etty even though the painting itself is on display in the Auld Enemy over the Pennines.

Benaiah

Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball

The Wrestlers

Venus and her Satellites

In the meantime I'll try to get one of the works currently in YORAG through FAC in time. It will probably be one of the four to the right, as of the Etty works in the YAG collection they're going to be the ones it will be easiest to get a decent-sized article out of; if you or any talk page watchers have a particular preference do let me know. If I can arm-twist a TFA delegate into running Venus and Her Satellites under its older name of The Toilet of Venus and crop the image for the main page slot down to just the central tableau of naked women, it will light up Reddit and Twitter and should get around 100,000–200,000 pageviews, but it will also generate a firestorm of complaints that will make this argument look small, since some people take great offence at any effort to inject any element of populism on to the main page, especially the hallowed TFA slot. Aside from that, The Wrestlers or Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball are probably the ones which will connect best with Wikipedia's audience; Benaiah looks a little dated to the modern eye, and British audiences are unlikely to get Biblical references without explanation. Unfortunately, while YORAG probably has the most significant collection of Etty's works, the collection is surprisingly short of paintings in the "Great women of history and literature who have accidentally mislaid their clothes" style for which he's known today, so whatever we go with is going to be slightly unrepresentative.

Speaking of Venus and her Satellites, if you get the chance can you see if YORAG can upload a copy of their version of Venus and her Satellites? The version currently on Commons is the one now on display in Ponce; the YORAG version is similar but has certain differences, particularly in the sky and the shading of the figures. (If need be I can copy it from their website—I can't imagine they'll object—but uploading images taken from UK gallery websites without asking permission has caused a degree of unpleasantness in the past.)

Regarding sketches, they'd probably be more useful for the articles on individual works. An example that immediately springs to mind is in Candaules, where I mention that the central figure was one he'd sketched many times before; an illustration of a sketch predating the painting in the same pose would make the point well. The Art & Controversy book has quite an extensive section on his sketches—I'll see if there's anything mentioned in there that would be particularly useful. What would be handy is more pictures of Etty; at the moment we only have Holman Hunt's sketch, the 1844 photo & Adamson's painting from it, and Etty's 1823 self portrait. (Etty also made a self-portrait from the 1844 photo, but it's inferior in quality to Adamson's so there's no point using it.) We don't have any pictures that I'm aware of showing him in the 1830s, which is the period in which he was most active.

Sirens

Andromeda

I am almost certain these are four images of the same woman

Another thing it would be nice to have would be some preliminary sketches, if there are any, for Sirens and Andromeda; I am virtually certain that these show the same model in four different poses, and think it's quite likely that Andromeda began life as a study for Sirens; preliminary sketches that show the Sirens' faces would prove that one way or the other. (What would be really nice would be to have a name for her—it never feels right just saying "the model" like they're interchangeable objects—but I suspect there may be no record of that. Treating life-class models as important people in their own right rather than as disposable props was a practice that only really began with the Pre-Raphaelites.) Despite the fact that there's been very little written about it, I'm determined at some point to create some kind of article on Andromeda; of all Etty's works it's the one that's looks most strikingly modern (probably because she's not shown in either an awkward Academy Life Class pose, or in a reference to a piece of literature which is no longer studied, and if you ignore the fact that she's chained up and wrapped in cellophane the model is much more natural-looking than most of Etty's women). – iridescent 17:54, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

I would be able to get a general article on Toilet of Venus as a subject up, we have a Commons category. Johnbod (talk) 19:39, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Just as long as you make it a minimum of 1500 characters of readable prose, so "Did you know …that Mary Richardson went for a slash in the Toilet of Venus" can go on the main page. – iridescent 21:36, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Nice one, though I'm not sure Americans have that idiom - perhaps just as well. Johnbod (talk) 15:37, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

"…that a elderly musician was pictured with eight naked women in the Toilet of Venus?" – iridescent 16:31, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Keep 'em coming! Is that Homer? If not blind he might easily get distracted - Etty stretches even my attenuated sense of decorum. On reflection, I'm amazed that no 5th-rate band or singer has called an album or track Toilet of Venus, & so it's still red. That's rare in iconography. Johnbod (talk) 16:58, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Ask and ye shall receive.

The wording of the first one should actually be "…that Mary Richardson popped into the Toilet of Venus for a slash before joining the British Union of Fascists", which is factually accurate and unifies the Main Page obsessions of Nazis, poor-quality puns and the gender gap.

As I think I've said previously, the more I see of Etty the more I'm coming to warm to him. He does seem to have sincerely believed that he was doing the world a service by painting as many norks as possible and illustrating the magnificence of God's creation, and never to have understood just why people found his habits of visiting morgues to dissect corpses and of asking people to take their clothes off for him to be odd. – iridescent 17:05, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, how come they haven't made the film yet? Johnbod (talk) 17:32, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Heh, if I can write an article which inspires an opera, maybe I can inspire a film as well. (If someone were filming a Wikipedia article, the one to watch would be Halkett boat which would be wonderful animated; Lieutenant Halkett and his umbrella-propelled inflatable coat sounds like something from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.) – iridescent 17:48, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

The Wrestlers

OK, I've written The Wrestlers to try to ensure we have something in the YORAG collection ready for the 1 August reopening; once the FAC for The Destroying Angel is either archived or promoted, I'll nominate it. If anyone has any suggestions/improvements to make, please do as given the glacial pace of WP:FAC this is going to be a tight deadline; pinging Victoriaearle, Ceoil, Eric Corbett (this one is of male subjects so shouldn't have any GG implications), Giano, Johnbod, Kafka Liz, ArchReader and anyone else who might have an interest in Victorian high-kitsch. It's a bit of a difficult subject, as it's so poorly documented it's impossible to be sure what the artist's intentions were so of necessity there's a "it might be social commentary on the struggle between black and white people in British society, or it might just be that the model happened to be black that day" element. Plus, Etty also painted a completely unrelated picture also called The Wrestlers (nothing at all out of order going on in that picture, you just have a dirty mind), so there's an issue as to which painting any reference to it pre-1947 is referring to. – iridescent 09:38, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

OK. Woah.... First of all, huge respect for firing off such a brilliant article so quickly! I'll be letting the curators know and hopefully we'll get a little feedback from them. I'll definitely be getting hold of the latest images of all YAG's Ettys for speedy upload. Meanwhile, you are more than welcome to download any image from YMT's online collection (image policy here), as you saw on the Hunt sketch, there's a Commons template for tagging these images. His sketches and preparatory works that are in the 'Works on paper' collection might take a little longer to dig out and get snapped (by Christmas hopefully?). I'll mention Sirens, Andromeda and Candaules in particular. Also, we've begun our first experiments with stitching photographs for super-high-resolution results (eg, Snyder's Game Stall). Is it worth doing this for particular Ettys to see details, paint texture or anything that else worthy of explication? All your hard work is massively appreciated so there's no need to bust a gut for 1 August!? Perhaps it'd be healthier to aim for TFA on the death anniversary on 13 November? Let me know if there's anything else I can do! PatHadley (talk) 09:28, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

PS - you'll see that I've replaced the YourPaintings version of Study of a black boy with a much higher-res version from the online collection. I know the quality is variable but just want to reiterate that there is a great deal on there (Search for 'Etty' throws up 1241 items) that you can download and transfer to Commons as needed. Cheers, PatHadley (talk) 16:02, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back. Regarding curators, it's probably worth reminding them that if they're not already familiar with Wikipedia's odd customs, it's probably best to raise concerns on the talkpage. In my experience, the leading experts in any given field generally find Wikipedia's reliable source culture quite jarring, since things they know are true are omitted from the article. The Destroying Angel is a good example; there's a figure in it which I'm almost certain is misidentified as a bacchante and is actually a nod to Liberty Leading the People, but because the only reliable source I can find that mentions it identifies her as a bacchante, that's what we call her.

The Ettys I can think of that would particularly benefit from scanning at super-size would be Sirens, (which would probably be a pig to photograph at very high quality, since it's too big and too fragile to fit on a flatbed) to be able to show the joins where the restoration took place, and the loads-of-small-figures ones like Cleopatra, Youth/Pleasure, Destroying Angel and The World Before the Flood where people might want to zoom in on individual characters—but none of the five are in the YORAG. Of works in YORAG which there's a realistic chance of writing a stand-alone article on, A Family of the Forest, Elizabeth Potts and Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball are probably the ones which would most benefit from an extreme-close-up treatment. (The problem is that, while York may have the largest collection of his works, the ones in the Tate and Walker have much more written about them, and consequently are easier from a Wikipedia point of view.)

It might be useful to have one of Etty's Elgin Marbles sketches as well (some of them are reproduced in the Art and Controversy catalogue so the scans have presumably been made, even though they don't appear on the website). There's no rush on any of this; the paintings important enough to warrant stand-alone articles are all either already on Commons, or easily available. (Picture quality is a nice luxury, but it isn't essential. If you watch people using Wikipedia in the real world, one of the first things you notice is how many people will crane in to look at images close-up because they don't realise clicking opens them in large size.)

I'm aware there was a better quality copy of Black Boy, but the YORAG website was down at the time and I figured the lack of quality didn't really matter given that it was just intended to illustrate a minor point about his having a history of painting non-white subjects. Since the alternatives were The Missionary Boy and Indian Girl, which IMO are among the most unpleasantly ugly works of the entire 19th century, I wanted this one if possible, and rushed it in to get the article up and running in as near-complete a state as possible.

If Wikipedia's going to run with a specific date, the reopening of the gallery is a much more pertinent date. His death anniversary isn't really of interest to anyone and presumably isn't going to see any kind of commemoration, whereas for the gallery reopening he'll presumably be covered in at least the local press. (Plus it's during the holidays, so might encourage some of York's flood of tourists to poke their heads in.) Date connections aren't really that important—he's not a figure like Shakespeare where his birthday genuinely is recognised. – iridescent 17:39, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I've also cleared out the worst of the nonsense from William Etty. It's still an atrociously bad article which is going to feel the benefit of the WP:TNT approach fairly soon, but at least it's not full of outright lies now. – iridescent 18:53, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

All looking excellent! I've just shown the curator the Wrestlers article and she was very impressed and thrilled to learn that Etty might make the front page for August 1st. She's given me the list (from memory) of which Etty's will be on display in the new gallery:

• Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball - Currently 7.5MB - Higher res on the way. Super hi-res possible but not soon.
• Monk Bar - Currently 4.2MB - Higher res on the way
• Portrait of Mlle Rachel - Currently 7.7MB - Higher res on the way
• Male Nude with Staff] - Currently not on Commons. High res on the way
• Mary, Lady Templeton, after Thomas Lawrence - Currently not on Commons. High res on the way

Not sure how those might fit into your plans. I'll do my best to see if we can get the Elgin sketches digitised! Cheers, PatHadley (talk) 16:01, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Break: Which paintings can realistically be worked up to full articles

Excellent news—there's always the risk with something like this that the curators will think the emphasis is wrong (or worse, the basic facts); or, that they'll be annoyed that Wikipedia is potentially eating into their own gift shop sales if they're planning to sell "about this picture" pamphlets.

There should certainly be something Etty-related run as TFA on or near 1 August, since even if The Wrestlers fails to gain FA status in time Sirens is ready and Destroying Angel should be barring unforeseen circumstances, so if need be one of them can run. (August 2 will almost certainly be taken by a football article to coincide with the Charity Shield, but to the best of my knowledge nothing else is lined up for August 1.)

I can do Preparing For a Fancy Dress Ball to a shortish full-length article (probably about the same length as Sirens), and Mlle Rachel and Male Nude with Staff to "short article but respectable enough that it won't look out of place standing alone" status. Monk Bar is probably a lost cause, since to the best of my knowledge there's never been anything substantive written on it (although I'm certain that enough has been written about the York city walls to write a stand-alone Monk Bar article which it could illustrate). It would probably be possible to squeeze out a stand-alone article on Mary, Lady Templeton, after Thomas Lawrence but I don't think there would be much point, since it's a slavish copy of the original which the young Etty painted as a training exercise, and it would make more sense to have a single Copies made by William Etty of works by other artists list/article.

From a Wikipedia viewpoint, the ones which could realistically be brought up to FA level at present (aside from the four already done) are:

• Benaiah (YORAG)
• The Bridge of Sighs (YORAG)
• Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret (Tate)
• The Combat (National Gallery of Scotland, engraving in YORAG)
• The Dawn of Love (Russell-Cotes)
• Male Nude With Arms Up-Stretched (YORAG)
• Musidora (Tate)
• Pandora Crowned (Leeds)
• Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball (YORAG)
• The Triumph of Cleopatra (Lady Lever)
• Venus and her Satellites (Two versions, one in Ponce and one in YORAG)
• The Warrior Arming (Manchester)
• The World Before the Flood (Southampton, with a much rougher version in YORAG)
• Youth/Pleasure (Tate)

and possibly also Prometheus (Lady Lever), Bathers Surprised by a Swan (Tate) and Venus and her Doves (Manchester).

The problem is that (per my comments above) the YORAG collection is somewhat unrepresentative, because of how the collection was assembled; the paintings for which he's best known (the big glossy history paintings filled with gratuitous nudity) were bought by industrialists and ultimately found their way into the Tate or the municipal galleries of the big mill towns; YORAG's collection is heavily skewed towards his early and late works, which haven't had the same level of coverage and thus aren't as easy to cover from a Wikipedia viewpoint.

Male Nude With Arms Up-Stretched

Elizabeth Potts

(For what it's worth, I think if YORAG is only going to pick five works from the collection to display, Male Nude with Staff and Mary, Lady Templeton are odd choices. Male Nude With Arms Up-Stretched and Elizabeth Potts are far more visually striking examples of a male nude oil sketch and a formal portrait of a bad-tempered-looking woman, respectively. I agree entirely with including Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball, which I think is arguably his greatest work despite its relative obscurity, can see the obvious local-interest reason for Monk Bar despite its insipidness, and can kind of understand Mlle Rachel as it's so radically different from his usual style. Any Etty exhibit without a single female nude or history painting does seem slightly odd to me, though, especially given that YORAG has Venus and her Satellites, the apotheosis of "gratuitous female nudity in an overblown mythological history painting", in its collection.) – iridescent 23:54, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I tend to agree, but the Venus takes up a lot of wall (the York version is bigger than Ponce, is that right?). Johnbod (talk) 00:39, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

The York version is 78.7 by 110.4 cm (31.0 by 43.5 in) – it's not exactly a miniature, but it's not a behemoth like Sirens or The Combat. The Ponce version is very slightly larger at 80.6 by 111 cm (31.7 by 43.7 in); the discrepancy is probably accounted for by the framing rather than any difference in the canvas itself. For comparison, Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball is over three times the size, at 173 by 150 cm (68 by 59 in). – iridescent 00:50, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough, though of course it's the width that is key when hanging. Johnbod (talk) 15:02, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

There's always the cop-out the V&A and Tate have both followed in recent years, of saying that hanging salon-style is "more authentic to the period" and cramming the paintings virtually floor-to-ceiling like bathroom tiles. While I do entirely get that having as many works as possible on display is A Good Thing since when you have a rotating display it means people are more likely to see what they came to see, it does sometimes feel like the museum equivalent of prostitute's cards in a phone box. – iridescent 00:52, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Well yes, although there's also the National Gallery's approach of hanging at their standard close peering, school party & wheelchair friendly height works which they know perfectly well were designed, and the perspective aligned, to be seen from 10, 15 or 20 feet below. And don't even get me started on exhibitions of historic sculpture at the Royal Academy. Johnbod (talk) 03:36, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

I would rationalise the NG's treatment of something like The Ambassadors as the painting equivalent of when a science museum intentionally exposes part of a mechanism so visitors can see how it works. There's always going to be a loss of authenticity in the settings, given that most of the things were painted on the understanding they'd be seen by dim flickering light. – iridescent 08:52, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball

PatHadley, Johnbod—in light of the above I've worked Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball up to what I consider FA standard. Do either of you (or anyone else watching this page) have any strong opinion as to whether Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball or The Wrestlers would be preferable, given that the timescale means there's likely only to be time to get one through FAC in time for the gallery opening? My preference is tilting towards Fancy Dress Ball if that one's going to be on display and Wrestlers won't be, but I can see arguments the other way as Wrestlers is a more visually striking image so might generate more page-views. I'll nominate one or the other very soon, so if anyone has and good reasons why one or the other should be chosen, speak now or forever hold your peace. (I've also nominated Fancy Dress Ball at Featured Picture Candidates despite my general distaste for FPC, as I feel it easily qualifies and now the painting is the subject of an article, the image has an obvious encyclopedic value.) – iridescent 11:29, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm also leaning towards Fancy Dress. One could argue that the important genre of female portraits is under-represented on WP, though so of course is inter-racial wrestling. There's always Black History Month, October in the UK, for the Wrestlers. Johnbod (talk) 13:21, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, at the moment the only female-only "portrait" (loosely) FAs are I think: Drowning Girl, Madonna in the Church, The Magdalen Reading, Portrait of a Lady (van der Weyden), Portrait of a Young Girl (Christus), Rokeby Venus, Statue of Liberty, Three Beauties of the Present Day. Shades of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls , & certainly a group that could do with a 19th-century addition. Johnbod (talk) 14:52, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Is that really all? We surely at least ought to have some Madonnas and Queen Elizabeths knocking about. I ought to be able to work Musidora and The Dawn of Love up as well, which I suppose technically qualify as female portraits, although I'm not sure they're exactly what the GGTF have in mind.

Fancy Dress Ball it is, I think; quite aside from the fact that I think it's both a more engaging painting and a more engaging article, it works better from the point of view of drumming up interest in York Art Gallery since it includes three other works currently in YORAG, even if they're not on display. (The more I see of Elizabeth Potts, the fonder I'm becoming of it. Her expression is right up there with the Mona Lisa as a tabula rasa—you can legitimately describe her as happy, sad, excited and bored.) Fancy Dress is probably more likely to create interest from people who'll go on to visit the gallery, too; Wrestlers would probably deter as many people as it attracts. – iridescent 23:55, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Fwiw, I really like Fancy Dress Ball and would go with that. I'll be sending the Annunciation (Memling) at some point, when I'm in FAC mood again, but as Johnbod says, it's a group that could use a 19th cent addition. Ping me on my page when you nom, and if I'm around I'll review it. I don't have FAC on watch, so haven't a clue what's going on there. Victoria (tk) 00:29, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Now live at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball/archive1. – iridescent 00:40, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

That's good. On female portrait FAs, I missed the artistically dreadful Streatham portrait (of Lady Jane Grey), bringing the total to 9. The scary thing is that 5 of those are mainly User:Ceoil (plus Victoria, myself, et al.), so without him ..... I haven't counted things like Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents, though of course one of those is just a female portrait. Ceoil & Victoria again. Johnbod (talk) 03:46, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

The Streatham portrait is at least no worse than the NG Lady Jane Grey. AV Club does a good series on "hate songs" (typical target Lennon's vapid "Imagine"); Paul Delaroche might roll in his grave if it ever becomes a series on paintings. Ceoil (talk) 04:13, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

If you'll forgive me coming over all Simon Cowell, the Delaroche wins on the important measures of whether people walking past stop to take a longer look, and whether people buy a poster in the gift shop. See also And When Did You Last See Your Father? (No article? Really?), Isabella and the Pot of Basil, The Lady of Shalott… (My personal "Imagine" would be "anything by Leonardo da Vinci". I am mystified by the pseudo-religious awe in which he's held—his paintings are without exception completely generic works of the Florentine tradition, but there seems to be an ongoing conspiracy to promote him as the greatest artist who ever lived. And Within Leonardo's own lifetime his fame was such that the King of France carried him away like a trophy and was claimed to have supported him in his old age and held him in his arms as he died. Interest in Leonardo has never diminished. The crowds still queue to see his most famous artworks, T-shirts bear his most famous drawing, and writers continue to marvel at his genius and speculate about his private life and, particularly, about what one so intelligent actually believed in. has a good claim to be the most ridiculously overblown paragraph on the whole of Wikipedia. This paragraph has somehow managed to survive for eight years) – iridescent 09:27, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure if its some weird oop north thing, but the Italian High Renaissance doesnt really work for me. The Lady of Shalott and that, well you can see why it appeals to passers by, nearly all of the paintings mentioned here have commonalities, tropes, that appeal to the sentimental. I'm not entirely immune, have a fondness for the Lady of Shalott, that I can rationalise, but am not proud of. Am much more tyrannical when it comes to music; Shellac? Lightweights. Ceoil (talk) 17:50, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

It can't just be sentimentality, or the walls of the world would be papered with Millaises (Millae?). There's something very specific to present-day England (you don't see it in Scotland or Ireland to anything near the same extent) that reacts to the combination of ginger subject and a primarily green or turquoise background; almost all the gift-shop favourites from Beata Beatrix to Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose to Chatterton to The Last of England to The Hireling Shepherd seem to have this in common. (I just did a quick dip sample of major English galleries' Wikipedia pages looking at their "highlights" section, and all but the Tate conform to this, and given that they have an entire room full of Rossetti and Waterhouse they're clearly in denial.) I'm sure there's a thesis in here somewhere—a cultural legacy of the whole Celtic Twilight fad of 100 years ago perhaps? – iridescent 19:36, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Cracking stuff! Not sure what I can add at the moment while you're forging ahead - I'm at the limits of my art history knowledge and the curators are so buried in set up that they can't spare a moment to go through this. Having said that, they have personally passed on their support, thanks and awe! I.e: "Amazing work!" - "Great to see Etty getting attention" - "I wish I had time to write that!". They all understand the benefits of Wikipedia/OpenGLAM work and there are no issues with them feeling threatened. The next step for me will be to get the latest hi-res images of Etty's paintings up on to Commons (hopefully this Thursday, poss next Tuesday). I'm also going to advocate getting the works on paper (particularly the Elgin Marbles sketches) digitised in the autumn. Anything else? PatHadley (talk) 11:08, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Musidora

Excellent news! We also have Musidora, Candaules, Fancy Dress Ball and The Wrestlers lined up waiting for their turn at WP:DYK, so there should be a steady stream of incoming traffic from the main page, particularly if Musidora runs with this rather eye-catching image. – iridescent 11:24, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Johnbod, RexxS—since he might conceivably listen to one of you, can you tell Mabbett to knock this nonsense off? There is nothing contentious about a lead image width of 300px/upright=1.35, which is the recommended size for a lead image specified by VAMOS. Given that this is an article on a topic in which he's never shown the slightest interest, and that in the past few days he's edited Stonnington City Centre, Royal Society of Chemistry, Technetium-99m, Bidford-on-Avon, River Tame, West Midlands, AirTrain JFK, Samuel Lines, Concorde aircraft histories, Holdout (real estate), LAMP (software bundle), Birmingham Museum Collection Centre, Entomological Magazine, Supermarine Spitfire, Diane Gromala and Amos Smith—all of which have images the same width or larger, and none of which he's raised any concern about—I can only assume that this is a deliberate attempt to disrupt FAC. Even Gerda Arendt, who generally supports POTW, is saying in the FAC that if anything, the images in this article ought to be larger. (If he genuinely thinks 300px is too large, I can only imagine his reaction when he notices Witches' Sabbath.) – iridescent 15:58, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

He certainly won't listen to me (we've been round this track many times) and I expect RexxS agrees with him. The MOS on images has been somewhat contradictory & widely ignored for years. This is really all linked with the drive for infoboxes that Wikidata can pick up from. Johnbod (talk) 16:03, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Sigh. Touch wood, he'll give up of his own accord, since I have absolutely no desire to ever set metaphorical foot in WP:ARCA again. – iridescent 16:10, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

On the contrary, John, I agree with you. My poor old eyes need bigger images if I'm to make out the detail without having to keep on messing about with zooming. Can I say what a delightful article it is - and if anything I'd be arguing for a slightly larger image size, although I accept that it starts to become impractical on many mobile phones once you get past a certain point. Hope that helps --RexxS (talk) 21:56, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

The World Before the Flood at WP-default size

Thank you (both for intervening, and for your kind words). I tend to agree that if anything, the images ought to be a lot larger for a lot of these visual arts articles. Particularly with someone like Etty, who painted a lot of large-canvas works like The World Before the Flood where at Wikipedia default size the individual figures look like grains of rice; even at the MOS-approved maximum of 300px it's virtually incomprehensible. I can say with absolute certainty, having seen it for myself often enough, that many (perhaps most) Wikipedia readers are completely unaware that clicking on images enlarges them, and when confronted with an image will either jack up the zoom setting on their browser or press their noses to the screen. On something like Witches' Sabbath (The Great He-Goat), forcing the image even to the 300px MOS-approved maximum, let alone the WP defaults, will make it look like a brown smudge. – iridescent 20:21, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but then you have something like Beaune Altarpiece, which we (I, Victoria and Sarah) never managed to resolve. Also, I agree generally with RexxS' cmts re images and succinct pic descriptors. The temptation towards eye candy in arts articles is huge, as is the tendancy towards long, long captions. I usually find myself cutting down a fair few during pre FAC waves of self awarness and restraint. Followed by long, dark, winter nights wondering if I sold out, for a FA trinklet and one single main page day, to the man. Ceoil (talk) 23:55, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes the long captions make sense—someone just skimming over the article rather than reading word-for-word should be able to read the caption to any picture and understand "what is this a picture of, and why is it here?". Very long captions are certainly not exclusive to VA articles, although on VA topics there's sometimes more of a need to explain to the reader the significance of what they're seeing. – iridescent 12:58, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Current state of play

PatHadley, barring unforeseen circumstances Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball will pass FAC by 1 August, so will be hopefully be TFA that day. The YORAG paintings included on it are Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball, Elizabeth Potts, Venus and her Satellites (albeit the Ponce and not the YORAG version) and Mlle Rachel. There will also be a steady stream of "Did you know" articles between now and then, starting tomorrow with Candaules and followed at roughly 4–5 day intervals by The Wrestlers, Fancy Dress Ball, Musidora, The World Before the Flood, Youth & Pleasure and The Combat. I'll try to get the bio up to at least a respectable level before 1 August, as at the moment it's really not fit for purpose. – iridescent 21:37, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Fantastic stuff. I know that on Wikipedia the work is supposed to be it's own reward but I would really like to celebrate your incredible work on these articles and speedy, friendly discussion of the issues. Just a random thought - how about a Periscope tour with a curator? You could ask the questions and the rest of the world could tag along? If you're UK-based we could look into a trip to visit? Cheers, Pat

(PS - Sorry that the new versions of the images are still delayed but I'll get them up as soon as I have them.) PatHadley (talk) 12:23, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I'd be reluctant to do anything that involves working closely with any institution, rather than at the present arms length. After the QRPedia/​Monmouthpedia/​Gibraltarpedia and Contribsx fiascos (fiascae?), the WMF will be taking a much dimmer view than they used to of anything with even the slightest hint of conflict of interest particularly when it looks like there's any potential involvement of Wikimedia UK (who it's fair to say are not at the top of Jimmy Wales's christmas card list right now). Presumably the last thing YORAG wants is to be the subject of multiple incoherent rants by the rabble of fruitcakes and loons who infest Jimmy Wales's talkpage, followed by their grand reopening being overshadowed by gloating "Wikipedia is corrupt and here's the proof" articles in the Guardian. (Possibly a statement of the obvious, but bear in mind that YORAG's very survival is dependent on the goodwill of a government in which Grant Shapps is an influential figure, so a public association with Wikipedia is possibly not something thet want to publicise.) I'm well aware that I'm still a hate figure among certain members of Wikipedia's lunatic fringe, who would welcome the chance to manufacture a conspiracy theory. (As those with long memories can attest, in the case of at least one member of said lunatic fringe the combination of "Thomas Gray" and "naked teenagers" on Youth and Pleasure is virtually guaranteed to be taken as a personal affront.) – iridescent 15:53, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Bio done

Wikipedia now has a shiny new William Etty article in place and ready in time for the local papers to plagiarise use as a basis for their own writing in their coverage of the YORAG reopening. Re-pinging User:PatHadley, Victoriaearle, Ceoil, Johnbod, Kafka Liz, Lingzhi; do your worst. I'm aware that it's nudging the WP:TOOBIG limit, but IMO this is a topic that really shouldn't be split into separate "Early life" and "Later life" articles a la Ricky Ponting or Samuel Johnson, since such a key element is being able to see how his work changed over time, and how his later works relate to early works. (It's not unconscionably long; assuming User:The ed17/Featured articles by wiki text is correct, if it were to pass FAC today it would be the 147th-longest, and those above it include considerably less weighty topics such as Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Adam Gilchrist, 2012–13 Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team and Ontario Highway 401.) Besides, the only natural break points are 1821 (which would only trim a tiny amount) and 1828 (which would mean a post-1828 article requiring such a long "story so far" section, it would effectively be a content fork).

It does intentionally break the all-hallowed WP:VAMOS in a few places, but I feel it's justified; with the monumental paintings like Sirens it really doesn't make sense to have images at default size (those sailors who look like tiny specks in the background are each around three feet high in the original), and the "bound captive" paintings I've intentionally placed looking out of the page as I think it suits the aesthetic better. – iridescent 19:15, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
Failed to ping earlier as the names were a cut-and-paste from my previous list, but Belle consider yourself pinged as well. – iridescent 23:16, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Great stuff! I'm travelling at the moment so it will take a few days. An impressive wall of Ettys at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, 11 I think (including Cleopatra as below), which will put York to shame. I'm of course too early to see theirs though I'm there now. Johnbod (talk) 06:29, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Amazing work! I understand your reservations from my previous offer but the relationship between WMUK, WMF, the community and this project has been overwhelmingly positive. If there's anything that we can do to celebrate your work, I'd be happy to find something you thought of as appropriate. Thanks again, PatHadley (talk) 09:11, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret

Johnbod I've always thought that if you take them on their own terms as a museum of late 19th-century tastes, rather than a museum of art per se, Lady Lever and its less self-promoting southern twin are two of the best small museums in the world. Even kitch vileness like His Turn Next and The Kelpie kind of work in context, and some things like Jeunesse Doree or The Chosen Five would be celebrated as major works if they were in the Tate rather than tucked away in the unhip half of Merseyside or the arse end of Dorset. (When it comes to Etty, Lady Lever bizarrely hung on to tat like Aurora and Zephyr and his rejected cartoon for Prince Albert's shed, but flogged off probably the most important of all his works in their collection, Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret, to the Tate who promptly shoved it in storage for five decades. And yet, they give pride of place to Cymon & Iphigenia which vies with Dignity & Impudence to be the most tackily unpleasant artwork of 19th century England*.)

*Specifically England. When it comes to "charmlessly tacky", 19th century Scotland and Ireland were in a league of their own.

PatHadley Many thanks for the thought, but as I say I don't think I'd be comfortable getting too close to any institution. WMUK does some excellent work but I don't think anyone would dispute that WMUK's attitudes are currently very out of sync with the hivemind in San Francisco who currently call the shots and have very little fondness for WMUK which they consider (with some justification) an extremely loose cannon. WMUK doesn't make the rules, Jimmy and Lila do, and the rules as they currently stand are these, which I'd technically be in breach of if the YORAG cafe gave me a free bun. Just watchlist User talk:Jimbo Wales and WP:COIN for a while and see how often some variation of "someone who corrected a typo on this article two years ago once sat next to the subject on a bus" is raised and meets with a chorus of "burn the witch" approval from the self-appointed Defenders of the Wiki. (Johnbod can no doubt recall just how well the British Museum giving out prizes a few years ago for expanding articles on their exhibits went down.) The people within Jimbo's approved circle can and do get away with COI editing, but I am decidedly not in that circle. – iridescent 20:53, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

(de-indent) I was looking around in JSTOR the other day and came across a snippet in the Bulletin of the American Art-Union advertising the 1849 retrospective. Apparently, "The Council of the Society of Arts [...] exhibit every year the collected works of some one artists, and apply the funds arising therefrom;—first, to giving the artist whose works are exhibited, a commission for a picture; and secondly, to the purchase of pictures already painted. The first of this series of Exhibitions was that of Mulready's works, last year. This year a collection has been made of Mr. Etty's. One hundred and thirty have been brought together, and are said to form a combination of great excellence." I hadn't read the new biography at the time, so I was surprised by the tone of the piece, which was far more respectful than I had expected for someone with Etty's reputation (as reflected in your articles for his various paintings, or at least those I had read). It all makes more sense now; in its detail and completeness, the new biography explains clearly and impassively the changing perceptions of Etty's work, and indeed places even the kitsch in its proper context. Beautiful work, Iridescent, about a remarkable artist. Waltham, The Duke of 23:39, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, many thanks. I will confess that I had much the same opinion of Etty when I started these (the conversation which sparked this series begins "Much as I dislike Etty and everything he stood for"). I think he's really suffered through the fact that the only paintings of his which most people have heard of are the garishly kitsch ones which aren't actually very representative of his output; plus, the Pre-Raphaelites who followed him had a vested interest in claiming to have invented a new genre and didn't want to acknowledge their debt to anyone later than Raphael. I think it's reasonable to make the claim that one can trace the style of virtually every subsequent English painter of whom anyone's heard, from Dante Gabriel Rossetti to David Hockney, directly back to him. (I'm also very pleased at how high the page-views spiked when Fancy Dress Ball was TFA; it shows, I hope, that the article engaged a significant proportion of its readers to the extent that they wanted to learn more about him.) – iridescent 18:56, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Heh

Nineteenth-century fusions of Venetian history painting and English proto-realism appears to beat Wikipedia's usual remit of sports, war, trains and astronomy with our readers. (Didn't Jimmy Wales ban Gibraltar Tourist Board fluffery from appearing on the main page? It looks to be sneaking back in.) ‑ iridescent 19:46, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Vonnegut

Hey Iridescent,

I'm not sure if you'll be into it, but do you think that you could review Kurt Vonnegut and leave your thoughts at the peer review. I'm trying to get as many eyes on it as possible, and hope that my coverage of him is the best possible. Sound good? I understand if you don't want to, for any reason. Thank you, --ceradon (talk • edits) 08:35, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll give it a go, although he's not someone I know much about. If you haven't already, you probably want Victoriaearle and Eric Corbett on board for this one; they shepherded Ernest Hemingway and Enid Blyton respectively through FAC, so will be more aware than me of the issues regarding writing a biography of an author of whom everyone has a vague idea they're familiar with but nobody actually knows that much about. – iridescent 08:52, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Hehe. I already asked Eric Corbett for a copyedit and a comment. Didn't get a response; I guess he's not interested. I would like for the article to be the best it can possibly be though, so as many eyes as possible. Cheers, --ceradon (talk • edits) 08:59, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Other than a few minor edits and driveby talkpage replies he doesn't seem to have edited for the last few days—he's probably just on holiday. If he doesn't want to talk to someone he's generally not shy about letting them know. – iridescent 09:04, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't have the time or motivation I once did to contribute here, but I'll take a look at Vonnegut in due course. Not this week though. Eric Corbett 16:36, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Eric Corbett, thank you. :) --ceradon (talk • edits) 17:39, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

• Hey Iridescent. We're about ready to go to FAC. Any further concerns? Thank you, --ceradon (talk • edits) 12:37, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

• Nothing obvious I can see, with the disclaimer that I don't know much about him so am assuming accuracy throughout. ‑ iridescent 14:14, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Kurt Vonnegut FAC

Hello. We've gone to FAC with the Kurt Vonnegut article. Just a heads up. Cheers, --ceradon (talk • edits) 14:35, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Will pop by when I get the chance—busy at the moment and unlikely to have time to review for a bit but I assume it will be there for a while. ‑ iridescent 15:45, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Lambeth is no more

Maybe referring to Elizabeth Hankes? Several lines of odd stuff supposedly written on an envelope by Etty, I suppose between 1828 and 1830, in Round Table, Volume 3, H. E. and C. H. Sweeter, 1866 - New York (N.Y.) p. 316. • Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 08:01, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

WP:BLP prevents my giving my full opinion on Robinson's methodology, but I find that initial section where he traces Etty's family tree highly dubious, which is why I disregarded it altogether when writing the article; the sole source for Elizabeth Hankes of Lambeth even existing appears to be "according to William's great-great-great nephew". It seems unlikely anyone would refer to a family member, let alone a female family member, as "Lambeth"; the only people who are referred to by placenames are peers and bishops. Unless one is specifically talking about a district of local government, "Lambeth" is almost invariably going to be shorthand for the Archbishop of Canterbury; if it was indeed written in 1828, it will be a reference to Charles Manners-Sutton who died in office in July 1828. ‑ iridescent 16:43, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The lambeth bit comes from a scribbled bit of self-talk pseudopoetry that might or might not be interesting enough to be worthy of inclusion in Etty's article. It mentions his sister, mother, specific paintings sold, prize won (I assume the 100 pounds) and so on. • Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:35, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

OK, looking at the original this just looks like verbal doodling (I wouldn't even consider it poetry, just scribbled notes), and I don't see what use could be made of it. For the benefit of anyone else watching this, the "poem" in question is:

God is God

Turkish proverb

Now that I am elected a Royal Academician

That I have sold my picture to the Marquis of Stafford

That I have sold my sketch of Pandora

That my mother is restored to me

That my Betsy remains

That Lambeth is no more

That the Chambers are comfortably let and [illegible] done with

And that my 'Venus' is sold, the 'Evening Star' and York in view

And 'Herculaneum' hung and Models done with

Can I forget? No! No!! No!!!

It will almost certainly be from summer 1828, as that's when Venus the Evening Star was sold, which means "Lambeth is no more" as a reference to the death of Manners-Sutton make sense, as he died in July.

If we're going to go down the "original research into Etty's writings" route (which would be more suited for Wikiversity than here) there's a lot of considerably more promising material in the YORAG archives, given that we still have the man's notebooks and correspondence. (I do use occasional quotes from him in the bio to give an illustration of how his mind worked, but have tried to do so very sparingly. Farr includes what he considered the most relevant of his letters as an appendix.) It's hard to convey just how huge YORAG's Etty archive is; it has over 1200 catalogue entries, many of which are notebooks or sketchbooks containing multiple items. There's no way one could ever distil the whole thing into a full-length book, let alone a Wikipedia article—trying to corral all his jottings into a coherent narrative would be a matter for a doctoral thesis, not a dilettante Wikipedia editor. ‑ iridescent 10:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• Ok, sounds right. Good luck with your FAC • Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 10:23, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

To be clear, the "dilettante editor" is me, before the Civility Police pop up to accuse me of belittling other editors. ‑ iridescent 13:36, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

That may be true. However, if you count every fourth letter in your contribution to this thread, and adjust for the Coriolis effect, it's painfully plain that your message reads "Death to Jimmy Wales! All hail President Trump!" I personally think we should just skip the whole admin/ani/arbcom stuff and permaban you now. • Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:52, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
	Thank you for your fine help at Trinity Chain Pier. It is really appreciated and has eased my work in improving the article. John (talk) 21:23, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, but I can't really take any credit—it was purely through idly flipping through Google hits that I noticed it had a different name in early sources. It occurs to me that the National Maritime Museum might have something on it as well—from the existence of Wikipedia:GLAM/National Maritime Museum I assume we did at least at one point have a contact there. (There's apparently a Scottish Maritime Museum as well who might have something as well, although since it only opened in 1982 I wouldn't hold out much hope that their collections go back that far.) It might be worth looking through the Scottish collection of the National Gallery of Scotland as well (I assume it's all online) to see if there are any paintings of the thing which are in the public domain. ‑ iridescent 21:33, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I would probably have figured the name thing out myself in time but you saved me a lot of head-scratching. All the other suggestions are appreciated too. Thanks. --John (talk) 21:37, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if it's sourceable, but dropping the location into Google Maps, there's a straight road (bizarrely, named "Trinity Crescent"), which runs directly from the disused Trinity railway station to the base of the pier, so it looks like even though the pier's importance was supposedly over by the time the railway was built, it was considered important enough to affect the placement of the roads. It may be worth looking to see if there is any discussion of links between the pier and the station in any of the books. ‑ iridescent 21:53, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

One of the sources talks about that. The building of the pier was contemporary with the building of Trinity Crescent, and the street was never completed with buildings. The railway (and it was Edinburgh's second) certainly traded on the popularity of the pier as a swimming destination, as mentioned by my railway sources. There was a steep stairway according to one of the sources, I think. I suppose it's a question of just how much detail one adds from the sources. Having decent sources really helps, and I heartily appreciate your help there. --John (talk) 22:04, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret

Gatoclass (talk) 08:41, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Invitation to WikiProject TAFI

Hello, Iridescent. You're invited to join WikiProject Today's articles for improvement, a project dedicated to significantly improving articles with collaborative editing in a week's time. Feel free to nominate an article for improvement at the project's Article nomination board. If interested in joining, please add your name to the list of members. Thanks for your consideration. North America1000 08:13, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I won't, but I wish you the best of luck. I find it's easier to work on something when there isn't someone else working on it at the same time, as otherwise you tend to get a mass of edit conflicts and duplicated research. (I know it's heresy against the Wikipedia credo, but aside from a few top-level articles, collaboration on Wikipedia doesn't tend to work very well—in my experience, if more than a couple of people are working on something it tends to function much better on a "you leave me alone with it for a week, then I'll leave it with you for a week" basis. Despite the WMFs protestations to the contrary, Mediawiki is an awful piece of software when it comes to how it handles multiple people working on the same piece of text.) ‑ iridescent 17:41, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree, unless it's someone you know well and can trust. As for the Mediawiki software .... Eric Corbett 17:46, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi Iridescent & Eric Corbett: Thanks for your opinion/insight. For what it's worth, check out some of the project's accomplishments, for examples of the good the project is capable of. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 23:50, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not belittling the project, but I don't feel its model is very good once you get to FA level (if I'm reading this page correctly, TAFI has only ever achieved one FA and two GAs (and one of those GAs was promoted following a rather dubious-looking review by Awadewit). To misquote Kelly Martin, open editing may be a good way to start an article but it is not a good way to finish one; the mass-collaboration model is good for getting things from bad to adequate, but a collaboration of more than three people doesn't really work at the higher levels. Quite aside from all the technical issues (edit conflicts, MOS compliance, citation styles, avoiding repetition, image placement…), when you're inviting a lot of people who don't have specialist knowledge or access to sources to pile into an article, you're effectively adding an open invitation for people to write articles based on the results of Google searches, and "people who don't know the subject well enough to weigh sources, trying to add to articles based on whatever they've found on Google" is a recipe for disaster. (Unless the topic is something like a videogame or recent movie, where the most important sources will genuinely be online, "more than a third of the references are to things which can be found on Google" is a pretty sure-fire indicator that an article will have serious systemic problems. The nature of Google Books, which is largely built from American collections, means the results of a Google Books search automatically come with an inbuilt serious systemic bias, which people who aren't intimately familiar with the topic generally find very hard to counterbalance.) ‑ iridescent 19:28, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I've not infrequently had objections from editors complaining that sources weren't available online. Have they never heard of libraries? And as for the saintly Awadewit, least said soonest mended. Eric Corbett 20:04, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

My thinking was that the TAFI works best trying to improve broad untechnical articles that are in a poor state with little inline referencing. There are still quite alot of these around the place, so I think there is a place for it as long as the right articles are selected. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:15, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

@Eric, you may recall that back before the dawn of time, it was myself who sarcastically defined "unreliable source" as Any source that would require more than 30 seconds of effort to verify, and if anything the rise of Google has just made that mentality worse, coupled with a tendency of some editors to unquestioningly accept whatever Google throws up as holy writ. (I won't embarrass by naming names, but I've caught at least one significant editor citing articles to novels without realising that they're works of fiction.) I believe my opinions of the sainted Awadewit were, and are, fairly well known.

@Cas, I agree entirely that there's a place for TAFI in getting things which are currently unacceptably bad up to the level of adequate—some of Wikipedia's core-topic articles are atrocious. (This is a website that purports to be an encyclopedia, yet Prose is a mighty 355 words long.) For getting things beyond "barely adequate", I think it's far from the most efficient process. (Divvy up the participants into groups of two or three, and assign one article to each group to focus on exclusively, if you really want to win the Wikipedia MMORPG.) ‑ iridescent 20:26, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Yet another competition without a prize! Yeah, great! Eric Corbett 20:43, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

The whole of Wikipedia is a competition without a prize, unless you count "increased number of abusive emails from people you've never met" as some kind of prize. I don't like the assorted contests and think they tend to focus people's energies into areas where it's not best used, but (with the exception of WikiCup, which is actively disruptive and should have been shut down years ago) I don't see any great harm, and they might do some good. ‑ iridescent 21:33, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I've never considered the TAFI project as competitive. Rather, it is collaborative, the opposite. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 01:40, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Funny

AWB said this? Better fix the dictionary. LeadSongDog come howl! 00:22, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

AWB doesn't run off dictionaries but off regexes—when a single word contains two different errors, it can confuse it. In this case, it was (correctly) fixing the missing s in "succesful", but failed to fix the double-l. ‑ iridescent 09:21, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

"Purpose" of ANIthing

"what the purpose of this board [ANI] is. It's not the Editor Conduct Complaints Department, it's the place one comes to report incidents which potentially require administrative action. ‑ iridescent 17:14, 5 September 2015 (UTC)"

Are you sure? (ANI might be described or defined like that, but is that how it is used? I have seen even administrators discuss how they can execute site bans on editors over generalized behavior, at ANI. [Even Dennis Brown thinks that.])

In addition I've seen many times at ANI threads closed with comment that the thread was a content dispute, so not suitable for ANI. (Okay. Then once when I observed a clear content dispute, and interjected into the discussion that it wasn't a candidate for ANI, I was disagreed with and "educated" by more than one editor that ANI can be about content issues too.)

My conclusion has therefore been, that ANI has no rules, and is capable of nearly anything. And to make argument that ANI not fulfill purposes it is not defined to do, carry no credence re the actual activities on that board (except as mentioned for immediate justification for an editor to do something they want to do, like close a thread based on "content-related", but also violating that "rule" when editors want to ignore it).

I believe my view is pragmatic since formed by observations of the actual realities at that board. Making a disconnect between any defined description, thus a kind of anarchy there. Which many editors have commented on, not just me. (Do you disagree?) IHTS (talk) 22:18, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

And in a larger sense too, I doubt there are "rules" that govern anything anywhere on the WP. (E.g. a request for ARB clarification turned into a site-ban effort on Eric Corbett. Casliber once told Eric that a threatened iBAN would not be applicable to him, since Eric never stalked the editor in question. But when I informed Casliber that I had iBAN applied to *me* when I never stalked anyone ever, he had no response.) IHTS (talk) 06:38, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

And here's another interesting (at least I think so) thought: Dennis Brown once said that actions inconsistent with current WP policy can absolutely be OK, because policy is an after-the-fact recognition of "current practice" on the WP. Bishonen agreed with that position. (To me that's scary. How the hell is a newbie, who does her/his best to educate themselves reading WP policies, supposed to know what "current practice" is? And what quantifier/qualifier determines "current practice" anyway? It seems [to me] that could mean any blue smoke someone [an administrator] wants to blow out a body orifice at any given time, to justify an action/sanction they want to take/impose.) IHTS (talk) 06:49, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

As it says at the top of the bloody page, This page is for reporting and discussing incidents on the English Wikipedia that require the intervention of administrators and experienced editors. Part of the reason it has such a toxic reputation is that so many people try to use it as an unholy combination of a drumhead court and an on-wiki version of Wikipedia Review and then throw temper tantrums when they aren't allowed to do so, but that doesn't mean they should be encouraged to do so. I've no idea how and why Dennis Brown comes into this, and whether you're holding him up as some kind of paragon of admin virtue or as an example of a bad admin at his worst; given that I'm not sure I've ever interacted with him in any way, he's probably not the best person to ask me to take as an example either way.

Of course, ANI can be about content issues, when the content issue constitutes an incident that potentially requires admin intervention. It's not and never has been the pro version of Jimbo's talkpage where random groups of people have a god-given right to whine about how much they dislike each other.

Wikipedia's rules certainly exist, and if anything are enforced far more consistently now than they were back in my day. (This is probably in no small part a legacy of Newyorkbrad; what's often overlooked is that when I coined the term "Bradspeak" it was as a compliment to his ability to word things without ambiguity.) That Casliber disagreed with other people on one occasion over how those rules were interpreted in two specific cases doesn't mean anything other than "sometimes people disagree"; this is why Arbcom is a committee, not a dictatorship.

I would suggest that my talk page is not the appropriate place to hold a discussion over what the remit of ANI is in theory and practice and whether either or both should be changed; for that Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard is the place to go. Before you go advocating changes, I would point out that for all its many faults, the WP:AN—WP:ANI—WP:AN3—WP:RFC setup has actually proved remarkably stable over the past decade, and none of those arguing for it to be changed have ever come up with an alternative which doesn't involve as much or more bureaucracy. ‑ iridescent 19:31, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, the abolition of RfC/U a year or so ago was a big change (I haven't yet seen anyone post-morteming whether a good change or a bad one). Personally I find the concept of ANI generally reasonable and the atmosphere there often toxic, but I don't have a suggestion about how to replace or improve it, and it's not for lack of thinking about the issue.

I don't really think the increasing number of rules on Wikipedia is attributable much, if at all, to me. We need some well-defined rules and then we need sensible editors and admins applying them; we generally don't need more rules for the sake of having more rules, except where a specific need or gap is identified. The arbitration procedures, for example, are a place where every incremental change was generally sensible but the overall complexity of the rule-set is sometimes just too much, and I expect that experience has been replicated in lots of other places. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:41, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Reread what I said - I don't hold you responsible for the proliferation of rules, but for the fact that existing rules are now generally enforced without fear or favor. It's not that long since the days when it was possible to predict the outcome of arb cases just by running down the list of active arbs and calculating which of the parties they disliked the most. ‑ iridescent 05:18, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Some early arb-pages have some truly embarrassing segments. Sigh..onward and upward :P Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:20, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

@Ihardlythinkso: yeah...I often disagree with people and events here often leave me at a loss for words too....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:21, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

@Iridescent: Thank you. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:42, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

DYK for The Dawn of Love (painting)

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Not guilty

It wasn't me with the book, I would not ask Jimbo and the other anti-content people on the board for anything. Best,--Wehwalt (talk) 11:12, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I know it was one of the FAC regulars—not sure who it was if it wasn't you (I know they gave Cas a load of Amazon vouchers to use as competition prizes at some point as well.) It's clear that both WMF and WMUK give out book-buying grants, but if there's a public record of who they've actually given them to, they're certainly keeping it well hidden. ‑ iridescent 11:24, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Unlike the T-shirts!--Wehwalt (talk) 11:45, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I was never sure whether to feel pride or annoyance that I never got one of those T-shirts. (Not that I can think of much I'd be less likely to wear than a Wikipedia T-shirt, but that's missing the point.) ‑ iridescent 11:54, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I did get one, though it took multiple people nominating me. Can't remember what happened to it. Probably fell crumpled in the bottom corner of the closet. I don't think I ever wore it other than as a workout shirt, often inside out. People aren't impressed.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:12, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't know what this is all about, but WMUK have several times given Amazon vouchers as prizes for Cas's Wikipedia:The Core Contest, which are all recorded on those pages. WMUK have also paid for a few books (total >£200?) for editing. There are lists somewhere on their site. Strictly they are WMUK property, and the full WMUK library is set out here, but many/most of these are donations, mainly by institutions, that cost WMUK nothing - all but one of those I hold for example. I don't think the WMF Individual Engagement Grants will cover many books. Johnbod (talk) 15:17, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

It's a discussion at WT:ADMIN, more proposals seeking The Fall of the House of Admin. It would be nice to have a fund that could pay for books with little paperwork, possibly run openly on wiki (let's say, $500 a month to start. That is, total for everyone). I'm fortunate to be the Wikipedia affiliate of my local university, which includes library privileges, but I still grumble about the traffic between here and there, and the parking. But there's always books where WorldCat says the nearest is 1,706 miles away ...--Wehwalt (talk) 15:40, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

It's been done, although the experience would be more streamlined in the US. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:15, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

It would have to be streamlined; you can't wait weeks on a book you need.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:36, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

WMUK require no "paperwork" at all, you just put up a case online, but only cover UK residents, & you'd need a wiki track record. Johnbod (talk) 16:42, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I shall report to Calais and see about the residency. As for the track record, I've heard they have some there.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:34, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I do like the "open fund" idea, although given the way things usually go on Wikipedia, I suspect if the discussions were held on-wiki it would quickly turn into a shouting match between supporters and opponents of the various editors tendering for the funds, and also create an unhealthy pressure on the recipients of the books to come up with the goods—sometimes, one starts to write something and soon after realises either that there's not enough to make a full-fledged and balanced article out of it (particularly if the book in question is the only significant work on the topic, but turns out to be heavily biased), or that the end product isn't going to justify the effort it will take.

One day, someone will explain to me just why "conflict of interest" and "paid editing" are such terrible things. Many years ago during the MyWikiBiz wars I asked why User:NumberOneBritneySpearsFan making a series of gushingly one-sided edits to Britney Spears is "community engagement" but User:Dave from RCA Records Press Department making strictly factual and non-contentious edits regarding sales figures or release dates on the same article is a heinous offense that justifies immediate banning. I've yet to see a convincing reply. ‑ iridescent 23:15, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I think it has to do with the millennials being taught that profit is a bad thing. Very strange. The whole thing has inspired me to go on and improve an article on a fake disease, which I've just left at PR. That will show them. Now to find someone to pay me for it...--Wehwalt (talk) 03:02, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Blaming millenials... heh. I don't claim to speak for everyone who's concerned with paid editing/COI, but my perspective is informed by my experience as both a contributor to and a user of the peer-reviewed scholarly literature in my field. Right now, Wikipedia is where the biomedical literature was 10 or 20 years ago in terms of having our collective heads in the sand about COI issues. (At this point, one could generate a Wikipedia-specific version of COI bingo).

Unpaid tendentious editing is a problem and paid/COI editing is a problem - I don't think they're mutually exclusive concerns. At least there's general agreement that tendentious editing is problematic—making it marginally easier to deal with. In contrast, there's a lot of resistance and contrarianism when it comes to acknowledging the threat that paid/COI editing poses. Every serious reference or scholarly work has had to deal with the issue of COI, and we're uniquely vulnerable because of the pseudonymous open-editing model—but we're not willing to think seriously about it. The first step in dealing with a problem is admitting that it exists, and right now we're stuck on step zero. MastCell ^Talk 04:42, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I think my ultimate objection is that it is being used to try to cut off all possibilities of making money by editing, or to make them so unattractive that they will not bear any fruit worth the eating. Should there be possibilities of compensation for creating significant quality content for one of the most-visited websites in the world? Can it be done in a way that will satisfy an uninvolved outside person's ethical scruples? I think it can. Would I take money say as a stipend and for expenses towards editing articles in a certain field? Possibly, but I doubt I'd go down that way until it was a well-worn path, with the rules and expectations clear. Money may be a bad idea for reasons having nothing to do with the POV issue being discussed ad nauseum, but I'm really discussing the general principle. As for the corporate COI bit, I suspect we are not heavily relied on for our corporate information, as there are better places people can go to find out more relevant details about a company. Like if they're open on Saturday, or if their service is good. I don't think it diminishes people's confidence in the articles on history, or video games, or battleships. Call it denial if you want.--Wehwalt (talk) 05:32, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the above from Wehwalt, with the one exception of medical articles which is a place a paid bad actor could actually do some damage. It's been quite well documented that, many people take Wikipedia's medical coverage far more seriously than it deserves; inserting "xxxx is known to cure yyyy" and getting it to stay on the page would potentially have enough impact to distort the market in the US. (Specifically the US; it wouldn't have anywhere near the same impact in countries where medical purchasing decisions go via NICE or equivalent rather than the patient.) It would be an interesting, albeit grossly unethical, experiment to insert misinformation into a medical article along the lines of "the use of Vosene shampoo has been demonstrated to prevent hay fever" and see if it actually had an effect on sales.

@Mastcell, I have a feeling your view is slightly distorted by working in one of the few fields where COI does have the potential to have an impact—for most of Wikipedia, the motivation for something being written isn't really an issue except when third parties choose to make it so. For the vast majority of Wikipedia, the primary motivation for inserting distortions in articles is "I like it" or "I dislike it", and that has a far more corrosive effect.

To take a completely non-random example, when the British Museum was offering payments to anyone who took an article on one of their exhibits to FA, it would clearly breach either of the proposed new rules (admins are not allowed to accept payment for any services on Wikipedia. Do not believe those who claim to be admins and ask for money. or No administrator may accept payment to edit articles or to perform any administrative function on Wikipedia.) but I fail to see any actual problem caused by it—yes, it possibly caused some editors who would ordinarily have worked on something else to choose to work on BM material instead, and thus caused a notional detriment to those other subjects, but you'd be hard-pressed to demonstrate it. I'm not sure the "no payments" hardliners really understand just how much Wikipedia relies on paid editing, and just how difficult it is to separate paid editing from paid advocacy—Sue Gardner did try at one point, but was overtaken by events.

(My Cassandra/Jeremiah combo a few threads up looks less paranoid in the wake of this latest crusade, doesn't it? If anyone wants a vision of what Wikipedia 2016 would look and feel like were this proposal to be accepted, just imagine a world in which any talkpage disagreement which happened to involve an admin triggered a process that looked like Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tree shaping and lasted just as long.) ‑ iridescent 11:14, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd be willing to grant special status for medical articles, or even the need for special scrutiny. However, the practical effect of tagging pursuant to the terms of use amendments is not special scrutiny, but a scarlet letter. Since FAC is a consensus process, I can't afford to bring in articles that will attract hostility for reasons having nothing to do with their content. But when I see the sums of money being thrown around, and being accepted by some ... well, all I can say is that Avery Brundage was not a hypocrite on amateurism because he wouldn't even take his expense. There are some who make large sums by trading off their connection with Wikipedia, and oddly they are among those most active in seeking to cut off opportunities of members of the community. Well not some, a few. Well, not a few, one.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:40, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I guess as a doctor I see Mastcell's and Doc James POV...some of the stuff I see is terrible. However, I am also aligned with Wehwalt's and iri's POV. I spent alot of my youth being shit-broke and it enrages me when we can sti and watch lots of famous people and business leaders get huge bonuses and then begrudge a few pennies to others...part of the new monetocracy where the rich and famous get to shit on the poor more overtly than at any time since the early 20th century. I do think we need some structure but not sure of best wording as yet. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:43, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Is the terrible stuff you see in the medical articles really the result of paid editing, though? It's not an area in which I've spent a lot of time, but in my experience the main problems in medical articles are that "eating raw coffee beans cures cancer" Daily Mail-type folk remedies find their way into articles as fact, and that there's a pervasive Teach the Controversy mentality among a clique of very vocal editors which means new-age woo gets given equal billing with experimentally proven treatments and those who try to remove it get ganged up on.

Per a comment I made somewhere else once, an intelligent paid editor from a drug company wanting to slant a medical article could work entirely within NPOV; expand the MiracleDrug article until it's so big it needs to be split, create separate Benefits of MiracleDrug and Drawbacks of MiracleDrug articles with equal weight and prominence; then, get the former up to GA followed by FA, giving it two slots on the mainpage while encouraging other people to link to it. (FAs always have more incoming links than non-FAs on equivalent topics, just because more people know they exist to link to.) At no point in this process has the editor breached any policy, and likewise at no point has admin status been an issue. ‑ iridescent 08:51, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Actually the Daily Mail's cancer coverage is not that bad these days, for a tabloid - latest example. When I was at Cancer Research UK there was a lot of talk between them & CRUK people checking stories. Sites like The (New) Daily Mail Oncological Ontology Project, a Reddit joke page ("an ongoing quest to track the Daily Mail's classification of inanimate objects into two types: those that cause cancer, and those that cure it." - last entry 2010) seem to have petered out. Fiona Macrae has a degree in medical microbiology apparently. A scientist analyses one of her stories here. My impression was that the big UK charities have most of the UK media pretty well trained to check the significance of stories with them. Johnbod (talk) 12:39, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

The Mail may have finally dropped that particular ball, but never fear, 'the Express is here to pick it up. ‑ iridescent 21:03, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Even those aren't so bad by American standards. Even "Death diet: Now chips, toast, crisps, biscuits and coffee give you cancer" reflects pretty faithfully what the European Food Safety Agency or whoever said. It's the university & agency press departments who are to blame if you ask me, pushing this stuff down the throats of journalists. My favourite "how accurate is Wikipedia?" study, some years ago, was a large survey of the members of the American Society of Toxicologists (or similar) who rated WP 2nd to a Medscape type site, a bit ahead of the Food and Drug Administration and way ahead of the New York Times etc. Journalists can't resist story. Johnbod (talk) 22:21, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

If the matter was being approached from the standpoint of "We must make necessary exceptions to the general rule that what an editor does with his time, whether he chooses to sell it if he can, is his own business," I'd be OK with it. But it's being approached from the opposite standpoint, the Avery Brundage perspective that amateurism is good and necessary, and must be enforced, and maybe we'll let you have a cheap T-shirt if you're good and don't get out of line. Oh, and possibly you can get compensation, if they give Jimbo a few hundred thousand in prize money if they share Wikipedia's mission. Good luck to any group conservative enough to provoke a social media howl there, given the present makeup of the board. They'd fold like a lawn chair.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:50, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. If those cheerleading for amateurism were genuine believers in the "Wikipedia is an artefact of pure knowledge and shouldn't be tainted by any external influence" concept, I still wouldn't agree with them but I'd at least have some sympathy with their position. However, given how many people at high levels have their snouts in the trough, I find it very hard to get excited. One of the many great low points of Wikipedia was Sarah Stierch being fired for taking a $300 payment, by a man who pimps himself out as a "brand ambassador". ‑ iridescent 10:03, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, now Jimbo owes me for a keyboard. That advertisement made me physically ill. It actually struck me as a fair policy if you said no one with admin or "higher" permissions, and no board members, could make money off their connection with Wikipedia, including a) allowing their name to be advertised in connection with it, b) mentioning Wikipedia in speeches, and c) accept any prizes or compensation with a retail value of more than 99p. They are of course free to resign board membership and permissions at any time and go in with both front trotters. Their business. Seriously, I think a fair policy for paid editing would be disclosure to the Arbitration Committee, in confidence, with a defined procedure as to what would happen if they thought there was a problem.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:24, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

But these are two very different situations, which you're conflating. In Jimbo's case, his prominence enables him to make money by endorsing products in advertisements. I understand that these transactions occasion distaste (and envy) among some volunteer contributors. But that's very different from taking money in exchange for editing article content, without disclosing the arrangement. It's beyond apples and oranges, and I'm worried that there's a fundamental disconnect between how I view the COI issue and how you guys view it. I don't have a problem with people making money off Wikipedia per se, and I can't even begin to understand why you'd propose to prohibit people from mentioning Wikipedia in speeches or appearing in advertisements. I have a problem with people accepting money in exchange for editing articles. It's not about "amatuerism"; it's about the integrity of our content, and whether we care enough about it to think more seriously about COIs. We'd need to start by distinguishing COI editing from appearing in a watch advertisement. MastCell ^Talk 05:18, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I was thinking about a reply, but after I hit the the word "envy", I will not bother. Agree that we see things differently and leave it at that.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:46, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Ditto, if you seriously think this dispute is motivated by envy of Jimbo. If you don't think Jimmy Wales accepting cash to appear in an advert is relevant to this then you've misunderstood what's under discussion, as under the proposed new COI policy that would be grounds to summarily ban him from Wikipedia.

In a nutshell, I think "Conflict of interest" occurs when an editor has an external incentive to slant coverage of a topic in a particular direction, and that external incentive can be anything from an outright financial inducement, to a fan wanting to airbrush mention of their team losing badly, to someone who disapproves of something trying to remove mention of it; and that whether a COI exists is not particularly affected either by whether cash has actually changed hands, or by the user rights of the editor. To the proposers of this amendment, "Conflict of interest" exists when an admin (specifically only an admin, not a vanilla editor) accepts a material reward of any kind in connection with anything done on Wikipedia ("admins are *not* allowed to accept payment for any services on Wikipedia" is the exact wording proposed, complete with asterisks), which would most certainly cover Jimmy Wales's adventures on stage and screen (unless you think that whenever he turns up on TV the producers have no interest in Wikipedia, but are seeking his experience as proprietor of a porn site guy-oriented website). ‑ iridescent 09:00, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I do not envy Jimbo; I have no interest in having his life or being him, nor do I particularly mind him making money. Except that it is us that is making Jimbo someone who a company can profitably dub a "brand ambassador". Jimbo is known, I believe, to carp that he has not been compensated a la Zuckerberg. Possibly, but Zuckerberg at least has the good grace not to slam the door in the face of the opportunities of the people who made him wealthy. We do work that not all can do, that is the face of one of the top ten websites in the world that has gained a dominance that should keep it in place for the foreseeable future. And I'm out of pocket for the book I bought for my last article because I couldn't get it from a local library. What sort of a penny-ante operation does that?--Wehwalt (talk) 10:27, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that. The WMF's attempts simultaneously to ride the horses of the cult of professionalism and the cult of amateurism was just about credible when Wikipedia was smaller. Now it's a powerful and wealthy global brand with well over a hundred highly paid staff, attempts by a group of people who are extremely well paid for their own work to demand that other people working in exactly the same area be not only censured, but actively punished, if someone so much as pays for their lunch as a thank you,* is going to work about as well as it did in sport. I don't begrudge donating time to Wikipedia—nobody forces anyone to be here—but I do begrudge a bunch of people who make a living off Wikipedia, demanding the right to decide who is permitted join the ranks of those who profit from other people's work.
*No, this isn't hyperbole; "If you could afford to, I would expect you to disgorge yourself of the entire cost of the meal." is a direct quote from one of the proponents of this change when asked the "what if someone buys me lunch as a thank-you?" question.

Incidentally, does I do accept travel costs for speaking events by organizations that can afford them—a direct quote from the userpage of the admin who actually started this whole idea—constitute "accepting payment"? As NE Ent has pointed out, he already appears on the T-shirt list, and since the T-shirt in question costs $15 or £14 (interesting mark-up there, WMF, since the current exchange rate is $1.54=£1) that's certainly going to be well over the de minimis line being proposed.

(In researching the cost of those shirts, I have just discovered for the first time that The Wikipedia Store is a thing. Even the people modelling the shirts look embarrassed to be associated with them. It does fill one with confidence to know that the WMF is dealing with a reputable-sounding organization like "our fulfillment partner, SWAGBOT", though.) ‑ iridescent 17:08, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

wow, the wikipedia jacket comes with a free cat Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:13, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I just looked at it. We sell Wikipedia pencils, Wikipedia notebooks. We do not sell Wikipedia tablet cases, or anything else that smacks of the 21st century. The irony.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:49, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

That did occur to me; there are so many little touches like "make the stickers the right size and shape for the reverse of commonly used phones" that could be done, but aren't; there is literally not a single thing for sale there that would look out of place in 1970. I get that they want to keep costs low (and have a sneaking suspicion that the "accessories" section is whatever tchotchke freebies were left behind on the Wikipedia stall at whatever was the last trade show Jimbo attended), but what kind of signal does it send out when (1) the most high-tech thing being sold by an organization which sells itself as being on the cutting edge of technology is a "plantable pencil" (is that even legal? AFAIK most countries take a very dim view of anyone importing seeds from overseas without a permit), and (2) that an organization which is forever promoting itself as the greatest repository of high quality images in history sells clothing which is so damn ugly—"You could look like one of these people" is surely not a sales pitch that is going to appeal to many of our readers.* (@Cas, you're the medic but it looks to me like that cat is either seriously obese, or has swallowed an ostrich egg.) ‑ iridescent 16:27, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
*No disrespect intended to the four people in the photo, whom I'm sure look perfectly normal the rest of the time and are just hapless WMF interns who've been press-ganged into trying to fake enthusiasm for the copy of How Wikipedia Works being held by the woman in the middle. (If How Wikipedia Works really meets WP:Notability (books) I'm a cabbage, incidentally.)

Ho ho - the $15 teeshirt is now £9.72. Never say the WMF don't listen to what you say. Johnbod (talk) 03:36, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I suspect I accidentally looked at the Euro or Kroner pricing. I may have an overinflated opinion of myself, but I greatly doubt the WMF are going to change their pricing policy based on my say-so. ‑ iridescent 16:27, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

• I would also tack on a business editor's community service, requiring them to make meaningful contributions in other topic areas. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 10:41, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Goya

It seems I made a mess at TFA. And was short with you. Ahem. I dont really care about the scheduling, fwiw, and Brian had a point. Ceoil (talk) 07:23, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. 31 Oct and 1 Apr have always made tempers fray for as long as I can remember, since there are legitimate arguments both ways. ‑ iridescent 08:37, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary

	Happy Adminship	from the Birthday Committee
	Wishing User:Iridescent a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! -- Vatsan34 (talk) 04:43, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Help us improve wikimeets by filling in the UK Wikimeet survey!

Hello! I'm running a survey to identify the best way to notify Wikimedians about upcoming UK wikimeets (informal, in-person social meetings of Wikimedians), and to see if we can improve UK wikimeets to make them accessible and attractive to more editors and readers. All questions are optional, and it will take about 10 minutes to complete. Please fill it in at:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JJMNVVD

Thanks! Mike Peel (talk) 17:51, 20 September 2015 (UTC)