User talk:Iridescent

My first arbitration

My second arbitration

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Bank to St Paul's (along Gresham Street)

Back on 23 November, you pointed me to the 'supercount' tool at the wmflabs. What X! tools does provide which that doesn't, is a statistic that I found quite surprising. Apparently I've uploaded 983 files to Commons. Quite a few of those will be crops of images by others (or images by others under a free license elsewhere and uploaded here), as I discovered CropTool at some point and now cut out the interesting bits of photos where people didn't realise what they were photographing. Not sure how many of the uploads are actually mine (i.e. I released them under a license, rather than just uploading them), though I'm sure there would be a way to find out.

Anyway, I ended up with a large set of photos (80) that resulted one (long) lunchtime from a trip to London Bridge and then to Bank and walking from Bank to St Paul's along Prince's Street and then Gresham Street. I had only meant to take photos of two things, but ended up taking a lot more. Some things we surprisingly don't have articles on. Can I ask you which you think might be the most obvious ones where an article would help?

• Starting with The Shard (again), towering over buildings in Borough High Street, we have File:WH and H Le May Hop Factors and Lloyds bank in Borough High Street with the Shard.jpg. I was actually there to photograph the Lloyds Bank branch (designed by Philip Hepworth), but took some photos of the listed building next door as well, and gathered some images together at Category:WH and H Le May Hop Factors building. Do you think that can sustain an article, or are lists of listed buildings better? (Similar to the lists of public monuments and public art in various London boroughs.)
• Moving next door, I created Category:Lloyds Bank, Southwark for the photos. I think going inside and photographing the staircase was overkill. Still, some more files added to the 'staircases' and 'lifts' categories... (I also now know why professional photographers take photos at strange times of day - to avoid the traffic and crowds messing up their photos).
• Across the road was an entrance to Borough Market, which has an interesting history. I took File:Art Deco 1930s entrance to Borough Market in Southwark.jpg, and created Category:Borough Market (Southwark Street entrance) and Category:Floral Hall portico (Borough Market). The latter is listed, and a fascinating bit of history. Now slightly better explained at Borough Market#Architecture.
• Moving on to Bank, I got distracted by the Royal Exchange, and was (later) shocked by the state of the article we have on this building. We have a lovely hi-res photo of the pediment, taken with a Wikimedia UK camera (see File:EH1064713 Royal Exchange 01.jpg). But the angle is not quite right. I made a start at Royal Exchange, London#Portico and pediment, but quite a bit more is possible.
• The London Troops War Memorial article (this memorial is in front of the Royal Exchange) is in OK shape, now with a few more photos. So not much to add there.
• Walking along Prince's Street, you are passing the western side of the Bank of England building. This is the Herbert Baker building from the 1930s, infamously replacing the John Soane building (one of London's lost architectural gems). Our article on the Bank of England has just a single paragraph on the architecture. Surely two whole articles could be written about the two buildings? I want to know more about the massive door (1, 2). There is also a Charles Wheeler statue (of Ariel) on top of the Tivoli Corner: File:Bank of England Ariel statue 02.jpg.
• Finally arriving in Gresham Street, I made very slow progress as there was such a lot to photograph! I'll speed up a bit now: Category:History of Gresham College has some photos I took of the 1912 Gresham College building, which Gresham College doesn't really mention at all (obviously now redeveloped into offices/flats as is the inevitable fate of the whole of London it seems). I think this building was listed (can't remember), but not sure about an article here. The foundation stones have some names, but none of much note it seems. Next door is the Mayor's and City of London Court, which does have an article. The foundation stone there has a great name: Japheth Tickle!
• Skipping past the blue police telephone box and mostly ignoring the Guildhall (lots of photos of that already), there is St Lawrence Jewry, with a war memorial on the outside and a memorial chapel inside, which I took far too many photos of (see Category:Interior of St Lawrence Jewry and the stained glass windows category as well). I'm sure someone knows what all the flags and heraldic emblems represent. Hopefully there are sources out there about the chapel as well.
• Finally, near the western end of Gresham Street, is a modern (early 2000s) office building at 25 Gresham Street (1), towering over the garden of St John Zachary. The garden (former churchyard) has an article. The modern building doesn't. Should it? It is the headquarters of what was the Lloyds TSB Group, which has since de-merged and is now Lloyds Bank Group again. I was there to photograph a set of memorials (1, 2), and the memorials use the name Lloyds TSB. Banking groups have been fairly good about preserving war memorials following successive bank mergers, but I'm not sure they planned for de-mergers!
• OK, not quite the final picture. I couldn't resist taking File:Mouse on a London Underground tube station platform.jpg later that same day. Sadly, the mouse wasn't silhouetted against the yellow line. As you doubtless know, these are commonly seen on the tracks (scurrying in the space underneath the rails), but I've only rarely seen them up on the platforms. I suppose someone will tell me this is a baby rat, rather than a mouse?

That probably enough. Which articles yet-to-be-written have most potential, do you think? I think five building articles: the listed building in Southwark, the two Bank of England buildings, the 1912 Gresham College building, and 25 Gresham Street. But maybe only the Bank of England buildings? Carcharoth (talk) 10:59, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

My my, grandma, what a long list you have! Running through them in order; obviously, the "this is just my personal opinion" disclaimer applies. As a general rule, IMO if you can't find enough reliable sources to write a minimum of 500 words specifically about any given topic, said topic is better off as part of a list rather than a stand-alone page. Within London, and particularly within central London, don't take listed building status as meaning anything as far as notability goes; London local authorities (in particular Westminster, Southwark and the Corporation) hand out listings and conservation area status more readily than women in miniskirts hand out free samples at railway stations, as it costs them nothing and gives them ammunition to prise bribes local infrastructure funding from property owners and developers.

• WH and H Le May Hop Factors could stand alone, provided you can find a source about the company, since the building isn't architecturally interesting enough to warrant an article in its own right.
• The bank just looks like a generic bank building for the period, and at most warrants an entry in List of Lloyd's Bank branches. (I'd have said that would be a ridiculously indiscriminate list, were it not for the fact that List of condominiums in the United States was recently kept at AFD so apparently "ridiculously indiscriminate" is the way to go.)
• Borough Market is an obviously notable topic, but the article is such a mess it probably needs wiping and rebuilding from scratch. It would make sense to wait before trying to do anything with it, as there's so much rebuilding going on in the area at the moment that nobody really knows what the end result will look like, or whether the market will even exist in its current form in a decade.
• I personally think the Royal Exchange is wretchedly ugly and looks like a suburban railway station in one of the grimmer areas of the North (unsurprisingly, as it was designed by William Tite who made his living designing cod-Classical stations in the coalfield cities). You probably want to poke Giano out of retirement if you intend to do anything with that one; he has a good deal more sympathy for 19th-century monumental architecture than I do. I'd be surprised if the Guildhall Reference Library doesn't have more sources than you'd ever want on its history.
• The war memorial is fairly generic and noteworthy mainly for its location, so the existing article probably says all there is to say on the matter.
• Re the architecture of the Bank of England, repeating my comments regarding Giano, who likes this kind of thing. IIRC there's a museum in the building (entered from the Lothbury side), who probably have a book about the history of the building. The Lothbury entrance is a staff entrance—the public entrance to the museum is on the other side, on Bartholomew Lane. ‑ Iridescent 09:35, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
• I doubt the Gresham College building will warrant an article, as it's too similar to virtually every other building in the area that survived the war. Mayor's and City of London Court could do with some serious attention, as is the case with every other court article on Wikipedia. From an architectural point of view, I'd put this as fairly low priority among the London court buildings, especially when compared with wretched stubs on genuinely architecturally notable court buildings like Wood Green.
• If the church themselves don't have a booklet on the history of St Lawrence Jewry, the shop at the Guildhall Art Gallery next door almost certainly will. The Corporation may have many faults, but they can't be said to skimp on self-publicity.
• I'd say this doesn't warrant an article, as architecturally it's completely generic, although it should probably go in the main Lloyd's Bank article. Regarding the memorials, as I understand it (and don't take this as gospel) following the demerger Lloyd's has responsibility for England and Wales, and TSB has responsibility for Scotland, as the legal fiction following the split is that Lloyd's is an English bank which happens to have some branches in Scotland, and TSB is a Scottish bank which happens to have virtually all its branches in England.
• Definitely a mouse; with the exception of the Jubilee Line Extension, the LU network is infested with them. (The platforms are typically hollow; the mice nest underneath.) They're a fairly common sight on the platforms, as they come up to scavenge vomit, dropped food, and old newspaper as nesting material. We don't have an article on them, although we do have London Underground mosquito.

Regarding which will be the best to write, iff sources exist on the company I'd say the hop factor, on the grounds that the BoE and Royal Exchange are sufficiently well documented that anyone who really cares about their history will be able to find a book.

City churches are a Sisyphean task, as there are so many of them; I'd personally say the highest priority ones are St Margaret Pattens (for its unusual design), St Sepulchre-without-Newgate (for its stunning interior), St Giles-without-Cripplegate (a rare survivor of both the Fire and the Blitz, which is today completely isolated amidst a sea of concrete) and St Edmund, King and Martyr (which now doubles up as the London Spirituality Centre, so gets a fairly significant footfall but isn't particularly well documented architecturally online), but everyone will have their own opinions. Most of them could probably be brought up to at least adequate standards just with a copy of Pevsner.

IMHO, the most glaring redlink of all City buildings is London Roman amphitheatre—the only significant remnant of Londinium other than the Wall, the Billingsgate Roman House, the Temple of Mithras, and the crypts of St Bride's and All-Hallows-by-the-Tower, but at the moment only covered by a paragraph at Guildhall Art Gallery (which itself could do with some serious attention). In fact, I may do those two next time I find the time. ‑ Iridescent 12:20, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the long answer! We do seem to have a large number of pictures of Lloyds Banks designed by various architects. They are in the Lloyds Bank (no apostrophe, btw) and Lloyds Banking Group articles. I make it eight in total: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. It is not that indiscriminate. Though limiting it to "architecturally significant" branches will be a thankless task. Thanks for the tip about the Bank of England museum, I'll try and look into that and get a book on it. Writing an article on Mice on the London Underground network would be worth it to add Tube Mice (and I somehow failed to ever be aware of Underground Ernie). May add some more follow-up thoughts later if time. Thanks again. Carcharoth (talk) 15:47, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Some Lloyds branches are singularly non-notable and their photos will never serve any useful purpose.

Bank of England

Regarding the BoE, this pamphlet alone would probably be enough to give at least an adequate potted history of the modern building. On reflection, I think a list of Lloyds branches would need at least some kind of overarching theme explaining why one bank in particular needs a dedicated list, rather than just a generic List of notable bank buildings in England. (Commons has 148 images of Barclays branches in England alone, although for some reason 65 of those are of a single branch in Sutton; Barclays also has the advantage over Lloyds that their head office is a landmark in its own right rather than just a generic office block.)

I've realised that I actually have a (slim) book about the amphitheatre, so will do something about that redlink when I get the time. Unfortunately, it's published by our old friends at MOLAS so it will take at least as much time translating from gobbledegook to human as it will take to actually write the thing—MOLAS publications work on the "if it was hard to write, it should be hard to read" principle and are peppered with phrases like "cullet dump", "smithing hearth bottom" and "ostracod recovery" without any explanation for non-specialists. ‑ Iridescent 17:15, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

65 of a single bank building? That is a lot. Did I ever point you to this page I threw together over a couple of months. 300 examples of the same structure (but all in different places). I gave up halfway through the examples France. I may go back to that one day, if only to see how many different examples we have of that architectural motif (I think the overall numbers is definitely over 1000). Most of the missing ones will be from the UK, ironically. Carcharoth (talk) 18:21, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes—there's a discussion about the Crosses of Sacrifice somewhere in the archives of this page. I can see the argument for 65 photos of the exterior of one building if it's something like Hampton Court which genuinely does appear radically different from every angle, but a provincial bank branch in the no-man's-land between Surrey and London really doesn't cut it IMO. (But you try getting Commons to admit that a stack of useless images is actually worth deleting; I give even this stack of nonsense at most a 50% chance of actually being deleted.)

Suggesting this probably violates the "doing anything for a multinational is prima facie evidence of evil" Wikipedia covenant, which leads to all our videos being in a format nobody can read rather than sullying our purity by using formats like mp4 or avi which were developed by Evil Corporations, but if you have a bunch of photos which you don't feel will be useful for Commons, you could do a lot worse than put them on Google Maps. The photos on GMaps populate the little boxes in the top corners of a Google search, and while GMaps have plenty of photos uploaded of tourist attractions and obvious landmarks, most of their photos for businesses, parks, monuments, cemeteries etc are grainy images from Street View vans or ropey outdated images lifted from localdatasearch.com. Thus, something like the File:Lloyds Bank, Oxford Street, London (25th September 2014).jpg would potentially be quite useful to someone doing a Google search on lloyds bank 399 oxford street, by showing them which building they should be looking out for. (You can add a photo to virtually anything on Google Maps; just click on its name or icon and select "add a photo".) If you don't think anyone else will ever have a use for a photo, it's a better use of it than just leaving it on your hard drive to rot, and people do look at them—a decent-quality photo on there of something like a park or cemetery can easily get a couple of thousand pageviews per day, as everyone searching for it will see it. ‑ Iridescent 18:51, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Am not convinced about contributing photos to Google Maps. Am quite happy with occasional uploads to Commons. There are lots of sites out there, more than I realised, with my continuing perambulations around various memorial databases. Thanks, btw, for the link to the BoE pamphlet - I may well visit the museum. The BoE apparently has two war memorials - a statue in an inner garden not open to the public, and stone tablets in the "inner entrance hall" (no idea if that is accessible to the public). Lots here as well (plus the related links). What I'm really interested in is finding mentions of those with Wikpedia articles (or potentially with Wikipedia articles). Sometimes the connection is more tenuous (they may have a father with a Wikipedia article). Carcharoth (talk) 12:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC) PS. Forgot this: I know Baker's penchant for self-promotion or self-references was legendary, but this is astonishing: " a small red tile marks the village of Cobham in Kent, the birthplace and home of the architect, Sir Herbert Baker". Carcharoth (talk) 13:01, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

If you visit the BoE museum, make sure to nip around the corner to the Guildhall Art Gallery if you've never previously been. Because they don't advertise, nobody knows it's there so it's generally deserted, but it has a genuinely world-class collection. ‑ Iridescent 20:23, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Lloyds TSB & Clyde shipyards

• On a related Lloyds/TSB note, regardless of the legal fiction involved, the practical division of the split was branches that were previously TSB (regardless of location) re-became TSBs, and Lloyds stayed Lloyds (with some geographical exceptions). Customers who had legacy TSB sort codes on their accounts/products were automatically moved to TSB, those originating with Lloyds stayed Lloyds and so forth (again with some exceptions). The Scottish/English split was rather a ridiculous fiction when it was raised anyway - mainly because Lloyds kept hold of entitites like Scottish Widows and Halifax/HBOS - which are both undoubtedly Scottish. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:29, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

• I think it's fair to say that given the timing of the split, the decision there was squarely "how can we create jobs in a part of Scotland that's wavering between Yes and No, while forcing the minimum possible number of the Cityboys who subsidise the party to endure forced relocation to the barbarian wastelands to the north?" Cameron's high-profile subsequent unpleasantnesses with regards to the referendum and his unusual uses for pork have somewhat obscured the fact that prior to 2015 he and his circle were ruthlessly cynical PR operatives. ‑ Iridescent 20:23, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Well that is overly cynical even for me ;) TSB prior, during LBG ownership and post split has been primarily a retail bank (rather than investment) catering to the UK market. Very few jobs would have been created/moved to the north regardless the way both TSB and Lloyds are set up. Branch/retail staff would stay where they were and just put on a different costume... To be honest (and as an insider), I suspect the split has actually decreased jobs in Scotland given the subsequent performance of both entities. I suppose you could make an argument that the PR aspects to the public-at-large over mythical job creation might have some sway, but I doubt anyone who looked at the division for more than 5 minutes would have been fooled. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:23, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Heh, you think it's unduly cynical that despite the historic TSB being based in London and the West Midlands, it miraculously became Scottish exactly a year before the referendum, before being flogged off to the Spanish six months after said referendum? Next thing, you'll be saying there's something fishy about a navy which doesn't possess any carrier aircraft commissioning two aircraft carriers from Scottish shipyards. ‑ Iridescent 20:40, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

*mutter* Well the aircraft carrier thing is a bit more complicated but I get your point. Personally I am looking forward to seeing what happens when Scotland leaves the UK post-brexit and all that naval construction ends up moving south of the border - actual conversation I had with a Scottish friend: "You know you wont be making our ships anymore right?" "Why not?" "Why would the UK allow a hostile nation access to its warships when we have perfectly reasonable deep-water ports that could be used/expanded? It would be a security risk" "Scotland wont be hostile!" "Its hostile now!".... Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:55, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

• *mutter* Why bring your mother into it?
• during LBG ownership I had no idea there were any gay-owned banks.

EEng 10:39, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

• Lloyds Banking Group (Although I am not sure if that is even the current official name - checked, it is). But oddly enough LBG have been consistantly rated as one of the best LGBT-friendly companies to work for in the UK. See here and and here. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:54, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Actually dont know why I said 'oddly' there, being a good company to work for should be the default position regardless of your sexuality. But just thought I would point out it is one of the good things about them. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:03, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

@OID, the Daily Telegraph is running lists of the most gay-friendly employers? Truly we live in the end times; it's not that long they were second only to the Mail for frothing "why we need to stitch up these peoples' bottoms" editorials. ‑ Iridescent 17:33, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Its a wonderful age to be alive in isnt it... Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:52, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

So a Scotsman goes into a bookies and says he wants to bet on the result of a game with England. The bookie says, "it's a friendly, and we don't take bets on friendlies". The Scotsman replies, "No such thing. We don't play friendlies against England". Britmax (talk) 10:59, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Rant about the rise of the "keep, it exists" mentality

@Carcharoth, I'll comment here rather than derail that thread, but I don't think I've ever seen anything that's done more to convince me that Wikipedia's decline into a grey goo of pointless stubs, in which "can I add this?" has overtaken "would any reader ever want to read this?" as the primary mindset has passed the point of no return than Wikipedia talk:WikiProject London#Park articles. I'm not sure one could come up with a more ridiculous guideline than WP:GEOFEAT if one specifically set out to do so, and I include WP:PORNBIO in that since the latter at least includes some kind of cut-off for people about whom there's nothing to say. I feel certain that the authors had the US (80,000 entries for a population of 320 million) and Canada (17,000 entries/35 million people) in mind, and hadn't even stopped to consider that England (500,000 entries/55 million people) hands out 'national heritage' status like Mardi Gras beads. (By my reckoning, taking WP:GEOFEAT as the bar for notability there are more historic monuments in Essex than there are in Spain.) ‑ Iridescent 17:33, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, well all this made me take more than passing notice of a Barclays Bank the other day. Possibly in Pimlico. Or maybe Enfield (home to the world's first ever cash dispenser no less). Carcharoth (talk) 17:49, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Along those lines... Lot 47, Prince Edward Island. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:59, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

What I know about PEI could be written on a stamp; if it's genuinely existed since the 18th century, you'll struggle to get that deleted as it must be one of the oldest extant non-natural territorial boundaries in Canada. I'll see that, and raise you Bowl-A-Rama. ‑ Iridescent 18:08, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I didn't even try to prod that article. I know better than to think it'd ever be deleted. With mom dying last month and now the rush to get the house on the market to move, I'm not able to devote much time to WP, but I've been doing some random article copy-editing... and gods, it's bad out there. There is some amazingly bad and non-notable stuff out there... that is never going to go away... Ealdgyth - Talk 19:58, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Those people who still bang the "Wikipedia's medical coverage is its crowning glory" drum could take a long hard look at Diasebesten, even if expel morbid humours through urine is one of the finer phrases I've ever seen on Wikipedia. (It's probably just as well Wikipedia Review self-destructed—I think Category:Listed buildings in England alone would have Greg jammed on "self-righteous sneer" for about a month.)

All this talk of crappy stubs reminds me, do you think any of the horsey types could salvage Lara Prior-Palmer? This looks like there's potentially a fascinating story buried beneath the garbage (even if the story is ultimately another variant of "bored rich folks never get tired of looking for ever-stupider ways to waste their time and money"). ‑ Iridescent 20:13, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia has medical coverage? What about preexisting conditions? EEng 04:24, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

On US/Canada versus UK heritage designations, I thought there were lower-level US designations that Wikipedia excludes from notability? Maybe I'm misremembering that. Anyway, I thought the US was mostly open spaces with a few cities (OK, that is Canada!), and the UK has more urban density hence more urban heritage (I am deliberately oversimplifying here in a jokey way, in case anyone gets offended) and more history full stop, but I take your points about those railings and that stone. On parks and lists, I made a comment over on that WikiProject talk page. Not that I could face doing lists of listed pubs in London. Or even lists of listed banks, come to that. Maybe one day. Carcharoth (talk) 08:20, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Sure, there are lower-level US designations which Wikipedia excludes from notability, but the same goes for the UK; if we included Conservation Areas, Areas of Great Landscape Value, Article 4 Directions, Local Heritage Listings, Assets of Community Value, Sites of Biological Importance and all the lower levels of conservation status, you could triple the size of Wikipedia from stubs on English buildings alone. (That's not an exaggeration; for some of the more picture-postcard English market towns like Shaftesbury and Stamford, literally every building, structure and tree in the town is subject to a preservation order of some kind or another.)

The "Europe has more history" argument doesn't wash, either; "heritage inflation" is a peculiarly British (and especially English) phenomenon. France has a similar area and a similar population, has an even longer and better-preserved history, and is even more obsessed than Britain with le patrimoine culturel, but France has roughly 10% as many listed buildings as Britain, and as I've already mentioned there are fewer listed buildings in Spain than there are in Essex. To put in perspective just how freely England hands out "national heritage" status, there are more listed buildings in the Isles of Scilly (population 2200, area 6.3 square miles) than there are monuments historiques in Marseille (pop 850,000 and one of the most historic cities in the world), and more listed buildings in Bristol than Paris.

I don't really expect anything to be done about these listed building microstubs—there are too many people with the "but it exists" mentality who don't care about sourcing and can't see any issues with things like Railway Hotel, Edgware. When I originally proposed it I wasn't entirely serious, but I'm coming round to the view of a "500 words specifically about the article topic" minimum requirement for all articles, with the microstubs like A Girl in the Street, Two Coaches in the Background redirected into lists unless and until someone can actually find something to say about them. ‑ Iridescent 10:27, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

• This AFD is getting me more annoyed than it should be. A bus route that has *ZERO* sources demonstrating it is notable (of the two independant sources they could come up with, one is a picture of a Routemaster that happens to have that number on it and the other is in a book about bus colours!), failing WP:GNG, and yet people still insist that its existance for X years makes it notable. Only in death does duty end (talk) 01:01, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• London bus route articles have traditionally been one of the spots where the ARS-holes draw their line in the sand, literally going back years. I've never seen a deletion discussion for one that didn't turn into a shouting match, unless they all arrived quickly and it was quickly closed as a snow keep. (If you ever want to really see how many variants of "keep, it exists" can be crammed onto a single page, nominate a street article in either London or NYC for deletion; I've genuinely seen "anything that is labeled on a map can be considered as sourced" wheeled out in the past.) ‑ Iridescent 01:14, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• Oh dear. I have a soft spot for transport history. Where else can you find out changes were made in the past to bus routes, and when a particular route started and things like that? If things are merged to lists, I hope that sort of information is still incorporated somehow. Carcharoth (talk) 06:04, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• You do realise just how many of these things there are? And London is relatively straightforward, as the bus routes are centrally regulated and don't change very often. For somewhere like Manchester or Cardiff with a deregulated market and constant bus wars, routes are created and abolished literally every month. Then, multiply that by the rest of the world, bearing in mind that the London transport system is relatively simple compared to somewhere like Berlin, Beijing or Bangkok. Transport articles are one area where minimum article lengths would make perfect sense, as we have so many Brigg railway stations and West Midlands bus route 360s that are unmergeable under existing practice but would be considerably more use to readers as part of a list rather than standing alone. ‑ Iridescent 09:54, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Woman in Red

At the top of your talk page. Weak attempt at a joke (and anyway, it is a girl). Anyway, would you be willing to give you thoughts on this? 158 or so article creations, a bump of 17% on the normal rate, apparently. And I've only just started reading Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red#BBC 100 Women. Hmm. A success or lots of clean-up work (plus welcoming new editors), or too early to tell? Carcharoth (talk) 21:18, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

PS. Maybe it is a sign of the times, but I can't help but feel that it is next to impossible to compare a career like that of Carole Souter to some of the other women highlighted by the BBC 100 Women campaign. Though I am not sure what to call it. Some people liken it to an award, with the people profiled being 'laureates'. Not sure about that. And now I'm trying to find out if the BBC 100 Women pages ever even mentioned her. Maybe the IP who started the article was using the hashtag for a laugh? Carcharoth (talk) 01:11, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

My first arbitration

My second arbitration

The versions of these images at the time this was written, for the benefit of anyone coming to this thread late and wondering what on earth I'm talking about

(I really need to do something when I get around to it about the My First Sermon/My Second Sermon images. The colour balance is so atrocious—in reality, the background is bright green—that wouldn't be surprised if Bridgeman intentionally included such poor quality images so they could catch Corel in the act.)

I'm very sceptical about editathons in general; from what I've seen of them, they generally attract a big bunch of people who are never heard from again, and leave behind a huge mess to clean up. It is just not possible to write a Wikipedia article of anything even approaching acceptable quality in a single day, unless you're already both very familiar with the topic and know exactly where to look to find every piece of information, and familiar enough with Wikipedia's conventions that you don't have to think about article layout and formatting. (In this particular case, the fear of adverse publicity has led to us intentionally shielding the participants from the usual behavioural expectations we have of new editors, but the dwindling remaining pool of editors can't be expected to give newly-created pages the level of emergency treatment given to Rebecca Strickson, Sellappan Nirmala et al as a matter of course, and will get increasingly resentful if they're expected to do so as a matter of routine.)

On a more general note, I think that much of this particular campaign is based on a false premise, as I don't believe Wikipedia does have a problem with bias as regards the number of biographies, other than the obvious and unavoidable issue that people from English speaking countries are over-represented in a project which works primarily from English language sources. The gender gap with regards to editor numbers is a real thing and genuinely problematic. (While I don't believe the WMF's "only 15% of editors" line for an instant, as it assumes that every "prefer not to say" is male, I don't think anyone seriously doubts that men outnumber women.) However, IMO the gender gap with regards to articles, is an artefact of Sue Gardner opening her mouth before putting her brain in gear, Jimmy being too compromised when it comes to the topic of the treatment of women to feel able to contradict her, and Lila being so incompetent she just took whatever she was told as gospel. It's a straightforward statement of fact that men outnumber women in the historical record, since not only were there so many occupations which were historically closed to women, but many of those fields (politics, the military, visual arts, property ownership, engineering, religion) are precisely those fields in which records were best preserved; if we're summarising sources neutrally than we should exhibit a strong gender bias. Things like this aren't evidence of a problem being addressed, they're evidence of a serious systemic bias in the opposite direction.

Regarding the hashtags, "the instructions aren't clear" is something of an understatement, but the impressions I get was that people were encouraged to use the #100Womenwiki hashtag on any edit related to a woman, rather than specifically those related to women on the BBC's list, to give an indication of whether the campaign was inspiring people to get involved. RexxS was there and presumably knows what the participants were asked to do. ‑ Iridescent 11:14, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Very briefly, this was more than just the BBC in central London. There was also a group at Brunel University and several groups worldwide. See the top of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/29, where it says:

On 8 December 2016, edit-a-thons will be held in BBC Broadcasting House in central London, at BBC Archives in Reading, and in locations around the world where there are BBC bureaux and active Wikimedia communities: Beijing, Cairo, Cardiff, Delhi, Hong Kong, Islamabad, Jerusalem, Kathmandu, Kabul, Miami, Nairobi, Rome (Italy), São Paolo and Washington, DC.

You can't reliably tie the articles created directly to the locations (there were some London schoolchildren editing on African topics, for example), but sometimes you can. A good way to appreciate the scope is to read through this (a BBC Live Reporting page for a Wikipedia editathon, no less). Remember that WiR is separate from WMUK, and not all have the same goals (see first link above at the start of the section), so some tensions can result. Carcharoth (talk) 12:46, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Or with my cynical hat on, "an average of less than ten articles per editathon" in that case, if the total number of articles was really 158. I can understand the thinking here, of "if we attract a couple of hundred people who wouldn't normally participate to see what we do, and even if only one in twenty of them stays, it's still a long term benefit to us"—it's the principle by which every church carol service, cadet open day and political rally operates—but I still think that prominent figures like Jimmy Wales shouting on national media about how biased Wikipedia is, despite not having any actual evidence for said bias, does nobody any good; depending on their own view, people will either come away feeling that Wikipedia is hopelessly sexist and shouldn't be taken seriously, or is dominated by a clique of inclusion-obsessed Guardianistas and shouldn't be taken seriously. (Since there are so many claims being bandied around, here's some actual numbers; as a comparator, the proportion of female entries in the ODNB is 12% pre-1900, 18% post-1900 which when one accounts for Wikipedia's recentist bias makes our 17% figure exactly what it ought to be.) ‑ Iridescent 13:02, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree absolutely. I found those ODNB figures once, and wanted to quote them, but lost them. Where are they? On a public page, or behind a log-in screen? (I have access, but if it is public it is easier to point people at it). Carcharoth (talk) 13:06, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I have them from Common Reading by Stefan Collini, but they're also reproduced in this review of the ODNB in the LRB (also by Collini). I imagine there's an OUP press release somewhere giving the exact numbers. (The figures relate to the base version of the ODNB from 2005; I imagine that the post-2005 supplements will have a higher figure although it won't be anything close to parity.) ‑ Iridescent 13:17, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I also found this. Useful. Carcharoth (talk) 13:24, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I long ago gave up trying to explain to journalists (when a WiR) or complain within the community about the inaccuracies/false assumptions & uncertainty around the % of women bios issue. There was a piece of research a few years ago comparing (all Norweigian I think) WP bios with another encyclopedia, which I think found a rather slight under-coverage by WP (a % or 2 I think). The last bit of this WMF blog post I did examined the % of 2014's new FRSs who had bios before their election, a number obviously bearing on our general coverage of scientists. The numbers are comparable for the genders, but there are too few women for any real statistical significance. I did the sums for the 2015 batch with similar results, but never wrote it up. The larger US equivalent figures would be interesting to examine. But the idea that there is still (after all the editathons) a massive gender imbalance is too attractive and useful to the media and WMF/chapter leadership to be examined seriously. Johnbod (talk) 17:29, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks for pointing to that blog post, John. Great stuff. I am afraid Iridescent will get distracted by this though... :-) Carcharoth (talk) 17:49, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Heh, nice of them to notify me… The lesson here is that the pageviews barely shifted on 15 November, implying that nobody actually reads the Wikipedia Blog (which I just heard of for the first time today). ‑ Iridescent 23:43, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't be so sure about that - the views for the week after are several hundred per day higher than preceding or following weeks, and that peak on the 13th might be the early edition or something. But it doesn't have that much resonance, and there are too many stories for them to be picked up later. Johnbod (talk) 02:16, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Possibly—that article is always hard to track, as the pageviews swing so wildly depending on which celebrity is tweeting links to it, and on when and where the QI episode that discusses him is being broadcast. If they plan on making this a regular series, then the pageviews of the other articles they cover will presumably show whether it's piquing people's interest. (The cynic in me says that if the intent is actually to highlight some of the weirdest and unique topics that have been covered by Wikipedia’s editors, someone should nominate Pig-faced women or Wife selling and see what excuses they come up with not to run it.) The basic point still stands; if I've never heard of the Wikimedia Blog before this, after either seven or twelve years (depending how you count it) in or near the belly of the beast, I don't see how we can expect casual readers to know about it—at least the Signpost, for all its many faults, manages to make even casual readers aware of its existence and purpose through its notifications on various talk pages.

(To be honest, having skimmed through it, far too much of its contents reads like one of those free "your taxes at work" pseudonewspapers local authorities send out, as it has that same mix of earnest-but-boring pieces about civic duty, uncritical boosterism, and "local interest" puff-pieces; as the time of writing there are twelve articles published in December, every one of which is a variant on "Wikipedia is wonderful and the WMF are perfect". Whoever's running it could do a lot worse than winkle Somey out of wherever he's gone these days and commission some "the problem with Wikipedia, as I see it" pieces, if only to spark some debate in the comments section; the "no dissension, no criticism" approach just makes it look like the internal memos of an evangelical cult.) ‑ Iridescent 20:02, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Lists

How would you handle something like this? Both lists. Carcharoth (talk) 15:58, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Lists with defined selection criteria are copyrightable. Its okay to say subject X was featured on list Y. Its not okay to reprint list Y in full where inclusion on the list is subject to editorial judgement of the lists creator. As far as I can see that article needs to be nuked as a blatant copyright violation. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:53, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Not all lists are copyrightable - a list of all volcanoes by latest eruption date would not be copyrightable at least in the US. But that's because the selection criterium is not particularly creative. "Most influential" on the other hand seems creative to me. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 23:39, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Yeah I was trying to get that across. Its a bit complicated. Lists of verifiable facts are not - so your volcano example, or to bring it back to the subject 'List of last 50 women to get Engineering degrees', but lists of 'Top 100 Engineers according to...' is based on their self-selection criteria rather than any independantly verifiable fact. Its to do with dataset selection. There have been a number of cases over it. (Phonebooks & databases etc) which have pretty much set the precedent down both to what is and is not. Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:56, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What OID said, IMO, but I'm not an expert in copyright. "List of stations on the London Underground" or "List of Fawlty Towers episodes" is perfectly acceptable, since even if you've copied the list from somewhere you'd recreate it word-for-word if working from scratch, but reprinting something as arbitrary as this is tantamount to cut-and-pasting an article. The Rambling Man is the one you want to talk to about lists, and Moonriddengirl on copyright issues. ‑ Iridescent 23:43, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

That was pretty much my understanding as well. Moonriddengirl was already pinged about this discussion, but nothing yet. I'd like to be a fly on the wall when the WMUK person in that discussion raises this with the BBC. A remarkable number of people in high-up positions are unaware of issues like this. Going back to the top 50 list, everyone seems to be studiously ignoring the identity of the creator of the article, who has since (quite rightly) been welcomed (perhaps a tad optimistically) and also welcomed in another way. Carcharoth (talk) 06:13, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• BTW, one of the wrinkles in the current discussions on copyrights of lists, is Wikidata. If it is OK to say subject X was featured on list Y, but not to publish list Y, and if the copyright issue is bound up in database and fact aggregation laws, then surely there will be at some not too distant point a precedent-setting legal case involving Wikidata? The BBC 100 Women list is an example. A Wikidata-generated list exists here. The same sort of applies to Wikipedia categories as well (which sort of makes the point that Wikipedia has had the database features all along, but Wikidata really elevates those features). Carcharoth (talk) 06:21, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• It's even more complicated than that since while copyright laws are governed by international conventions and are fairly similar worldwide, database rights are radically different in the three core en-wiki areas of North America, UK/ROI and Australia. American database law is based on originality (so provided the facts are freely available and one could create the list from scratch, it's legal to copy someone else's list); Australian database law is based on creativity (so unless there's something the original creator has added above-and-beyond the facts, one can't protect a list); EU/UK database law is based on sweat-of-the-brow, and exists independently of copyright provided the original creation of the list involved substantial investment in obtaining, verifying or presenting the contents. It's entirely possible for the duplication of a list to be totally legal on one country, and an explicit criminal offence in another. I'd personally advise anyone living in a country covered by the Database Directive never to copy lists directly or indirectly, unless you can show that you're recreating the list from scratch (the Wiki model helps here, as you can demonstrate the individual entries being added and sourced separately). ‑ Iridescent 08:58, 13 December 2016 (UTC) Pinging Newyorkbrad to this as well; although I know you probably won't be able to participate to any great extent in something with the potential for ending up as an arb case, "substantial experience in the coordination of multi-jurisdictional litigation, both domestic and international" would probably come in handy here. ‑ Iridescent 09:19, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• The jurisdiction question is all very well, but doesn't answer the question about using a bot to generate a list automagically from a database. You are literally recreating it from other people saying "subject X was featured on list Y" (which is apparently OK). Of course, if some of those on the list are missing from Wikidata, then the list will be incomplete. Does that matter? Can partial or incorrect copying of a list still be copying? My head hurts. Carcharoth (talk) 11:43, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• This is where it gets complicated, as unlike copyright the laws in different jurisdictions are totally contradictory. In the case of the EU (and this one will almost certainly remain in UK law post-Brexit, as it would be chaos if Britain and Ireland had different IP laws), if a list is based on objective criteria (List of bus routes in London, to pick one at non-random) by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents, constitute the author's own intellectual creation, then it's automatically protected if there has been substantial investment (in time or money) involved in the creation of its contents, but extraction [of data] for the purposes of illustration for teaching or scientific research, as long as the source is indicated and to the extent justified by the non-commercial purpose to be achieved is allowed. However, Wikipedia (as opposed to WMUK) operates under California law, where the relevant case law is Feist v Rural Telephone Service, which ruled that there needs to be an element of originality to protect a list, so it ought to be that US editors on a US project are untouchable. However, Bridgeman v Corel has established that when it comes to intellectual property rights, US courts can apply the legislation of EU countries extraterritorially if they feel there's a reason to do so. Situations like this are why you never see a poor lawyer. ‑ Iridescent 11:57, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• Poor lawyers abound. What you rarely see is a lawyer without money. EEng 12:01, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• Eh, I know most of that. I'm trying to get to whether the specific use of Wikidata to generate the list automagically makes a difference. Though at the moment (turning 180 degrees and switching lanes and up a gear), phantom battles are more interesting. More examples here. Must be a form of mass hysteria, but not found anything yet definitively naming it. We do have Ghosts of the American Civil War. Carcharoth (talk) 12:18, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• I would say that regardless of whether it's being created via Wikidata or directly, generating the list will constitute the unauthorized extraction and/or re-utilization of all or a substantial part of the contents of that database (section 41 of the actual Directive). Our own Sui generis database right article does specifically state that the DD applies "even if data is extracted and reconstructed piecemeal", but annoyingly doesn't have an actual source, and I can't see anything specific in the Directive (I'm not about to read CDPA itself given how long it is). ‑ Iridescent 12:54, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• I feared that would be the case. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 13:08, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

• Bear in mind (I know you know this, but not every TPW necessarily will) that there's also an ethical issue here as well as a legal formality. Even if a publisher says "sure, no problem" when they're asked if something can be used on Wikipedia/Wikidata, we can lose sight of the fact that a lot of people in the real world don't understand what you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL actually means. The BBC might well be perfectly happy to allow Wikipedia to reproduce the BBC 100 women list. They would probably be considerably less happy if they realised that in releasing it to Wikipedia, Wikidata or any other WMF project, they're also granting irrevocable consent for anyone who so desires to republish it as "100 Hot Bitches I'd Like to Fuck" or "The Feminazis Who Will Be First Against the Wall When the Revolution Comes". You presumably remember the degree of unpleasantness when the Boy Scouts realised that the photos they'd uploaded to Commons were being used on the Spanking Art website. ‑ Iridescent 13:21, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Acknowledging the ping from Iridescent above, but I think he's cogently summarized the international legal situation on this topic (indeed, he seems to know more of the details than I do), and I don't have anything to add. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:24, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

There have been more developments at Talk:Top 50 Influential Women in Engineering. Carcharoth (talk) 08:13, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

That's beyond my pay grade; anyone explicitly stating that the list should be kept is personally exposing themselves to all kinds of problems if the Telegraph ever decide to challenge it (and the Barclay Brothers aren't exactly known for their laissez-faire approach), while anyone deleting it is going to be smeared across the Guardian and the blogosphere as "the face of Wikipedia's institutional sexism". (Plus, TRM has just been unilaterally blocked in one of the most dubious-looking AE supervotes I've ever seen, so that particular conversation is going to go nowhere.) Given the number of ways any possible decision here could render the editor or admin taking it personally liable, this is a decision that should be punted upfield to WMF Legal, and I'd advise anyone to steer well clear of it. There's a potentially fascinating legal case to be had over whether the ultimate authority over the situation of UK material licensed to a US project rests with the British, American or European courts, but you really don't want to be the defendant. ‑ Iridescent 10:50, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Examples

Sometimes I wonder how many people actually go through all the entries on a list like this. To be fair, most of the assessment there (more initial triage) was done by a single editor. But I've not yet managed to find the time to go through everything on that list. I've just tried that now, and here are some examples: Tess Asplund, Tamar Ariel, Ethel Baxter, Anne Bevan, Gangubai Nivrutti Bhambure, Mary Bristow, Meredith Jemima Brown, Evelyn Browne, Betty Campbell, Jessie Campbell, Sairee Chahal, Touria Chaoui. I stopped at number 33 on the list (which has a current total of 170 if you exclude the deleted entries and the list article) and those 12 caught my attention for some reason (either borderline notable, not notable, or something interesting). Actually doing this gives a real idea of the article quality and the range of people that have been written about. But there is a lot to go through! Carcharoth (talk) 06:58, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

It depends what you're looking for when you're assessing; if you're checking sources, running copyvio searches or doing a close proofreading it's soul-destroying going through a long list, but if it's purely skimming the article and confirming it's not so seriously problematic it needs deletion or major cleanup, you can work through a list at an inhumanly high speed. ‑ Iridescent 08:41, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Heh. Looking back 7 or so years, how useful do you think it was to do those assessments? A challenge: would you be able to go back and redo those assessments at the same speed today? How long would it take you to give your views on those new articles on women created in that editathon? If you were even going to start on something like that, how would you approach it in a way that would be most useful? Maybe I am thinking about this the wrong way. I look at articles and think: would I bother writing an article on this. Often the answer is no, but maybe it is the wrong way to think about it - seeing the potential that other people see in an article is not always easy. Carcharoth (talk) 11:48, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Reasonably useful; I wasn't doing them to assess articles per se (99%+ of them were "low") but to get an idea of how many topics WP:LONDON and WP:LT actually had. Back in those days before we had all these fancy-pants scripts which could generate a count of articles on any given topic provided it was tagged as belonging to a Wikiproject, we had no idea how many topics each project actually had.

If I were approaching it today, I'd pester someone who's good at writing scripts to combine the copyvio detector with an automatic talk-page updater script, allowing me to run through all the articles in something resembling the Huggle interface, tagging for problems, nominating for deletion, or tagging the talkpage for relevant projects and assessments with just a couple of keystrokes or mouse-clicks. The problem with new page patrolling is that people are either going through the articles manually from the queue which is very slow, or they're using tools like Stiki which were intended as anti-vandalism tools and make it very easy to tag or revert problems, but difficult to fix them. ‑ Iridescent 12:08, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Regarding I look at articles and think: would I bother writing an article on this, as I've said elsewhere IMO the approach to take is "do the sources exist to write at least 500 words specifically about this topic?". If the answer is yes, then even if the subject appears deeply obscure then someone, somewhere will almost certainly have a use for it; if no, then it's almost certainly not a viable topic as even if you write an article, a microstub is less use to readers than an entry in a list in which it can be put into context. ‑ Iridescent 12:13, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

talk page stalkers: a gruesome calculation

Apologies may be due – I usually go to WP:RX for such requests, and the topic at hand is hardly art. I also have over a hundred sources already, and some may think one more is overkill. But this one is quite special: perhaps only a page or three from Aykroyd, W. R. "The Conquest of Famine." London: Chatto and Windus (1974).

I have little concrete discussion (just the academic equivalent of angry finger-pointing and name-calling followed by silent scowls) regarding the possibility that the Bengal famine of 1943 resulted in part from profit-driven hoarding or clandestine exports. I found in a footnote (I had never seen this mentioned before in the past... ten months) that Aykroyd was a member of the Bengal Famine Commission 1945, and that "the Commission itself made what it called the 'gruesome calculation' that for every death in the famine roughly a thousand rupees of excess profits were made", which is cited to page 79 of Aykroyd's book. I have exactly zero access to this book, and believe me, I've tried.

I probably don't need info about any other aspect of the famine. [I'm sure if I had the entire book I could find other useful cites/quotes, but they would very probably cover details that I could also source elsewhere.] I really only lack anything substantial about the "blood money" accusation.

If anyone who has easy access to wonderful libraries and scanning machines could get that book, skim/scan around page 79 (and maybe the index?) for discussions of large businesses profiting from the famine, and scan perhaps 2 or 3 pages (hopefully searchable/convertible to text), I would be in your debt. Tks... (oh ps, if he mentions his role on the Commission, just a page number would be good to establish his authority... tks)  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 02:52, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

The going rate on Amazon for Aykroyd's book is a mighty 73c (or one penny plus shipping from the UK site) so it would probably be easier to just buy a copy and work from the source. This obituary of Aykroyd confirms that he was on the Commission (page 247), and cites him as blaming "corruption" for the extent of the famine.

The "gruesome calculation" isn't necessarily a confession to wrongdoing—it's the nature of the world that some businesses profit from disasters, but it doesn't mean those businesses set out to cause disasters (particularly in the pre-Kohima context of 1943, with the threat of invasion a very real fear). In this particular case, I'd say the lack of sources is itself significant—there are any number of communists, Indian nationalists, Muslim fundamentalists, anti-imperialists and Axis apologists who one would expect to be shouting from the rooftops any evidence of "the British authorities and capitalist businessmen conspired to cause the deaths of millions of Indian Muslims", if there was any to be found. ‑ Iridescent 08:49, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

(adding) According to Worldcat, there are copies in the libraries of the London School of Economics, the University of Birmingham, Wellcome, and Glasgow University, all of which have links of various kinds with Wikipedia. ‑ Iridescent 09:48, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Several thanks are in order: first, thanks for taking the time to look into this. Thanks especially for the trick of finding what libraries a work is in then finding which have relationships with Wikipedia. I had never thought of that. It is a clever shortcut, and it obviates the need for any mewling protestation that I of course could never order any hard-copies from Amazon. I will give that idea a good try... And finally thanks for name-dropping Kohima, which looks like an excellent article to improve, a few months from now.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:20, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

If you want to clean up a Kohima article, War Cemetery in Kohima could do with attention (not least being fairly obviously mis-named); although it's not as well known as its cousins at Gettysburg, Thiepval or the Mamayev Kurgan (Nagaland is a lot harder to get to than the Somme), the memorial there is the original use of For your tomorrow we gave our today so it's had a significant indirect effect on subsequent military burials and remembrance services. (Plus, as the high-water mark of WW2, the site has an inherent interest.) I cleaned out some of the worst issues last year, but it could do with some serious work. (A cemetery is "used for those deceased"? Who'd have thought it.) Paging Carcharoth and HJ Mitchell also. ‑ Iridescent 08:50, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

User talk:EEng

Iridescent, I'm quite willing to stop commenting on user talk:EEng. You've indicated that you don't want me to do that, and I accept that. The fact remains that that user never once unambiguously told me to stop; I pointed out to him quite clearly that for him to continue to reply to me encourages comments. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 10:04, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Note that my warning was carefully worded to be non-prescriptive, and my offer was carefully worded to be conditional. If EEng is happy for his talkpage to serve as Wikipedia's fuckwittery heatsink now that Wikipedia Review is no longer with us, as far as I'm concerned he's welcome to allow whatever he likes provided it doesn't spill over elsewhere, subject to the usual non-negotiable rules about personal attacks on third parties or potentially libellous content. (Neither EEng nor myself own his talkpage; as he's recently found out, if someone else does genuinely feel content in userspace is genuinely problematic they'd be perfectly in their rights to take action about it even if I don't feel it's unacceptable.) ‑ Iridescent 17:17, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

IRC

Iridescent, that Mike V/TRM thread is closed, so I'll respond here, if that's OK: I was about to go WHOA and strike out my entire comment, but I looked at the diff again--there is a big difference between "because someone asked him to on IRC" and "Your conduct was brought to my attention from comments made by other administrators on IRC". The accusation was that there's a secret network of admins who tag each other for dirty jobs; there's no evidence for that. Mind you, I say this without wanting to defend the block or Mike V's apparent radio silence. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 16:37, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't see how it's possible to read the relevant section in full without coming to the conclusion either that Mike V was explicitly acting on someone else's request to block TRM, or that at best someone was dropping hints that TRM needed blocking; as Bencherlite points out there, Mike is undoubtedly lying somewhere along the line as his story is internally inconsistent even within that thread, so I don't see why I should feel obliged to extend AGF. If one accepts his claim not to have been aware of the AE thread, then the only possibilities are (a) someone canvassed him on IRC, or (b) he's stalking TRM's contributions looking for a pretext to block, since it's beyond the bounds of coincidence that Mike just happened to stumble across TRM's comments on Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors, a page in which he has never shown any interest in his entire time on Wikipedia. ‑ Iridescent 17:17, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Still want to pretend he's not making up policy as he goes along to suit himself? ‑ Iridescent 17:24, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

sometimes people get pissed off and do silly things. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:32, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

You promptly admitted you were wrong and reversed it. What do you think the odds that Mike would have? I came into this thinking this was a purely procedural issue regarding the definition of WP:INVOLVED, but the longer it's gone, the more it's looking like a case of someone with a serious "I can't break the law—I am the law" complex who's consciously abandoned impartiality and is trying to settle scores. ‑ Iridescent 17:39, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

So that Admin's only IRC channel doesnt exist then? The one that in the past has banned admins if they didnt follow the status quo? Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:40, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I think an IRC channel exists for admins only (not all of them; I don't participate there), actually. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:01, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I know, I was being sarcastic :) My point was that it is very hard to say 'there is no evidence of a cabal on IRC' when you have a private channel that restricts access, even to other admins (I know of least a couple of admins who have been forcibly excluded), where admin decisions are raised and acted upon. Which has a 'you must not log this channel' rule in order to prevent scrutiny. There may be little evidence of a cabal, but only because of a concerted effort to prevent any being gathered. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:05, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You mean these people? To his credit, Drmies isn't listed there; unsurprisingly, Mike V, Chillum, and all the other people who like to posture as Jimmy Wales's temperance spoons most definitely are. ‑ Iridescent 17:17, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I used to be on that list but got kicked off for using foul language. Look, I don't know what kinds of conversations take place there. It is entirely possible that nudge nudge, wink winking goes on--but you don't know either. Having a "secret" channel serves useful purposes, if only because of privacy concerns. Think about CU evidence and linking IPs to editor names, for instance, or about content which may or may not need to be revdeleted. And such communications are fast: frequently I don't know stuff happened until it's too late. I have to assume good faith, as I do with all of y'all. You may not care for it, or you may not know, but Mike V has done lots of CU work, much of which takes place behind the scenes, and it's not always pleasant. Anyway, I am not in a position to defend anyone, nor do I wish to attack anyone--I just want all of us to be a bit more measured and not jump to conclusions. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 18:01, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Ah you mean like the time he violated the privacy of every editor with IPBLOCK exemption by checkusering them all with absolutely zero indication they were abusing the privilege? That was a good one. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:08, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

OK, that's enough sarcasm for the day, at least for me. Drmies (talk) 18:11, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

It may be sarcasm, but it happened. He didn't admit he'd made any mistakes there, either. ‑ Iridescent 18:12, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Oi. He didn't make a mistake with that. It had been done several times in the past, usually on an annual basis. You'd be surprised how many socks we used to find; the year MikeV did it (which was at least the third or fourth time it had been done) was the first time there weren't a lot of people with inappropriate access/socking/etc., and I'd venture to guess that everyone had got a lot more careful with IPBE (including admins handing it out) because of the auditing checks. I know those routine audits were done pretty much annually at least from 2011, possibly even 2010. While I get what the Ombudsman Commission was getting at, the reality is that most (not all) of them work on wikis that block as many socks in a year as enwiki blocks on a quiet day, and lots of our socks have been working the system since...well, there are some that have been around and working the system since before I started editing. Risker (talk) 19:19, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, "mistake" is probably the wrong term; I know why we check IPBE editors periodically, and why it's sometimes necessary to conduct fishing expeditions on the IP ranges of some of the more problematic sockmasters. "Failed to account for his actions" would probably be nearer the mark—in this particular case, he was unilaterally deciding who he deemed deserving of IPBE status and unilaterally stripping it from everyone else, and refusing to explain what criteria he used to decide who he deemed deserving. (He appears to have deleted his talk archives, but the huge stack of complaints he got at the time is here.) All it would have taken is a routine "I have removed IPBE status from your account as you don't appear to be using it, if you do still need it please contact xxxxx" notification to avoid it; looking over his recent history this appears to be part of a fairly consistent pattern of taking controversial actions and then vanishing until the storm blows over whenever one of his decisions is questioned. I don't expect anyone not to make mistakes—lord knows I have—but I do think it's a reasonable expectation that anyone with advanced permissions be wiling to explain their lines of reasoning (or explain why they can't be made public), and be willing to reverse actions should they either be demonstrably based on an error or have an obvious consensus against them. (As others have pointed out, Mike is totally detached from actual Wikipedia content editing—3.3% of his edits in 2016 have been to mainspace, apparently all minor—and while he does valuable work as a CU, he gives the impression that he's completely lost touch with how people in a collaborative environment actually behave.) ‑ Iridescent 19:34, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Neither the Meta checkuser policy nor the ENWP supplementary policy allow for checkusering large groups of editors just to sweep for potential sockpuppets where there is no suspicion the editor is sockpuppeting. The policies are both quite clear that Checkuser is only to be used where there is a legitimate suspicion/reason for checking. Both you and Mike are of the opinion that merely having been given IPBE, a right that is MANUALLY granted when someone makes a compelling case for it, is grounds for an editor being checkusered. Which is so ridiculously self-serving it wouldnt fly in any organisation that takes privacy seriously. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:56, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

You're talking about Wikimedia, Only in death, an organization that publicly broadcasts the IP addresses of unregistered users (with very poor warning, I've had very serious arguments with WMF staff in the past over how obvious the notice should be when editing without logging in). Wikimedia, an organization that permits anonymous users to have access to the "checkuser" data (IPs and user agents only, really) of everyone that edits on its sites. English Wikipedia, which gives the ability to over a thousand users to grant IPBE to anyone they want without any kind of oversight or verification that it is appropriate, whether or not they actually understand what they're doing or have taken any precautions to ensure they aren't enabling problem users. Conversely, Wikimedia, the organization that only permits access to its sites via HTTPS in order to "protect the privacy of its users", despite the fact that large chunks of the world population are not able to use HTTPS and thus the WMF cannot meet its publicly stated goal of making information available to everyone in the world. Privacy is not a clearcut issue here. If you're really worried about user privacy, have the WMF vet and hire everyone with access to CU data; it will only cost about $7 million a year for employees to do the work that unidentified volunteer checkusers and stewards do now. Would I suggest doing another run-through of IPBE today in 2016-17? No - not with all the global blocking of IP addresses (largely outside of the control of enwiki). Almost all requests for IPBE that I've seen in the past 2-3 years have been because people using VPNs for any number of good reasons are being prevented from editing because of some sockpuppetry, and quite often socking that happened on another project. I can say unreservedly that in earlier reviews (say around 2010-12) we identified a surprisingly large number of socks of banned users being granted IPBE - users who probably would have been identified if only CUs could give out IPBE, in many cases. While I think there's still a chance there are similar accounts being granted IPBE today, I'm not convinced that it's worth the effort; it's sure not worth the angst. On the other hand, now that we have this "extended confirmed" user right, I don't see why IPBE can't just be tacked on to that, as it would cover at least half of the accounts that currently have IPBE. Admins have it automatically, and I don't see why solid users can't have it automatically too. Risker (talk) 13:04, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

RE the checkuser parts - not even close to the top of my list of problems with current checkuser practice. The use of mailing lists and Checkusers conducting business with email accounts outside the US or the EU being the top one. The lack of proper independant oversight, pro-active auditing, data/record retention, etc etc. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:31, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I hear where you are coming from, Only in death, but will point out that none of it is within the control of English Wikipedia, and all of the concerns you identify are more appropriately addressed to the WMF. There is a single checkuser mailing list - the only place where CU data should ever show up, and it's owned and maintained on WMF servers and does not log; the primary use is to introduce new checkusers, and to flag cross-wiki socking. Absent the WMF giving all CUs and stewards a WMF email account (something I suggested years ago, but apparently they are to be used only for staff or board members since the "Wikimedia.org" label implies the WMF is responsible for those accounts), the CUs have to use their own email accounts. Most of them are hosted in the US or EU, but to be honest I have no idea why you think that's better than anywhere else since they're all susceptible to government interference. Who do you think should be auditing? If it's the WMF, again that requires staff, and we have to bear in mind that different standards apply to different projects. (Example: the Orangemoody investigation could never have occurred on Dewiki, due to their community rules.) We had an AUSC, but that mostly turned out to be a stepping stone to permanent advanced permissions/arbcom, and was pretty much ineffective after the first 18 months. What are your issues with data/record retention? I've never held CU data anywhere other than the CU wiki (controlled by the WMF) and include only information about longterm serial sockpuppeters, and I'd expect the same of everyone else, but perhaps that's just me. There are the CU logs, of course, which list what checks were done, but there's no UA data and in many cases no information to link specific accounts to specific IPs. It sounds like you have big-picture, meta issues rather than just a problem with verifying that IPBE is appropriately distributed. Risker (talk) 15:34, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

The short version is: Big picture meta issues are not a huge problem when those issues are unlikely to impact that often. When you have one person checkusering *hundreds* of editors on what is at best, a really weak rationale, those big picture issues become a lot more immediate. RE mailing lists, by the very function of how a mailing list works is that anything submitted to it is distributed to all subscribers. At that point data security depends on their personal settings, archiving, access etc. RE Data Retention, after a member of WMUK with checkuser rights colluded with the Guardian's political desk to state a living politician was guilty of editing their own article and sockpuppeting (at a politically sensitive time) - based on completely stale users - either the retention criteria that allowed that data to be accessible have an extremely lax definition of what constitutes 'serial sockpuppeting' or someone was working off of their own database. Either of which is amazingly problematic in the UK from a private data retention standpoint. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:52, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I know of the case that you speak, because I was the one who brought the Arbcom case that resulted in removal of CU/OS rights. As I explained at the time, there was *no* archived CU data, not even in the logs, that could have resulted in a CU block. In other words...the system worked, someone did something wrong with the tools, and they lost them. If you are trying to push for greater "professionalism" amongst CU/stewards, then it's preferable not to point to a time CUs themselves both publicly and privately pushed very hard for someone's tools to be removed to demonstrate that there's insufficient monitoring of activities; it's exactly what you'd expect a professionalized group to do. But I can't tell - do you want the WMF to do it, or do you not want CU done at all? If it's the former, it's about $7 million. If it's the latter, then we need about 800 new admins to handle the vandalism and blocking and working out empirically whether accounts are "probably" the same (i.e., SPI without the checkuser). What's the middle ground here? Risker (talk) 16:28, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Well if you did confirm that, it wasnt to me, and I asked publicly (and privately) repeatedly on what basis was a checkuser positive result gained (Given the expectation of the stale-ness of the users, that no data should have been available), what type of data was used, when from etc. And never got a clear answer from anyone. I got a variety of responses from 'no comment' to 'I cant confirm that due to confidentiality blah blah', the former I put down to being generally unwilling, the latter I put down to a mistaken understanding of what is and is not private. The main problem is not that volunteers are doing the work, its that the method by which they are doing it opens them personally up to a variety of data legislation depending on their location, and with the current setup being that there is no real independant oversight/auditing. No one is actually looking pro-actively at why checkusers are performed, and asking the performer 'Why did you do this? What was the basis? Where in policy does it say you can do that? Would a reasonable person have done this?' and then telling them (if a negative result) 'no you really need to not do that, as you personally are liable if it goes arse up'. Even the most *basic* of protection, that of the WMF taking responsibility for the storage of ALL private data and access to it (no a mailing list with every subscriber using their own email provider is not acceptable for this) has not been implemented. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:46, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Unless I missed something, the WMF does not want to carry responsibility for private data. Hence Wikipedia:Access to nonpublic information. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:02, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

The WMF does not want to be responsible for *anything* which could possibly leave them liable to a court. What users seem to forget most of the time is this means they are left holding the bag. This does not prevent them taking some basic data protection practices. Risker wants a middle ground? It should not be a reach to suggest that some of their fundraising could be spent on some basic auditing practices to ensure that editors are not overly exposed to liability for the bad working practices that have grown up around the WMF's hands-off approach. One full-time worker could successfully audit the number of Checkusers ENWP has working a standard 37-40 hour week. Anyone who has worked in auditing knows you can successfully audit on a surprisingly low amount of checks if you get your selection right, even when allowing for random selection. Assuming you wanted to cover the globe, again given current worldwide salaries, it would need remarkably few full-time staff. Hell even if you didnt want to actually employ people it could be accomplished with grants. Hiring someone professional on a 1 year contract just to overhaul the current working practices would be a start. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:20, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I know perfectly well that a lot more than nudge nudge, wink winking goes on, and so do you; they may have a no-logging rule (actually a "no publishing logs to non-members" rule), but it leaks like a sieve. (Does the phrase You should however have instead taken your pen, punched a hole in her windpipe and looked on as her attempts to wave for help got increasingly feeble ring any bells?) At one point it go so blatant we had to set up a dedicated noticeboard to stop the abuse reports flooding ANI. ‑ Iridescent 18:12, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't know if *I* have any credibility, and I'm not in -en-admins like all the time, but for what it's worth, I don't think it's like that any more. I don't see anything like back-door dealing when I'm on there, and I'm not the only one who protests when something starts to approach it. I've been told by people with longer tenure than I have that this wasn't always the case, that back in the day there *was* backdoor dealing, but things changed in the interim and -en-admins hasn't been a secret cabal meeting place for years now.

Of course, this doesn't mean that there is no backdoor dealing among admins, and not even that it doesn't happen on IRC. But in my experience, it doesn't happen on -en-admins (anymore). Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:18, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

There certainly used to be a serious problem (Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IRC admin channel is well worth a read). I can believe that things have got better now, as Ironholds demonstrated very publicly that what goes on on IRC does leak out, but if it's stopped on IRC that just means that the abuses have shifted to another venue. (Even I get the occasional "please can you block User:foo" email, so it's safe to assume the genuinely block-happy admins certainly get them.) Per my comments near the top of this thread, it beggars belief that Mike wasn't being prompted on IRC, given that he's literally never commented at WP:ERRORS so it's not reasonable to expect us to believe he just happened to be watching it, and that the one factor which is consistent across his radically different claimed version of events is "someone brought it to my attention on IRC". (IMO, any admin proven to be participating in non-public discussions which materially affect either the content of Wikipedia or administrative actions towards Wikipedia editors, other than in circumstances where privacy is demonstrably necessary or where the impact is demonstrably trivial, should be summarily desysopped. Yes, we don't have enough admins, but the solution to that is to promote more decent people, not to consider the crooked ones indispensable. With the existing setup of secret channels, invite-only mailing lists. Using external channels for coordination of activities that, on-wiki, would be inappropriate is also improper is still Wikipedia policy.) ‑ Iridescent 18:57, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Oh, absolutely, I don't disagree with any of that. I mean, not to trivialize serious real life issues, but what you're describing is the Wikipedia equivalent of a mob hit, and it should be perfectly obvious that that's not okay. All I was saying is that I don't think -en-admins is the nexus for it anymore, and my larger point is that meta:IRC/wikipedia-en-admins/User list isn't a list of made men or anything. obviously, my name is on that list, so my feathers were a little ruffled by that implication, though I don't know whether you really meant it that way or not. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:29, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

The list was in response to So that Admin's only IRC channel doesnt exist then? The one that in the past has banned admins if they didnt follow the status quo?. I recognise that a lot of decent people are or have at some point been members of it, but it's not in dispute that (1) it exists, (2) at least in the past, it's been used to coordinate attacks on non-members, and (3) in the past, the channel operators have unilaterally banned people (I have no idea if they still do). I suspect—albeit by definition without evidence—that since Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kiefer.Wolfowitz and Ironholds made it common knowledge just how leaky that channel is, the really problematic collusion has moved off IRC to the private and semi-private mailing lists. ‑ Iridescent 19:50, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough, and you're probably right (though I am equally without evidence). Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:55, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Pervertations

Permutations of Iridescent include Cretinised; Iced Nitres; Recited Sin; Dicier Nest; Cited Rinse; Ed inciters; and Cretins Die; and (my favorite) Dire insect. If you meditate, you might like I is centered. [1] EEng 11:47, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Great to see that Cretinised is top of the list. Satan Vermin 123 (talk) 12:17, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Happened to be at the top of the list (it's apparently the only result that's a single word). Such exercises make me regret not having a longer name. However, Editor EEng --> I tender ego. Or I rent geode. EEng 16:31, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Imagine the fun the rest of us could have if you used your real names (not that anyone knows them, of course). Martinevans123 (talk) 16:39, 17 December 2016 (UTC).

I did for a short period circa 2007 have a randomising script that made my signature appear as a different anagram each time, until I realised that having a signature which doesn't include your username (or at least the first part of it) was a mildly disruptive thing to do, as it makes it impossible for anyone not in on the code to ctrl-f search for your contributions on a given talkpage and doesn't actually bring any benefits to justify the mild disruption. Are you listening, Muffled Pocketed? ‑ Iridescent 16:53, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Can't you get indeffed for that kind of thing, these days?? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:56, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Yeah—it means signing with a subst-ed template, which is banned nowadays (for good reason). Standards were lower back then, in so many ways. ‑ Iridescent 16:58, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Technically, it's signing with an unsubsted template that is banned. Substed templates are OK but very dicey to use. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:40, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, but anyone doing it is an idiot, since there's no legitimate reason to do it and it's an open invitation to vandals. When I see something like this, I'm always sorely tempted to change it to "I am an idiot who left his signature open to every passing vandal". ‑ Iridescent 17:56, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Happy Saturnalia!

		Happy Saturnalia
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. May the year ahead be productive and troll-free. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:39, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

And to you—is it that time of the year already? Feel free to retract it, given that I've just deflated the mood of mutual backslapping at WP:RFAP somewhat. (If we're following Wikipedia's usual naming convention, shouldn't be RFAP be Requests for Fapping?) ‑ Iridescent 17:01, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, it's that time of year ... again. And I'm not worried about you "deflating" the mood at RFAP - I'm genuinely interested in all opinions. I think I could avoid some of the woodwork-leaving-people that came out at MBW's RfA - at the very least RO is still blocked, I believe? I'm sure I'd get plenty of no votes from Bulgarians though... and some from EC's very favoritist people. I will admit that helping out at DYK was a thought ... as well as possibly opining at AE with what I hope is a voice of sanity at times. We'll see how things go. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:06, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

If nothing else, I imagine it would save the checkusers a bit of work by flushing all the current batch of Mattisserie out of the undergrowth. If you do run, get someone from QAI (I'd suggest Wehwalt if he's willing) to be one of the nominators, which will at least prevent the infoboxers turning up en masse to oppose and tanking it from the outset. ‑ Iridescent 21:14, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't really think I've been that "anti-infobox", have I? I might get a bit more from the MOS-field - I've been a bit vocal occasionally about proper names. What say you, Wehwalt, you up for a co-nom? And I really do have to run and get some pellets for the wood stove before we see Rogue One. At least the ponies are all staying warm in our lovely -14F wind chills....Ealdgyth - Talk 21:19, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

It's always been about tribalism, rather than about what people actually feel about IBs—as Rexx has pointed out previously, my opinion on the things is actually more hardline pro-box than Andy Mabbett, yet I get filed among the antis. Because you're on speaking terms with Tim, Cassianto etc and don't take the opportunity to denounce them as anti-metadata luddites, the knee-jerk position will be oppose; likewise, because you're on speaking terms with the Dark Lord Corbett, assume the GGTF will be rooting through every comment you've ever made, ever, frantically trying to find pretexts to oppose. This all sounds horribly cynical, but it's a reflection of RFA being a fundamentally dysfunctional process in which any given vocal clique can derail any candidacy. (If you're hunting for nominators, Casliber and Slimvirgin might also be good choices; they've both generally respected by widely different groups, and haven't been particularly active at RFA so don't suffer the "well, they'd nominate anything that moves" reputation which certain RFA regulars have acquired.) ‑ Iridescent 21:32, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Let me know if you go for it, Ealdgyth. My participation at this time of the year is dependent on whether or not anything goes kaplooie at work. Risker (talk) 21:43, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

• I would be most happy to be one of the nominators.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:57, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
• I would too. I'm on good terms with nobody, so a nomination by me will carry no faction's taint. EEng 22:36, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I avoid RfA like the black plague, but would drop in to +S Ealdgyth.  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:04, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Best wishes for the holidays...

		Season's Greetings
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, and all best wishes for the New Year! Adoration of the Kings (Gerard David, London) is my Wiki-Christmas card to all for this year. Johnbod (talk) 10:26, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

And likewise to you. (I've obviously been on Wikipedia too long—my mind immediately parsed that as "David Gerard".) ‑ Iridescent 22:35, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Method for AWB typo fixing

What is your setup for WP:AWB/T? I'd like to start doing it... and I already have AWB. How do you prompt it to go through random pages? Thanks --Jennica✿ / ^talk 21:30, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

My selection isn't actually random; there is a pattern to it of pages linking to or linked from pages on my watchlist, and certain categories in which I have an interest (for instance, if you look at my most recent edits they all have some kind of connection to north-west England), although the way Wikipedia is structured makes it hard to spot patterns from my edit history. Generating a genuine random list in AWB is difficult for non-admins, as the "random pages" feature is intentionally lobotomized for non admins due to the server load it creates. If you want to generate a pseudorandom list of articles which will have a better-than-average chance of containing errors, RecentChanges is a good bet; select Source/Special page/Recent changes (and make sure once the list is generated that you click "filter" and remove duplicates). If you generate the list this way, work from the bottom up—the most-recent changes will be at the top of the list, and what you don't want to do is make an edit to a vandalized page which nobody has had the chance to fix, as your edit will hide the vandalism in the history. (My usual AWB caveat applies; I strongly recommend switching "Auto tag" and "Apply general fixes" off altogether, and bear in mind that AWB has a very high false-positive rate and a very high potential to annoy a lot of people very quickly, so don't make any 'fix' using it which you don't feel you could justify making manually. I estimate that I reject about 75% of the typo fixing regex's proposed changes. It has a particular propensity for trying to insert inappropriate commas and hyphens, which really irritates the authors of the articles if you accidentally click "save" rather than "skip".) ‑ Iridescent 21:58, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Oh ok.. it generates a fairly long list when I select recent changes [40k or so] and it is all in alphabetical order. I just tried running it on new pages and it skips all of them. Maybe it's a setting I have on? --Jennica✿ / ^talk 22:22, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

It shouldn't generate the list in alphabetical order, but in order of last change—have you got "alphabetize list" checked in the "filter" box? Regarding the skipping, make sure you actually have "Regex typo fixing" checked (and "skip if no typo found"). ‑ Iridescent 22:28, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes I had accidentally had the alphabetical option ticked. Thanks for all the help! It's still just skipping a bunch. --Jennica✿ / ^talk 23:15, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

This sounds obvious, but make sure you have "enable regex typo fixing" selected—if you don't have either that, general fixes, or a custom change activated AWB will just skip through everything, not finding anything to change. You may also want to check the "skip options" tab to make sure something inappropriate like "skip if the page contains the letter e" has somehow been selected. ‑ Iridescent 16:26, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Chris Troutman (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year! Spread the Christmas cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas3}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Thank you, and the same to you ‑ Iridescent 09:29, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

RE: A-Team

Enough. ‑ Iridescent 14:45, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Iridescent, in the future, please be a bit more polite. In the description I just posted, I said that click on the name John "Hannibal " Smith (Admin) brings me to John's page. I realize we have a user named John "Hannibal" smith, however he's not an admin, therefore his name sh ouldn't show up as (Admin) in recent changes. KoshVorlon 15:14, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

So how is it User:John's fault that the tool you're using is generating faulty links? And don't remove my posts on other editors' talkpages; you're not the Chief Censor of Wikipedia. It's beyond any doubt that you've confused User:John and User:John "Hannibal" Smith, since you ask John why he signs as "John "Hannibal" Smith, and the fault is with you, not John or I. ‑ Iridescent 15:31, 22 December 2016 (UTC) For the benefit of the TPWs, this is the thread in question—if anyone can find the purported attack from me in there, feel free to point it out.

I'm not saying it's his fault, nor implying it in any way. I'm pointing it out, that's all. Once again, I'll point out this tool uses "Recent changes " which is itself a wikipedia tool. Within that tool , it's showing John "Hannibal " Smith with an Admin tag. User John "Hannibal " smith is not an admin, User: John is. I'm not blaming Admin JOhn for that, merely pointing it out, that's all, also, referring to me as "Chief Censor" is very much a PA as I'm not. I will admit, removing a comment directed to me was wrong on my part. KoshVorlon 15:53, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Lupin's tool is not either a part of Wikipedia or of Special:RecentChanges (it uses the Mediawiki API to compare recent page versions), it's extremely buggy, and Lupin retired seven years ago; you shouldn't ever be taking its results seriously. This isn't the first time you've been warned about treating its results as credible, nor is it the first time I've warned you about your habit of trying to censor Wikipedia according to your own idiosyncratic notion of what's appropriate. I remind you that you're currently on a final warning for disruption. ‑ Iridescent 16:10, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Those happened 2012, 2011 and 2015 (in order), so they're old disputes. By the way, per Lupin himself , his tool states it works "By using the RC feed to check a wiki-page's differences against a list of common vandal terms, this tool will detect many of the commonly known acts of online vandalism.". So yes, it does indeed use recent changes. (Not arguing, just pointing out that Lupin himself describes his tool that way). You're right that Lupin hasn't updated the tool since November 21st , 2007, however | the tool's been updated by others up to yesterday. Again, please understand that I'm not complaining , nor blaming Admin John for how his name shows up, just pointing it out to him.

And again, my removing your post was wrong, I admitted that. Notice that I haven't touched it since you restored it? Your edit summary is incorrect, I removed it because it was at the least rude, not that I was trying to cover a mistake, so could you re-word your edit summary ? Thanks! KoshVorlon 17:40, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ayscoughfee House

Per your Spalding Memorial review, I live in nearby Stamford and have often visited Ayscoughfee House and indeed the Lutyens monument. The common pronunciation generally approximates to "esscoffee", and I agree that some guide in the lead would be useful. It's a particularly horrible word for non-native speakers to attempt. Best seasonal wishes. Brianboulton (talk) 16:47, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Glad to see you back! I'm aware of the historical reasons for so many British place-names having totally counterintuitive pronunciation, but it still occasionally surprises me just how confusing some of them are. (It was only when Hellingly Hospital Railway was selected to be recorded for Spoken Wikipedia that I discovered "Hellingly" isn't pronounced the way every single reader in the world would assume it's pronounced, and it still grates on me that the pre-recorded station announcements on the London Underground pronounce "Plaistow" and "Chesham" as they're spelled.) ‑ Iridescent 14:54, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll bite. How are they pronounced? I know Plaistow and Cheshem (I think), but Hellingly is a new one on me. I did find some discussion at Talk:Cuckfield. Carcharoth (talk) 01:33, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

"Plaah-stow", "Chessum" (for some reason the same announcers never have a problem with "Cheshunt"), and "Helen-glie" to rhyme with fly or sty. If you click the little speaker icon next to the FA star, you can hear a version of it read by our very own Hassocks5489. ‑ Iridescent 13:22, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Indeed – in Sussex we have the the phrase "Three lies, but all are true: Hellingly, Chiddingly and Ardingly"! But East Hoathly and West Hoathly (which are nowhere near each other, oddly) are pronounced how you would expect...! Incidentally we have a Plaistow in Sussex as well but it's pronounced "Plass-to"... Best regards to all, Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 18:18, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

• Heather and Belvoir, Stoughton, Houghton and Coton, South Croxton. Sinope. Agar Nook. Lounge. I have no idea how "Lounge" is pronounced, nor why there was a "Lounge Disposal Point" there. It's near Lount. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 19:14, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

• At least with Chesham there are clues in the location in the Chess Valley of the River Chess, and the spelling of the Chessmount area. No idea why the town spelling went from (presumably) Chessham to Chesham. Maybe it was the other way round, and 'Ches' became 'Chess'? The river name arose from Chesham, apparently (the river had an older name). And then there are the names: [2]. Carcharoth (talk) 11:30, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

• The locals still pronounce it "Chessum"—it's London Transport who announce it as "Chesh-um". It's almost certainly because of its proximity to Amersham, which is pronounced as you'd expect. "Chess" is definitely the original pronunciation—the name in Domesday is "Cestreham". (While Chesham is in fairly poor repair, St Mary's Church, Chesham and Chesham branch contain a very good potted history of the pre-industrial and post-industrial history of the town respectively, if I do say so myself.) ‑ Iridescent 18:28, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

• Brian I had no idea you were in that part of the world. I don't suppose you might be able to take a few photos of the Spalding memorial for me would you? As you can see, the article relies on a handful of very similar (and mediocre) Geograph photos, which are a lot better than nothing but don't convey much detail. I live at the opposite end of the country; I hope to get there sometime in the new year (I intend to get to all of Lutyens' war memorials at some point, but they're scattered around the country) but I ca't guarantee it. It would be worth a pint if or when I do eventually make it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:04, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

• It might be worth asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Lincolnshire. The project looks fairly moribund, but someone might still be watching it. ‑ Iridescent 18:28, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

ygm

ygm  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 17:50, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Replied. ‑ Iridescent 14:54, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

User:JordanBaumann1211

You might also consider blocking 2602:306:3797:50D0:C1AF:A724:397E:FA39 until he loses interest! JohnInDC (talk) 00:54, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

If he's only vandalising his own editnotice, I'd say let him vent—nobody but him is ever going to read it, so provided he's not saying anything actually libellous then taking any action will just encourage him. ‑ Iridescent 14:57, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Holiday card

Wishing you a Charlie Russell Christmas, Iridescent!

"Here's hoping that the worst end of your trail is behind you That Dad Time be your friend from here to the end And sickness nor sorrow don't find you." —C.M. Russell, Christmas greeting 1926. Montanabw(talk) 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Memorial reviews

Commenting here, as I don't want to distract from the review: I am pleased to see you (and others) reviewing those memorials articles (and even more pleased that they are being worked on). They are arriving at a rate of knots! 1 and 2. It has reminded me: (a) that I wrote this set of criteria nearly seven years ago now; and (b) as a rule if one (i.e. me) doesn't get round to writing on a topic, someone else will one day! Though to be fair, my target has always been the big ones in France and Belgium (I don't need to be reminded of the state the Menin Gate and Thiepval Memorial articles are in; and the Vimy memorial got there eventually, though with only a smidgin of help from me). These memorials in the UK are some that I wouldn't even have considered starting articles on back in 2010! On style across an article series, I was reminded by this about various summary and overview issues across similar articles. I tend to agree with J3Mrs that repeating the same things across articles gets boring, but I know you are in the "give the full background in each article" camp. @HJ Mitchell: to keep him in the loop. Carcharoth (talk) Most obscure source I've found yet on Lutyens: here. Carcharoth (talk) 03:00, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

As Wikipedia grows, the scope of what warrants a full article expands—if you look at Talk:George Frederic Watts, you'll see a 2008 explanation as to why Hope doesn't warrant a full article. Although, as I just discovered following a recent WP:PROD I declined, one of Wikipedia's earliest articles (August 2001, pageid=4081) is a spectacularly obscure stub.

How much background to include varies by the topic and in particular who the likely readers will be. For an article about an individual Doctor Who episode, most readers will be fans researching that particular episode, and it's reasonable to assume that the reader will know that Daleks and Cybermen are the villains and it doesn't need to be explained each time. For The Sirens and Ulysses, a significant proportion of readers will be people who know no background at all, have ducked into Manchester Art Gallery to get out of the rain or to buy a last-minute gift for granny in the gift shop, and are curious as to why an entire wall is occupied by a garish mural of rotting corpses and ten-foot-tall naked women (TSAU really needs to be seen in the flesh to appreciate just how weird it is, as thumbnail images don't do justice to the sheer size of the thing) and can't be presumed to know anything about William Etty or the impact the rise of uneducated but wealthy industrialists had on the 19th-century art market.

In the case of the war memorials, if anything I'd say they need more background, not less; remember that a very sizeable chunk of readers will be visitors to Ayscoughfee House wandering around the grounds who stumble across it, people whose great-uncle Bert is listed on it and want to know more about it, and visitors to the area looking through a list of visitor attractions or clicking "point of interest" buttons in Google Maps; none of these people can be presumed to know anything at all about Lutyens or other war memorials. (In the case of anything intended for FA, then bear in mind that at TFA an article needs to be comprehensible to people with no previous interest in the topic at all; for readers in India, Nigeria, Singapore and other places where en-wiki's readership is still growing, you can't necessarily even assume the reader will be familiar with the dates of the First World War, or have more than the haziest idea what actually happened.) ‑ Iridescent 13:53, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I've always appreciated a healthy background section. The best way I've heard it described is that the article should tell you everything you need to know to fully understand the subject without having to follow any links, or in other words, treat it as though the reader has printed out a hard copy of the article. It does mean that you get repetition between similar articles, but I doubt anyone other than the three of us and the wonderful reviewers at MilHist A-class and FAC is reading the articles about Lutyens' war memorials as a series. I certainly hope not, given the slightly random order in which I've been working on them. I started with the relatively low-hanging fruit and I'm working my way up the tree, hoping that I'll have anticipated all the likely stumbling blocks by the time I get to Southampton and Whitehall. I might go on to do Thiepval and some of the other Western Front memorials at some point, though there are many other fascinating memorials just in the UK, and I want to write an overview article about Lutyens and war memorials and write articles for his various memorials in the Commonwealth. And that's before I even start to think about the cemeteries. I was looking for a project to keep me occupied for a little while but I've been working on this on and off for a year and it's nowhere near finished! They're only coming through at a rate of knots now because I bought the pile of books needed to flesh the articles out and then went on a writing spree a little while ago. That and I'm taking a break from the project space. By the way, thank you both for your reviews on Spalding; I will get back to you in the next few days. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:45, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

I think the article should tell you everything you need to know to fully understand the subject without having to follow any links, or in other words, treat it as though the reader has printed out a hard copy of the article is a very thoughtful and intelligent position, and whoever originally said that should hitherto and henceforth be bought free pies at every opportunity. (I don't actually subscribe to that position 100%—there are some hyper-niche topics like Interstate 15 in Arizona or Episode 14 (Twin Peaks) where one can reasonably assume that anyone who cares enough to read it will already know the background—but particularly for FAs, one has to assume that a significant number of readers will be in other countries and only have the haziest idea what the First World War was, let alone who Lutyens was.) It occurs to me that for these memorial articles, going into background context in detail is particularly important, as Lutyens is probably better known nowadays in India than in Britain, and I'll guess WW1 isn't a part of the national identity in India to anywhere near the extent it is in Europe, North America or Australia. ‑ Iridescent 18:38, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Yo Ho Ho

Iryna Harpy (talk) is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec16a}} to your friends' talk pages.

Thanks, and yourself ‑ Iridescent 13:22, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Whoop-de-doo (Wikidata lists redux)

"An ironic exclamation of approval or pleasure in an event in which the observer is actually bored or unimpressed.": Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of female Egyptologists. Subtitled: how utterly tedious it is to make edits to 'maintain' such lists. I find myself asking again, why did this happen? I suppose the upside is that I am a bit closer now to creating such lists myself. But someone please trout me if I ever put any such list in the mainspace. Properly curated list on the article page. Wikidata-generated list on the talk page (or linked to as an appendix). That is as far as it should go. Though I will admit that some of the pages in Category:Articles based on Wikidata look useful. What do you think of the various paintings ones? Carcharoth (talk) 11:22, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

My opinion of these Wikidata-generated lists is a matter of public record—see Talk:List of women linguists. If Wikidata had procedures in place to ensure both accuracy and consistency, and the will and means to ruthlessly enforce them, this kind of list would be a godsend. Unfortunately, what actually happens is that the bot imports a load of crap from Wikidata, a Wikipedia editor wastes their time fixing it, and then the bot promptly comes along and overwrites it again with the same garbage. Per my many previous comments, Wikidata is great in theory but in practice is an overwhelming net negative, and since they've now been live for four years my patience with the "we're new, you need to give us time to find our feet!" excuse is wearing extremely thin. If I ran the WMF, I'd immediately give it full independence and cut off all funding for it (since the only people who appear actually to benefit from it are the big search engines and a handful of self-proclaimed "making use of community-generated content consultants" and their clients, they can bloody well pay for it if they actually find it so valuable), and make all traffic one-way so Wikidata can still import material from us, but changes made on Wikidata no longer affect en-wikipedia. It's getting ridiculous that a group of enthusiasts small enough to all fit comfortably in a London bus is being allowed to disrupt a top-ten website to the extent that they do just because Sue Gardner was sold a bill of goods a few years ago and her successors don't want to upset their prospective future employers at Google. ‑ Iridescent 18:53, 26 December 2016 (UTC)