User talk:Iridescent

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Parliamentary arcanery

Arcanery is apparently not a word. Anyway, some things I tried to look up on Wikipedia and failed, indicating that maybe these are too obscure even here.

• Standing Order 24 (though we do have Standing order 23)
• Speaker's Conference (though we do have Speaker's Conference on electoral reform (1917))

I expect more will emerge over the next few weeks (well, its only 8 days now apparently). Carcharoth (talk) 16:29, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

@Carcharoth, Standing Order foo would IMO be very bad titles for an article series, given that probably every legislature, every local authority and every military body in the world has a set of standing orders so you'd end up with a family of enormous indiscriminate lists. (I'm mildly surprised there isn't an article for Emergency debate, though, as that's a significant concept in its own right.) On the subject of Speaker's Conference, I'm not inclined to go wading through books but on a quick skim of Google it doesn't look like there's very much other than a few press releases and some minimal background on the Parliament website. (As I understand it, aside from a single brief revival at the fag-end of New Labour, the process has been moribund for decades as Royal Commissions now handle matters relating to voting ages, constituency boundaries and electoral process.) Given the timing of the most recent one (convened just as the shit hit the fan in the 2008 financial crisis, concluding immediately before the abolition of the Central Office of Information and the advent of the Coalition and their slash-and-burn approach to anything deemed non-essential, and with the Speaker who convened and chaired it sacked before it reported) I'm not surprised it passed under the radar. BrownHairedGirl is usually quite good at ferreting out Parliamentary obscurities if you want to go further, but to be honest I'd consider this kind of procedural wonkery the kind of thing where Wikipedia shouldn't have an article as the stuff on the official website is going to be more informative and more up-to-date than anything we can realistically provide. ‑ Iridescent 09:55, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping and the wonkette prize, @Iridescent <grin>. So here's my tuppenceworth.

I agree that this is fairly arcane technical stuff. However, in the last 15 years the UK Parliament has done quite a lot of good work in publishing details of proceedings online, and of extending that coverage well into its internal workings. So researching the primary sources no longer involves potholing in the dusty box-file section of specialist libraries. But the secondary coverage in reliable sources on which en.wp relies tends to be in scholarly books and academic journals, so writing a half-decent article on most of these topics requires either access to an academic library, or a healthy credit card to buy expensive academic books and journal access.

I dissent a bit from Iridescent's caution about this subject area. Yes, it does need some skill and commitment to research, and yes it will be a niche topic area. But given that en.wp can accommodate copious detail on every blade of grass in Tolkien's works, every iteration of every video game and every footballer who set one boot fleetingly on the pitch in a professional game, I'm sure we could find space on the server for a few dozen more articles on trivia like how laws are made and millions of lives governed.

I agree that in fast-moving areas of procedure, en.wp is unlikely to be able to keep fully up to date. But in reality, most of this stuff is fairly stable: no change for decades, then a period of controversy and revision, followed by prolonged stability. So someone as conscientious as Carcharoth could, if they had the time and commitment, produce a decent set of articles on this sort of topic. I don't think it would require anything remotely like the sort of frequent revision seen for example in footy bios, where the hordes are daily updating the latest tallies of matches and goals and the latest transfers. The more that such articles are written as overviews of the historical developments of parliamentary procedure rater than as news items on the latest dramas, the more stable they will be.--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:34, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

​Well, the "every blade of grass" approach to coverage has led to serious problems in the past given Wikipedia's inability to maintain large numbers of pages that keep going out of date—click here, here or here half a dozen times and see how useful you find the result. We were at Arbcom only a couple of months ago for a case which, while on paper about the actions of a single editor, was in reality an attempt to formulate how Wikipedia will deal in future with the issues caused by the ever-increasing article-to-active editor ratio (as of December 2018 when the WMF stopped publishing these statistics in a form a non-programmer can understand, the article/active editor ratio was 1650:1; for comparison, when I passed RFA in September 2007 it was 430:1).

To bang a drum I've banged many times before, it serves no useful purpose for most of these niche topics about which there's little to say to have stand-alone Wikipedia articles, and it would serve readers far better to have vastly expanded Members of the 14th Dáil, List of stations on the Formartine and Buchan Railway or List of Barnet F.C. goalkeepers with a summary of each entry and a link to the stand-alone articles of those about which enough has been written to justify a stand-alone page. That way, given that readers interested in one entry on the list are quite likely to be interested in the others it avoids readers having to flip through a dozen different pages, but it doesn't inconvenience those who are only interested in a single topic as they can still just jump to the relevant part of the list; it also allows people to compare and contrast the entries at a glance, and makes it far more likely that vandalism or errors will be spotted as anyone interested in one item on the list will also see changes to anything else in the list on their watchlist. (You can see my proof-of-concept experimental page of how such a list-comprised-of-stub-articles-and-summaries-of-longer-articles would look at Infrastructure of the Brill Tramway. See this very long thread for more of my thoughts on the disconnect between "sum of all human knowledge" and "3500 active editors".) The videogame articles aren't really a fair comparison; I see them as no different to books or paintings, in that once created they don't change so even if the articles are never improved, they're also unlikely to deteriorate or go out of date other than relatively trivial things like total sales figures.

Pig-faced women
Tarrare
Candaules, King of Lydia

I don't underestimate just how much the existence of a Wikipedia article can impact on reader interest in a topic. Provided you can make the article interesting enough, even the most obscure topic can take off; all it takes is a celebrity to take an interest in it and tweet a link, or it to be picked up by QI, and you start seeing spikes in readership. (See the viewspike detectors to the right on three of the nichest topics imaginable over the past two years.)

In this particular case, while I think Standing Order 24 would be of little use to anyone since those people who are interested would go direct to the Parliament website to read about it, I can certainly see how List of Standing Orders of the Parliament of the United Kingdom would not only fly, but would potentially have a rabbit hole effect as people who came solely because they were interested in one of the entries stayed to read the other entries. ‑ Iridescent 16:58, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Forgot to add we also have Standing Order 66 (go on, try and guess what that is for). Must confess I find this sort of update (by someone else to an article I started) more pleasing than following the current Brexit debates {there are 16 uses of this source so far on Wikipedia]}. Another vote today (in about 15 mins). After that, who knows? Carcharoth (talk) 14:14, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

It looks like that's all we have, though. As I think I've said before, never have I been more glad to be a foreign national; I can't imagine what must be going through the minds of people seeing this out-of-control train heading for them and knowing they're unable to jump out of its path. ‑ Iridescent 14:20, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

The lower case search finds a couple more. The vote was lost. May went from losing by 230 to losing by 149 to putting half the deal up for a vote and losing by 58. Back to Letwin on Monday. And more feverish politics over the weekend. I suppose we (the UK) could avoid holding European elections by having a general election on that date instead... Carcharoth (talk) 14:48, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

If I had to guess—which I realise is a fool's game in the current state of chaos—my money would be on a snap general election on 2 May to coincide with the local elections. If it has to happen, I'd imagine May would want it to happen as soon as possible, before either Farage or the TIGgers can get their party machines up and running. The announcement has been somewhat overshadowed by events, but by naming Heidi Allen as leader the TIG rebels have positioned themselves to peel away centrist Tories who can't support a Boris-run party but might have felt reluctant to support a Blairite reboot; with TIG peeling away moderates, the UKIP/EDL alliance leeching away the right wing lunatic fringe, and Farage poaching whatever remains of the Thatcherite true believers, if they leave it until 23 May it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that the Conservatives would suffer a collapse of Canadian proportions. Plus, if she calls a 2 May election that way it gets called before cliff-edge day. ‑ Iridescent 15:55, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Isn't the deadline for calling an election 25 working days? So given that there are two Easter bank holidays, that date has been missed already. There is also the 6 May bank holiday. So even if a general election was agreed on and parliament dissolved on Monday (not going to happen as Letwin's indicative vote process still going), then 9 May is earliest. The reason for 12 April deadline is that this is 25 working days before the European elections on 23 May. There is also the small matter of the Tories wanting time for a leadership election. Bit of a mess, really. Carcharoth (talk) 16:54, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

If they really wanted an early election, they could have one; the actions of a former parliament can't bind the current one, and they could amend the relevant part of ERAA 2013 if they really wanted (they've just spent 1000 days banging on about Parliamentary sovereignty, after all); hell, there are explicit precedents that Parliament has the power to reschedule Easter if they really want to cause maximum chaos. (It's not as if Labour would oppose the government if they moved for an accelerated timescale.) Because the polling apparatus will already be in place for the locals, the lack of time wouldn't be the issue it would normally be. Of course, dissolving Parliament for a month just at the point when crisis decisions need to be made would be an issue whenever they chose to call an election; especially if May resigns, I'm not sure there's been a precedent for treaties being signed in the absence of either a parliament or a leader to approve them since the days of King Billy. There's a strange fascination through watching first-hand something that you know historians in 500 years time will call something like "The Great Disaster"; this must be what living in Berlin in the 1920s or Washington in early 1861 felt like. All we need now is the death of a high-raking royal with the subsequent need to suspend all state functions for the duration, and we'd have a perfect storm of chaos. (Speaking of King Billy, as I type this the DUP have just come out for Remain. Interesting times indeed.) ‑ Iridescent 17:24, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Interesting is an understatement. It has all gone very Alice through the Looking Glass today. May-Corbyn unity government? Hmm. The newspaper headline writers had a field day. Carcharoth (talk) 09:13, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I still don't see how that's going to work, since presumably the 170 no-deal Conservatives will refuse to work with Corbyn and the hard-left activists who keep Corbyn at the top of Labour will refuse to work with May, so what will be left is a unity government with even less support than either of the two main parties had to start with; plus, I can't imagine either the big corporate Tory donors or Labour's trade union backers are happy at the prospect of continuing to fund this rabble. ‑ Iridescent 09:31, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Yesterday was a tied vote and a vote passing by one. Eyes will be on the Lords today. See: the business of the day in the main chamber. Seven amendments to the motion to change (speed up) the normal (slow) procedures. A chance to see how good the articles on the Lords (and Ladies) are compared to the MPs: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, Lord True, Baroness Noakes, Viscount Ridley, Lord Robathan, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, Lord Blencathra. Carcharoth (talk) 11:18, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

EU arcanery now. The phrase "duty of sincere co-operation" has been used. Apparently this is a key constitutional principle of EU law, as explained here, here, here and here. This phrase is from Article 4(3) of the Lisbon Treaty. Hmm. Treaties of the European Union is quite impressive. Maybe the UK should become an outermost region of the EU... (no, not really). Carcharoth (talk) 15:38, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I'd imagine it's because, being de jure just an international non-governmental body with more than the usual share of influence as opposed to a government in its own right, the EU by definition doesn't have any kind of enforceable constitution or an oath of office for its members. Bear in mind that the civil servants and ministers drawing Maastricht and Lisbon up had grown up during (and in many cases participated in) the cold war, and were explicitly trying to avoid creating another UN in which no controversial decision could ever be taken because somebody would always object, while simultaneously trying to avoid the mistakes made by the US in creating an overly-powerful court system and in concentrating too much authority in the central government. They also had De Gaulle well within living memory and Thatcher in very fresh memory, so had understandable concerns that individual member governments might try to hold the system to ransom to extract concessions.

You say outermost region as a joke, but I wouldn't be totally surprised if when the dust settles the net result is that the UK ends up with a similar status to French Guiana or Bermuda, simultaneously in and out of all the EU treaties, as a kind of mega-Guernsey; I can totally imagine May & Corbyn agreeing on it as a compromise for a five or ten year period in order to kick the can down the road and the 27 agreeing to it in the hope that the UK nations will peel away and rejoin piecemeal, and it eventually becoming the status quo because nobody wants to reopen the debate. Assuming the extension is granted, May 23 is now when things get interesting; single-issue elections run under a PR system at a time when all four major parties are in an advanced state of disintegration and at such short notice that no party has had time to draw up and vet a list of candidates or prepare campaigns are going to be the trainwreck to end all trainwrecks. ‑ Iridescent 17:09, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

It has all gone a bit quiet now. Another six months of this, I suppose. I did come across Wooferendum, which doesn't really seem to warrant an article. As a complete aside, I came across UK telephone code misconceptions (as a redirect from 0207 & 0208), and the associated talk page and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UK telephone code misconceptions have some, um, interesting viewpoints. Carcharoth (talk) 11:25, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

"Another six months of this" is optimistic. Assuming A50 doesn't get revoked (unlikely given that neither May, any of her likely successors, nor Saint Jeremy and his acolytes have shown any appetite for it), there are only two alternatives. Either Brexit happens in which case the whole thing starts up again with the trade negotiations which will run for at least a decade; or, can-kicking continues, and eventually the annual ceremony of The Extension of the Deadline will become a Brussels equivalent of the Presidential Turkey Pardon, slamming the door in Black Rod's face, or Swan Upping, as a quaint tradition the origins of which are half-forgotten. ‑ Iridescent 09:41, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

(adding) Wooferendum is about as obviously non-notable a topic as I can imagine, if the best they can find to say about it is Several famous people spoke in the march, including actor Peter Egan, Labour MP Stella Creasy, and former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell; Egan is a virtual unknown, Creasy is an obscure backbencher and Campbell is an inveterate self-publicist who'd turn up to the opening of an envelope. However, in the current climate nominating anything Brexit-related for deletion is a fairly surefire way to invite a rabble of extremists to choose your talkpage as the venue for their next battle, and life's too short. ‑ Iridescent 10:34, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Good grief, just had a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UK telephone code misconceptions. Yes, different times and all that but I'm not sure I've ever seen an AfD debate with more stupid comments. The article itself is a solid chunk of inaccurate and unsourced original research, and if it weren't for the certainty that its defenders would stonewall it into "no consensus" I'd nominate it again on the spot. (I have nominated the blatant copyright violation that illustrates it for deletion at Commons, however.) ‑ Iridescent 08:05, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Article rescue

As I have notifications turned on when articles I created get linked, I often get notified of changes to related articles, which can be very useful. Sometimes, though, I get pinged about articles that need help. And I don't have time to do that properly. Notification anxiety or something... The most recent example is Colin Alexander McVean (I created 1874 transit of Venus). Even if the editor who created that article does not see this post (not sure if links outside article space are notified), I hope someone will help! Though maybe I should ask elsewhere for help with this article. Maybe (looking at the article history) Nick Moyes might be able to help? Carcharoth (talk) 11:45, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Only (watching), but, Carcharoth, what help does it need? It's not up for deletion, is it? ——SerialNumber54129 12:01, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Eh, rewriting to improve the language. Difficult without access to the sources. The editor is basing it partially on their own writings, as far as I can tell. The other articles related to this (Charles Alfred Chastel de Boinville and John Harington Gubbins) are in better shape, so maybe I should worry less and help more (or concentrate on carving out quality time to actually help properly!). :-) Carcharoth (talk) 12:16, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Colin Alexander McVean might be an unusually difficult one. I'm reluctant to do any significant rewriting without access to the original sources, in case nuances get lost, but in this case I assume a lot of the sources will be in Japanese. The National Library of Scotland and National Museum of Scotland might have some useful material about him; if you ask User:lirazelf she can probably point you towards who you need to talk to. In my experience, figures like this are very, very hard to write about unless there's been at least one published biography; working just from archives tends to lead to He was born on date, he did achievement 1, achievement 2 and achievement 3, he died on date biographies which read like they've been written by Reasonator and do nothing to give any indication of the person's life, interests, motivations or why we should care about anything they did. (To my eyes, the story here isn't what his accomplishments were, but how someone from the Isle of Mull, leading a comfortable life in Edinburgh, abruptly moved first to Turkish-occupied Bulgaria and then to Meiji Japan.)

Incidentally, in what's an impressive piece of procrastination even by my standards, regarding this thread I've finally got around to writing the "brief piece" on the NHM ceilings. This was very much a trip down the rabbit hole; what I thought would be a simple stub to fill a gap on the proto-Arts & Crafts Movement ended up as a 10,000-word saga touching on everything from the origins of chocolate milk to the impact of hallucinogenic drugs on the military in 17th-century Virginia. ‑ Iridescent 10:03, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Eh, we don't have unlimited free time. I am minded of my own African humid period which covers stuff from the astronomy of Earth's past orbit and its colour over pyramids to future storms or Huaynaputina which covers ground from 16th century religious practices in South America over Russian history to 16th-18th century cartography. JoJo Eumerus mobile (talk) 10:11, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I quite like articles that take the reader in unexpected directions; IMO it's one of Wikipedia's great strengths that you can come here to look up information about the .gp top-level domain and end up reading about medieval antisemitic sculptures in just four mouse-clicks. (.gp → Piracy in the Caribbean via the {{Guadeloupe topics}} navbox → Reformation → Stadtkirche Wittenberg → Judensau.) Congratulations or commiserations, depending on your POV, for Allison Guyot, which so far doesn't seem to be attracting too many weirdos. ‑ Iridescent 10:28, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Ha. The underwater mountains were fairly innocuous, it was Taapaca where I got bombed by vandal edits. For some reason I derive more pleasure from seeing something on DYK than from TFA. Incidentally, following that "unexpected directions" logic you might find Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1257 Samalas eruption/archive1 interesting, it's not currently overflowing with commentary. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:46, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I'll have a look when I next get the time, which will hopefully be within the next couple of days. ‑ Iridescent 11:57, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

The ceilings article is v. impressive. Definitely an article, not a list (I saw the note you left with TRM). Carcharoth (talk) 11:41, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. At some point I'll try to get round to doing the building itself, but don't hold your breath. Natural History Museum, London itself is an atrocious trainwreck of a page which I'm not touching with someone else's bargepole (salvaging it would require the complete-wipe-and-rewrite-from-scratch approach), but there's certainly enough material to write a separate article about Waterhouse's building. ‑ Iridescent 11:51, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

J. E. Gray (Keeper of Zoology 1840–74) complained of the incidence of mental illness amongst staff – there will always be an England. EEng 12:12, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Russian and Mexican lapdogs (immature)

During construction, workmen left a trapdoor within the whale's stomach, which they would use for surreptitious cigarette breaks. Before the door was closed and sealed forever, some coins and a telephone directory were placed inside. The subsidiary (and equally shitty) page on the NHM's suburban outpost does have the honor of containing one of my new favorite unintentionally hilarously bad images. ‑ Iridescent 12:30, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Rather on the nose, what. Headline: Wikipedia editors, pets and self-assessment included :) ——SerialNumber54129 12:37, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm assuming "Immature Russian Lap Dog" is called either Donald or Julian. ‑ Iridescent 12:40, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

That's "Arbcom asked to discuss an Rfa cratchat", surely?

Talking of the NHM ceilings article, I came across that a little while ago and I think it's a terrific read. It's one of those articles that makes me want to go and look at things I've previously overlooked. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:00, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

It's understandable that nobody notices them—who goes to a museum and looks at the ceiling?—but they really are worth seeing in the flesh. Photographs don't really do them justice because you can't capture the whole thing in a single image, and the shimmer effect of the gold leaf is lost in photos, but the way in which their appearance shifts depending on how far down you are and what angle you're at genuinely is extraordinary. Because creationists nowadays are such a risible bunch, it's easy to lose track that to these 19th-century curators, the sciences were a branch of theology, taxonomy was the highest of the sciences because by cataloguing the creation one was revealing the plan of God, and consequently scientific museums were quite literally equivalent to churches and cathedrals. (You do still occasionally see this mindset among physicists, but it's—ahem—extinct when it comes to the natural sciences.) It's just a shame that the NHM is an example of how not to run a museum; compared to the V&A and Science Museum next door, its displays are dreadfully dull and uninspired and have probably turned five generations of schoolchildren away from the natural sciences. ‑ Iridescent 13:12, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I think in general, most people fail to look up when going about their business. Here in Liverpool (and probably most places of any age), there's a mass of great architectural detail to be seen by those who lift their gaze above the shop fronts they pass every day. Some time this year, I intend to visit London to see Van Gogh at the Tate, and I'll make time for those ceilings if I can. And yes, the NHM has always seems stuffy. I still have a memory from childhood of it smelling musty - though I'm not sure if that's a manufactured memory based on the place looking like it should smell musty. On another subject, I visited the Lady Lever a little while ago - it's great being old enough for a free Merseytravel pass. I usually pay attention to the pre-Raphs, but I spent some time with Mr Etty on this visit after your writing on him. I'm still not sure what I think of him, but at least I don't overlook him now. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:24, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I like Etty very much, but I've certainly come to appreciate him. I came into it knowing him only for his reputation as a purveyor of proto-pornography (the whole thing started off as an attempt to write a FA on an unquestionably encyclopedic but unquestionably offensive topic onto the main page, in reaction to a Think Of The Children comment of Jimbo's), but the more I found out about him the more interesting a character he seemed. He's the painting equivalent of Silver Apples or Ken Russell, as someone who was born at just the wrong time for his abilities to be appreciated.

If your Merseytravel pass stretches as far as Ellesmere Port, I highly recommend the Boat Museum (sorry, "National Waterways Museum"). It's about a thousand times more interesting than you'd expect it to be, even if—like me—you have not the slightest interest in boats. (When visiting Lady Lever, make sure you go upstairs. That's where they hide all the stuff that wasn't part of Lever's collection but was bought by the trustees after his death—it includes some of the most interesting things in their collection.) ‑ Iridescent 12:17, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Hehe, I love the motivation for writing about Etty. The Lady Lever does have some interesting stuff tucked away, yes. I saw an engraving exhibition there last year, most of which I could take or leave, but they had a few industrial landscapes by Joseph Pennell which I thought were great - dark, dirty, depressing. The boat museum, yes, I've been nearby a few times and wondered. I'm no particluar lover of boats, but I do like industrial heritage stuff. My pass does reach there (and Chester too) so I'll definitely give it a go - thanks for the tip. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:51, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Vale Royal Abbey

@Boing! said Zebedee: if your pass takes you as far as Vale Royal Abbey, I'm on a scrounge for photo [1]  :) ——SerialNumber54129 10:18, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Chester and Ellesmere Port are the ends of the two train lines I can use in that direction, sorry. But I'll keep it in mind in case I'm ever nearby. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:29, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Chester or Ellesmere Port...as Edmund Blackadder might say, "the agony of choice"  :) ——SerialNumber54129 11:55, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Ellesmere Port is a much nicer place than the post-industrial wasteland you're probably picturing. As with their twin on the opposite side of the country, Hull, they've handled the collapse of heavy industry a lot more imaginatively than most of the rest of the North, by reinventing themselves as a place to visit but without the social cleansing of Salford, Leeds Dock or L1. Chester IMO has some pretty buildings but isn't the sort of place you visit twice. ‑ Iridescent 14:28, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Chester's very touristy and can be horribly crowded. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:48, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Regarding Vale Royal Abbey, ask at WT:GM; the project itself has slowed drastically in its activity since Eric and PoD's departures, but the former participants will still have it on their watchlist. Although Manchester isn't in Cheshire, statistically at least some of the Manchester people are going to either live in or have an interest in Northwich and its environs. Ddstretch, Espresso Addict or Peter I. Vardy might also be able to suggest someone, back from the days when WikiProject Cheshire was still active. ‑ Iridescent 13:32, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Iridescent  :) I've already trolled talked to Peter, but tbh I didn't think about the GM project—the one I referred to there was the Cheshire one. Bit of a choker it becoming defunct! Hope all's well! ——SerialNumber54129 14:27, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

If it's not a statement of the obvious, have you tried just asking Vale Royal Abbey to release a photo? Since VRA is now a commercial business, presumably they'd be willing to cooperate with something that would be free publicity for them with no downside (the usual reason businesses don't like releasing photos—that it allows other people to re-use it—wouldn't be an issue here). ‑ Iridescent 15:12, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Aah...yes, I wish it had been more obvious. You know, it never occurred to me to ask. Would it be invidious to me, when asking, to emphasise that it could end up on the main page, and not unconnected to Alexa rankings...etc? Why, though, if I can ask, doesn't the "usual reason businesses don't like releasing photos" apply? ——SerialNumber54129 15:49, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Normally, the reasons businesses don't like releasing photos are (1) it legally releases them for other people to use, which means they can appear on sites attacking that business, in the publicity of competitors, or in material with which the uploader doesn't want to be associated,* or (2) by releasing an image for free re-use they lose any potential revenue from commercially licensing that photo in future. A photo of the rubble of a nun's grave in Northwich isn't going to have any potential to turn up on www.valeroyalsucks.com or photoshopped into someone's nun-burial-porn collection, and there's no possibility that VRA is ever going to try to sell posters of it in future.
*The latter isn't an abstract concern; the implications of that "you irrevocably agree to release your contribution to share or adapt for any purpose" warning you see every time you click "publish changes" aren't always fully appreciated, and people use Wikipedia photos for all kinds of weird shit. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting/Archive 2008#Youth images for a particularly notorious case.

I wouldn't see any issue with explicitly saying "if you release this photo it will increase the likelihood of the article appearing on the sixth most viewed page on the internet", provided you don't give any impression that you're going to allow them any editorial control over the article. I personally wouldn't consider it any differently to the various Wikipedian in Residence schemes in which assorted institutions are told—in my opinion usually falsely—that paying for someone from Wikipedia to mooch around their building for a few months will benefit them by increasing coverage of their activities. ‑ Iridescent 16:13, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm assuming that valeroyalsucks.com would be swiftly replaced by valeroyalocracy.com in any case  :) Right; saying nothing about nun-burial-porn (talk about niche markets!), I'll give it a go. It needn't be much more than the gardener taking a phone out with him, I guess. Back to the important stuff, I'm sure that, with his "business" background, JW never intended to host such a site as "spanking art" :D ——SerialNumber54129 16:43, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

With weary inevitability, a quick google search on "nun burial porn" reveals that it is indeed a thing. ("Nun bdsm and buried alive This is our most extreme case file to date, folks!") ‑ Iridescent 16:58, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

"Having missed out on another business opportunity, Wikipedia was founded"  :) ——SerialNumber54129 17:05, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129: Re Vale Royal: Sorry, I have rather lost touch with the Cheshire project since moving to Scotland, aside from polishing its rusty portal from time to time. Does Geograph not have anything? You could try posting a request at the Geograph forums (though you seem to need a user id to do so) or direct messaging someone there. Espresso Addict (talk) 20:10, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I already checked Geograph, and can't find anything. There are a couple of photos on Flickr, but nothing I can see with a compatible licence (although in my experience Flickr users will usually change the licensing to CC if you ask nicely). ‑ Iridescent 20:37, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I can't see any either. I still appear to have a valid Geograph login, so if someone can explain exactly what's wanted, preferably with the precise grid ref, I'm willing to ask at the forums on their behalf. Espresso Addict (talk) 21:24, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

The Nun's Grave, in the grounds of Vale Royal Abbey; the exact location is 53°13'29.9"N 2°32'28.8"W. This or this is what it looks like. ‑ Iridescent 21:32, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Iridescent, for taking up the case  ;) and thanks to you, Espresso Addict if you can help  :) ——SerialNumber54129 13:01, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

If neither the Abbey staff nor the original Flickr uploader come through, you might want to flutter your eyelashes at RexxS. I'd imagine that next time WMUK hold any kind of event in Manchester or Liverpool he'll drive past Northwich on the way, plus he seems to know where everyone on Wikipedia lives. ‑ Iridescent 17:38, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Heh  :) thanks very much for all the advice. By hook or by crook, eh  :) ——SerialNumber54129 18:39, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

The nearest editor to Northwich that I can think of is probably Bazonka, who might find himself in the vicinity whiles he's out geocaching. Otherwise, if you remind me before the next Manchester meetup (scheduled for June), I'll make a point of doing the short detour to get a photo on my way. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 20:42, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Challenge accepted! I'll maybe pop by in the next couple of weeks. Bazonka (talk) 19:27, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Hammersmith High Line

Briefly, would you have any thoughts on the proposed Hammersmith High Line? See also here. Plenty of sources out there on the architectural competition (which is aimed at the general public it seems). Would have been tempted (if more time) to express interest just for the opportunity to visit the site before it is developed (I go past there on the bus every day). If it is developed. Hopefully not a Garden Bridge! Carcharoth (talk) 11:44, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I've got assorted books on the Hammersmith railways from when I was writing about the origins of the Metropolitan Line, but not sure where one would get anything on the proposed redevelopment as it will all be PR fluff and press releases at the moment. IMO both High Line proposals are ridiculous, and I very much doubt either will happen. The NYC High Line is an oasis of greenery in an area with few public parks, but the proposed Camden High Line would virtually parallel the towpath of the Regent's Canal, while the Hammersmith proposal will be within a 5 minute walk of Ravenscourt Park, Brook Green, Margravine Cemetery, Shepherd's Bush Common, Lillie Road Rec and all the open spaces along the Thames, all of which (particularly Ravenscourt Park) offer just as many opportunities for picnicking, jogging, feeding ducks etc without being sandwiched between office blocks and an active railway line. Plus, while the Camden proposal would run (more or less) between Google's head office and the forthcoming huge redevelopment of Camden Town and consequently they'd have a fighting chance of suckling some money from Google's corporate teats if the developers can sell Google on a privately-run park with its own security guards being somewhere their employees can drink their soy lattes in peace without being troubled by the peasants below, there's nothing equivalent in Hammersmith, so it would need to be privately-run along the lines of the NYC High Line, and I really can't imagine the Corbynite H&F ever voting to allow a privatised park. (The cynic in me says that this is an intentional blocking move by the road lobby to prevent the West London Tram using it for a spur to Hammersmith station.) ‑ Iridescent 12:14, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughts on this. Kind of made me lose interest! :-) On more topical news, I wonder how easy it will be to find out what happened to this? I suppose an inventory (a long one!) of what was lost will be published at some point? Carcharoth (talk) 12:55, 16 April 2019 (UTC) Apparently, lots was saved, as the roof burnt but the vault mostly remained intact. Carcharoth (talk) 15:12, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

My guess is that as with other similar situations (Reims Cathedral, York Minster, Berliner Dom, Malbork, Hampton Court, Versailles…) the damage will look bad from outside but will actually not be as bad as it looks. It takes a lot to bring down a stone building—witness how much of Elgin Cathedral has survived despite being roofless and abandoned for literally five centuries—and even if the vault does collapse it will fall into the empty space of the nave. (The new Coventry Cathedral was a political act by the CoE positioning themselves as facing the future, rather than a matter of necessity; enough of the old cathedral still stands even today that they could have it repaired in a couple of years.) While it's obviously too soon to say, I'll guess that other than the windows and some smoke damage any damage to the interior will be superficial. In terms of art and architecture, France has been lucky in that Notre Dame's significance derived primarily from its location rather than any great architectural, artistic or religious importance; the real action in Paris is the Sainte-Chapelle, and that was untouched (although I imagine they're double-checking their sprinklers today). ‑ Iridescent 15:29, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

From interior shots that have been shared, the big rose windows look to have escaped catastrophic damage, and the statuary around the high altar looks at least mostly intact. Several pulpits and other interior fixtures are visible also - also intact. Virgin of Paris, contrary to the "sourced" statement in our article, is not yet confirmed to have survived. (that source is a twitter tweet that says "Interior of the Notre Dame Cathedral still pretty much in tact. Pulpit, part of the Alter still in tact. Cross still standing" ... heh. Go go sourcing strictness!) The Guardian here has a good map lower in the article showing locations of things ... the Virgin statue and the statue of St Denis are unfortunatly close to the transept crossing where the steeple collapsed. Depending on where that memorial is located... it has a good chance of minimal damage.. looks like the worst is going to be in the nave where the transepts crossed. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:40, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

For some reason, when it comes to this topic the usual rules of quality and sourcing appear to have been suspended; a long-standing admin who should know better not only considered this to be of sufficient quality to put on the Main Page (complete with a blatant copyvio as the accompanying image), but is still arguing the case to defend his supervoting and complaining that his action was reversed. Sometimes I think The Rambling Man has a point; the Main Page has gone beyond merely being a laughing stock and has passed the point where we can even try to redeem it. ‑ Iridescent 16:04, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I should have pinged you as well! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 16:08, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

In the words of Sir Humphrey, "when you clean up a dunghill you're left with nothing, and the person who cleans it up usually finds themselves covered in dung". Trying to clean up ITN and DYK would be a Forth Bridge job, since as soon as you resolve one issue or get rid of one problem editor, another has appeared within minutes. ‑ Iridescent 16:28, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I remember that statue! There is a reason everyone was looking at it... (well, maybe they were paying attention to their guide books). Not actually too bothered about the tablet memorial I linked to a photo of, as they (or similar ones) have been damaged before and replaced/repaired. It's not an irreplaceable work of art. As an aside, I was pleased to see the tablets in Amiens Cathedral featured in the commemorative service they held there in August 2018, and mentioned in the official commemorative programme. I must use some of these sources I've been accumulating. Carcharoth (talk) 16:07, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

So... from the lead photo here it shows part of the Virgin of Paris statue on the very right hand edge... the statue is used quite often in medievalist works - it's a common cover image or interior image, not just in art books, but in a lot of French subjects. So it's rather well known outside of religious veneration. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:42, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I think you're overestimating the public; as with pretty much everything in Paris that has a crowd gathered around it, they're not interested in it as an emblem of medieval Gothic sculpture, they're interested in it because it's mentioned in The Da Vinci Code. ‑ Iridescent 18:04, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

And there I thought it was because of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame JoJo Eumerus mobile (talk) 14:31, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

You are so ignorant. Notre Dame has fullbacks, halfbacks, and a quarterback. No hunchback. Jeesh! EEng 17:48, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I still have a vivid memory of trying to explain to my family why wearing "Fighting Irish" sweatshirts in England in the early 1990s would mean every waitress spitting in their food. ‑ Iridescent 18:40, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, if you would insist on eating posh :p the Spider Eggs Cafe on Well St would have seen you alright... ——SerialNumber54129 18:48, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Fwiw, I’m relatively knowledgeable on these sort of things, have been to the cathedral multiple times, and couldn’t recognize it if it wasn’t pointed out to me (then again, I’ve always preferred Sacré-Cœur, and rushed through Notre Dame because it wasn’t ever high on my “nice churches to visit” list.) TonyBallioni (talk) 18:10, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Art history minor. And medievalist. To be quite honest, NDdP is mainly important as a symbol - it's not hugely innovative as far as gothicness goes. Gardner's Art through the Ages (8th ed.), which was standard when I did my minor, only highlights the north transept rose window, and the west facade. It notes that much of NDdP's interest derives from its combination of various elements of Gothic architecture over the years, rather than being innovative. The Virgin of Paris gets a prominent mention as an example of late Gothic sculpture. You rather get the impression that the author isn't that excited by NDdP.. they get much more gushing about Laon Cathedral...Ealdgyth - Talk 18:25, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

If you're doing a cathedral bucket list include Gloucester, Aachen, Cordoba, Norwich, Regensburg, Marseille, Tours and Liverpool, with Aberdeen, Milan, Barcelona (the old one, not Gaudi's monstrosity) and Southwell worth visiting if you're nearby but not worth the detour. The Rome/Vatican complex, St Paul's, Cologne and Canterbury are so overrun they're just Christian Disneylands IMO. As I may have mentioned once or twice I've never understood the appeal of Paris, which IMO is filthy, overpriced, and has a size-to-things-actually-worth-seeing ratio roughly on a par with Indianapolis. ‑ Iridescent 18:26, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Never been to Paris. I figure it's a three-day trip max for me - Eiffel, NDdP, and Arch for the "get it off the list of things folks will continually ask me about" and then the remaining two days in the Louvre. A quick trip to Versailles and I'm done. I LIKED Canterbury, but to me, it's a giant playground of history - every medieval tomb is someone interesting to me, and I spent ages getting tomb photos. I will admit I was more impressed with Lincoln, Ely, Winchester as far as the Gothics. Of course, Durham is a special place for me-Norman Romanesque is something I actually prefer to Gothic. I need to hit Normandy for a few weeks, but that's about it for my interest in France. I'd rather do the UK and Germany. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:34, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

If you're only doing one museum in Paris, make it the Orsay rather than the Louvre, as it's ten times nicer and fifty times less crowded. If you're going to the trouble of schlepping up to Durham, then on the way back do the five big Yorkshire gothic piles (Ripon, York, Leeds, Beverley, Hull); York is a tourist trap but is a beautiful town to visit, Leeds Minster isn't up to much but is across the river from the Royal Armouries which is a must-see if you're interested in medieval paraphernalia, while to riff on something I said one thread up I think Hull is one of the most underrated cities in the world; as well as Hull Minster itself, you also have Wilberforce House, the Ferens Art Gallery, Streetlife Museum of Transport and Hull Maritime Museum all within a two minute walk of each other. (If you're only going to visit one Gothic cathedral in England, it should be either Gloucester or Norwich.) ‑ Iridescent 18:44, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Get E. to come back via Cheshire with her camera ;) I think Musée Rodin was my favourite, but I was still at school so probably rather impressionable! ——SerialNumber54129 18:49, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Should I start a GoFundMe for "send Wikipedia editor to England so she can improve medieval articles"? Ealdgyth - Talk 19:31, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Plus, Hull has the best blue plaque in the country. ‑ Iridescent 18:56, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

We did Canterbury, Winchester, Worcester (for the remains of William II), Salisbury, Chichester, Lincoln, York, Ely, and Durham when we were there in 2010. Oh, and Hastings/Battle Abbey, several Roman ruins, a bit of Hadrian's Wall, and oodles of stuff in London. Oh, and Stonehenge, Avebury, several chalk figures, and some poking around in the Downs for Watership Down-fan-me. Oh, and the Rufus stone, of course. Corfe, Dover ... Next trip will not be taking elderly mother so ... will get abroad more. I did the jewels in the Tower for the "I did it" statement. I kinda felt like them the same way I feel about the Grand Canyon... I don't see the interest. There are tons more interesting canyons out west ... Black Canyon of the Gunnison for one, Zion/Canyonlands/Arches are much more interesting than the big hole in the ground. I was underwhelmed with the Norweigian fjords too - thought the ones in Chile were more spectatular. Don't get Hawaii as a destination either... talk about tourist traps! I like Berlin as a town... it's fun and exciting. Didn't like Prague that much, liked Krakow, was ... eh... on Warsaw. St Petersburg was ... interesting. I found much of the far east to be overcrowded, but liked South Korea. Japan .. yikes. I worried that I'd breathe wrong and offend someone... that place is too orderly. I've still got a bucket list a mile long, but a lot of the places are for the "history" rather than the "see it because I should" value - when we go back to England, I'm going to work harder on being able to get into places for wikipedia work - we've still got lots of places that need decent photos... wasn't able to try to wrangle credentials because mom was along. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:57, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Prague was great in 1990 1991 (oops). Hardly any tourists, even at St Vitus. :-) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:01, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Most things in England are still free (although a lot of the cathedrals have a new moneyraising wheeze of charging for photography permits). Given your interests I'd have thought Waltham Abbey, Winchester and Exeter are the obvious omissions from your list, while Reading is worth a visit for the exact replica of the Bayeux Tapestry which gets no publicity so you can actually study it in peace (it also has one of the world's only notable lamp-posts), and Newmarket for the horsey things. ‑ Iridescent 19:07, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Elderly mother had input on things too. We did 15 days - five days each based in Winchester, Canterbury, and London, before taking a cruise of Norway and the Baltic. We had a two day layover on the cruise in London where hubby and I rented a car and drove hell for leather to the north - that's where we did York, Durham, Lincoln, Ely, and Hadrian's Wall. But we couldn't drag mom too far, she wasn't up to long car trips and her idea of a vacation was to get a hotel room (or cruise ship cabin) and do a lot of room service. We did have the indescribable experience of listening to a children's choir from soemwhere in Yorkshire sing "Swing Low, Sweet Charriot" at York Minster... in that Yorkshire accent and sung entirely too fast (at least three times as fast as it should be sung... having spent enough time in the south ... I know what a good Negro spiritual should sound like and Yorkshire children's choirs do not come close.) Of course, the 50's twangy bluegrass/country on the Norwegian bird boating expedition was also a bit jarring... Ealdgyth - Talk 19:18, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" has a different significance in England, as the de facto English national anthem at sporting events. ‑ Iridescent 19:20, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Dunno if it's still there, but Liverpool Street Station used to have the "Sweet Chariot" opposite the east-side help point; rather amusing I thought  :) god knows how many Cola bottles he had to sell each week to pay the ground rent though. ——SerialNumber54129 20:10, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

This conversation has reminded me to get around to transferring a big stack of photos from the wreckage of Flickr over to Commons, including one of my favourite bizarre Renaissance graves, that of Elizabeth, daughter of Miles Smith (bishop). The Latin doggerel inscription translates as "A husband carved a marble statue of his wife / in the hope of gaining her immortality / but Christ was all she wanted in her life / so God decreed that she would mortal be". ‑ Iridescent 21:24, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

What has happened to Flickr? Is it going down soon?  — Amakuru (talk) 21:41, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@Amakuru It's already happened. Any account with more than 1000 uploads has been locked and the oldest photos deleted to bring the total down to 1000; the existing photos can still be viewed, but can't be edited and nothing more can be added unless you're willing to pony up $5.99 a month. At the moment you do still have the power to delete your uploads and if the number falls below 1000 the account is unlocked again, so what I've been doing is annoying Commons by batch-uploading anything I think might conceivably have some encyclopedic value and deleting it from Flickr, so as to bring the total below the magic number. (Flickr is invaluable for when you've taken 100+ photos of the same thing, as Commons's interface is a piece of garbage for anything other than uploading one photo at a time, but you can get round it by batch-uploading to Flickr and then using Flickr2Commons to import the whole album.) Because everyone else is also deleting their uploads to get their account below the 1000 mark or having Flickr delete it for them, almost everything that hasn't already been imported to Commons is either already lost or is going to be lost very soon. ‑ Iridescent 22:00, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Re: Rome, I prefer the Lateran Basilica to St. Peter’s (as I’m sure you know but for the benefit of readers who may not, the Lateran is the actual cathedral of Rome, not St. Peter’s)

Re: Ealdgyth, yeah, in undergrad I did a minor that was basically my taking one professor’s medieval/early Spanish mysticism PhD seminar series. There was a fair amount of medieval art/architecture, but the focus was less on the artistic merits as much as the ideas that were trying to be described and the focus on human suffering. All of which reminded me: I’m actually looking forward to getting back into content work here once the program I’m in is done... non-existent for the last 12 months because of RL reasons, but I’ll likely actually enjoy writing in my spare time again soon... TonyBallioni (talk) 18:36, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Amazing - not even any obvious smoke damage, presumably it was all carried upwards. Strangely, Commons seems only to have one photo of it, and that not very hi-res. Johnbod (talk) 17:55, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Not that surprising—France doesn't have FoP, and the French authorities are notorious for hassling the WMF over anything they see as showing anything that could possibly be considered still in copyright, such as a recent building in the background (and woe betide anyone who takes a photo in which the Eiffel Tower illuminations are visible). Our own Freedom of panorama article specifically mentions that our articles on French architecture are woefully illustrated because of this. ‑ Iridescent 18:02, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Degradation of article histories

Should really take this grumble elsewhere (probably someone already raised it, though have asked here and it got fixed), but was annoyed to recently find that my links to previous versions of articles that I have worked on don't really work because the rendering is now broken. An example is at Talk:Frink Medal where I link to this version of an article, to be told "The unnamed parameter 2= is no longer supported. Please see the documentation for {{columns-list}}." That's really useful. Will article histories eventually degrade completely (the issue with deleted images and changed templates transcluding as they are now rather than as they were is already known, but this looks slightly different)? Having said that, am trying to think where it is essential that article histories are not messed up. Carcharoth (talk) 11:44, 17 April 2019 (UTC) The irony is that it is difficult to now see, without a screenshot, what the problem was! Carcharoth (talk) 11:58, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I assume this is something to do with the templates being changed, so when the old version of the page tries to transclude the templates the paramaters on that version are no longer valid. Short of substing every template, I'm not sure what could be done to address it. (Where it does become an issue is with the main page, where it sometimes is necessary to know exactly what it looked at on a particular occasion.) The Internet Archive versions of the page might be able to show you exactly what the page looked at at any given time. ‑ Iridescent 15:33, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

The Internet Archive would show how the page looked as it stores the rendered html, not the wikitext, so subsequent changes to templates won't affect that. The only problem is that there are some gaps in the daily coverage of the Main Page that's stored there, although it's only patchy pre-2010. --RexxS (talk) 16:25, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Double notification

I got two notifications about [2] because I was linked in both edit and edit summary. One of them is sufficient. PrimeHunter (talk) 08:26, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Oh for heaven's sake, I thought the WMF had fixed that bug months ago. Can some TPW with phab access poke the devs? ‑ Iridescent 08:28, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Raised it at WP:VPT#Double notifications. ‑ Iridescent 09:04, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Question

Forgive my ignorance but can you tell if it would be disruptive to take a list like this, go through it one by one, assess the pages (mostly as stubs), and tag them with appropriate WikiProject templates on their talk pages? I think I hit upon some of the most orphaned pages on WP, pages that have little to no connections to any other page or even a WikiProject. They are basically lost in the ether.

If I ignore all hard & soft redirects, disambiguations, set index pages, and unsynchronized redirects, would it not be beneficial to the project to create the rest of the talk pages that corresponds to a stub article.

Should I start a discussion about this before I try to do that? --- Coffeeandcrumbs 05:18, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)That's a long list. I'm not clear on your point, if there is no connection between an article to a WikiProject, what template will you tag their talk pages with? I'm not sure who you should discuss this with if it's not a WikiProject. Think you could focus on one area? It's usually easier to start with something very specific and focused. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:37, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

There is a connection to a WikiProject but it has not been tagged with a template. I meant to say not linked/templated. Here is an example: Keezha Manakudy. I created a talk page as an example. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 06:12, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Liz: Just for some context my question was meant to understand a comment here. I just want to know if Iridescent's objection was just to the category or the creation of talk pages altogether. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 06:39, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Judging by your would it not be beneficial to the project to create the rest of the talk pages query, you seem to be under the misapprehension that it's desirable that every article has a corresponding talk page. In general, consensus is that it's bad practice to create the talk page unless there's a specific reason to create the talkpage. To quote Template:Talk header/doc, it changes the "discussion" tab at the top of the page from a "redlink" into a "bluelink", which may mislead people into thinking there is discussion.

If there's direct relevance to a WikiProject and you're not just trying to shoehorn it in to give yourself a pretext for creating talk pages, then it's fine to create a talk page with just a WikiProject banner. Bear in mind that the remits of many projects are narrower than you think (e.g. most articles on British topics don't fall into the remit of Wikipedia:WikiProject United Kingdom), and overenthusiastic WikiProject tagging is just going to annoy people as it will mean a whole batch of irrelevant content popping up in that project's article alerts.

In these circumstances you certainly shouldn't ever be using the {{talk header}} template, as you just did on your example of Talk:Keezha Manakudy. As per that template's instructions, that template is only to be used for talk pages that are frequently misused, that attract frequent or perpetual debate, articles often subject to controversy, and highly-visible or popular topics. If there's never been a previous comment on the talk page then by definition it can't fall into any of those categories.

As per WP:TALK#Create, creating blank talkpages just to turn the red "Talk" link blue, or creating talkpages with just the {{talk header}} template, would just be treated as straightforward disruptive editing. ‑ Iridescent 07:27, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. Sorry for wasting your time. I will move on to something else that is productive. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 07:32, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Don't feel you're wasting time tagging talk pages with relevant wikiproject tags; that can be very helpful as it gives the projects a better idea of which projects fall into their scope, and also (at least in theory—I don't think it ever actually happens in practice) directs readers to a place they can go to ask queries and consequently prevents them asking questions on talk pages that will never be read or answered. It's only creating pages for the sake of creating pages that's disruptive. ‑ Iridescent 07:56, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I am less discouraged by this. I am still going to relegate it to the back of my mind for more consideration and heed your caution.--- Coffeeandcrumbs 22:11, 19 April 2019 (UTC) Here is a much more finetuned version of my list.--- Coffeeandcrumbs 22:11, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, especially for giving me a reason (not only a feeling of inappropriateness) to remove a talk page header (which I have done already). I give "my" articles a talk page, often needed when attributing a translation, and otherwise wanted to alert projects, such as Biography, Germany and Opera. Project Biography often does it when I forget. I also include projects that want to count success, such as {{WPEUR10k}} and {{WIR 2019}}, to make some happy ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:47, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Whenever you see a template that doesn't seem appropriate, it's always worth checking that template's instructions. Whatever the template, there's a very good chance that (1) the reason it looks inappropriate is that it's being used for a purpose for which it was never intended, and (2) in the 18 years of Wikipedia's existence, there's been a discussion at some point to determine what the appropriate use of the template is. ‑ Iridescent 07:56, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I was going to point out that WP:WikiProject Biography talk page tags are something that gets added fairly often, sometimes because that helps flag it up as a BLP or not. That got me looking back many years, and I found: User:Kingbotk/Plugin and that the bot was blocked in 2017 having last edited in 2008. Glad to see Kingboyk is still around and editing. Carcharoth (talk) 14:22, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

• I suspect that adding stub ratings and a project, although unobjectionable, will have no effect on anything - few project stub categories get examined these days I think. I rather doubt that "overenthusiastic WikiProject tagging is just going to annoy people" - it's more likely to go completely unseen. Johnbod (talk) 14:39, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm possibly sourer than most when it comes to the topic as I have first-hand experience—if you look at my edit count, the huge spike in talk-page edits in 2009 is my using AWB to go through every single talkpage that was tagged as falling under Wikiproject London and cleaning them up. Even script-assisted—where it's just a case of clicking "save" or "skip"—the experience was painful, and this was back in the day when Wikipedia was a third of the size it is now.

Although it's true that few project stub categories get examined in detail per se these days, that doesn't mean they don't have an impact, as the raw totals in each category are used to generate the "how many articles do we have on this topic?" figures, which in turn drive all the "Wikipedia has more coverage of Pokemon than it does of Belgium!" scare stories. ‑ Iridescent 15:07, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Well as you probably know, the Visual Arts one is the one I look at, when I look at any, and it is not at all hard to find artworks that are tagged for WProj London or a national project, but not for the VA project - many, if not most, heavy taggers seem to have a complete blind spot for the VA project. And archaeology editors have a long tradition of refusing to see their stuff as ever having anything to do with art, or indeeed anything outside archaeology. I'd guess the VA figures are only about 60-75% of what they should be. Johnbod (talk) 15:16, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Membership of UK rail

Hi - re [3] - it wasn't a request, just a suggestion I made that we should clear up members who are no longer active on Wikipedia at all. Obviously this doesn't apply to you. — O Still Small Voice of Clam 14:09, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Your post prodded me into removing myself, but regardless of whether there's an agreement to perform a mass cull I don't see any point in keeping myself listed as a member. With the exception of Droxford railway station—which is sui generis—I haven't written anything railway related since Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway eight years ago. To be honest, while the talk page occasionally still serves a useful purpose for people to ask questions and agree on standards, other than that the project is moribund. ‑ Iridescent 15:51, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Apostrophe in Duke's Meadows

I noticed you just removed the apostrophe and I wondered why. I looked at current and older Ordnance Survey Maps and also the Geographia A-Z maps and they all include the apostrophe. I assume you must have some reason for deciding to remove the apostrophe, so rather than simply undoing your edit I thought I would ask here. Dubmill (talk) 22:15, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Entrance to the park. Note the lack of apostrophes.

The emblem of the park calls it "Dukes Meadows" without an apostrophe, Hounslow Council who own the park call it "Dukes Meadows" without an apostrophe, the Dukes Meadows Masterplan for renovating the park calls it "Dukes Meadows" without an apostrophe, the Greater London Authority who ultimately control the park call it "Dukes Meadows" without an apostrophe, the Dukes Meadows Trust who operate the park call it "Dukes Meadows" without an apostrophe, Dukes Meadows Golf & Tennis who run the sporting facilities call it "Dukes Meadows" without an apostrophe, their Green Flag award was won by "Dukes Meadows" without an apostrophe, the Dukes Meadows Park Users Association and Chiswick Residents Association who use the park call it "Dukes Meadows" without an apostrophe, the Chiswick Herald calls it "Dukes Meadows" without an apostrophe, the London Parks and Gardens Trust call it "Dukes Meadows" without an apostrophe, the marker post at the entrance to Dukes Meadows calls it "Dukes Meadows" without an apostrophe and the sign at the entrance to Dukes Hollow calls it "Dukes Hollow" without an apostrophe.

Indeed, our own Dukes Meadows article is at the correct title, and only had that apostrophe in the text because someone added it to the text (without changing the title) in 2014, ironically in the same edit in which they added a photo of a sign that clearly reads "Dukes Meadows", and nobody noticed until I did yesterday (both the sources used in that article, needless to say, use the correct name "Dukes Meadows"). Ordnance Survey maps, as with all other big mapping projects, are riddled with errors (some genuine mistakes, some archaisms which have never been updated, and some copyright traps), and don't necessarily reflect reality. ‑ Iridescent 05:24, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. I think it used to have an apostrophe, and the Ordnance Survey and other maps still reflect this (rather than it being an error), but clearly it has fallen out of use and it is too late to turn back the tide. I should have checked the sources you mention before bringing this up, sorry. Dubmill (talk) 09:34, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

No problem. I'd be surprised if it used to have an apostrophe, and the Ordnance Survey and other maps still reflect this were true; it's named in honour of the Dukes of Devonshire, it's not a set of meadows that used to belong to someone named Duke. Because it contains the finishing post for the Boat Race, it gets more coverage than your typical West London park, even if that coverage is concentrated on a single day each year. Commons has an absolute shedload of photos—including the signs at all three entrances—at c:Category:Dukes Meadows.

Don't treat the Ordnance Survey as a reliable source for human geography, unless it's for something utterly uncontentious like "the A12 ends in Lowestoft". They're fine for physical geography such as the height of hills, but when it comes to place names—let alone such things as house numbering—they can be woefully inaccurate, and any square that covers a densely-populated area can be pretty much guaranteed to contain at least one mislabelled place, building that was actually demolished in 1953, or field of trees shown where a housing estate has stood for the past 20 years. ‑ Iridescent 15:40, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, I searched for "Duke's Meadows" (incl. apostrophe) on Google Books and found a lot of older results (e.g. A. G. Linney's Lure and Lore of London's River) that include the apostrophe. I've seen some sources as well referring to 'the Duke's Meadows' (e.g. The Builder, 1923, The Electrical Journal, 1927 ), where it would seem to mean the current Duke at any given time. As the WP article states, he owned them until 1923. I agree that the OS maps contain many errors but still believe that in this case they wrote it with an apostrophe because that was how it was more usually written in those days. (I say more usually, because the version with no apostrophe does appear in some sources from that time, but not so many.) Dubmill (talk) 17:27, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Non-natural death

Could you please provide a / the reason(s) why you deleted this article per WP:AFTERDELETE

thanks, Sederecarinae (talk) 19:03, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

please see - WP:AFTERDELETE Depending on the reason why the page was deleted, there are also several ways you can try to have it undeleted by administrators. In every case, you should first make sure that the page is appropriate for inclusion (c.f. Manner of death) in Wikipedia and, if it is an article, that its content is based on reliable source (c.f. User:Sederecarinae/_human_made_cause_of_death#Sources) Sederecarinae (talk) 19:07, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

User:Sederecarinae/_human_made_cause_of_death#Sources includes https://crvsgateway.info/External-causes-of-death~340 "A common problem in many countries is that deaths due to external or unnatural causes" c.f. "Death by natural causes is death resulting of an illness or an internal malfunction of the body not directly caused by external forces, in contrast to non-natural death"

Sederecarinae (talk) 19:11, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I deleted it because it's the job of the closing admin to assess consensus, and with the exception of your incoherent ramblings like I am a ignoramus mouse in a hole, and will not bother any of you again > . < that is my hole and if you look closely you will see my small mouse like face within that hole looking out., every single person commenting at that discussion supported deletion. If you want to challenge my closure go to WP:DRV and follow the instructions there, but I'll warn you there's zero chance that your page will be restored; it was clearly an indiscriminate mess of random facts with no obvious inclusion criteria and some ridiculous howlers like R. J. Rummel, a professor at University of Hawaii, has identified nine separate periods of killing in the Soviet history producing a total of 143,822,000 deaths within the populace of the USSR, the claim that only one person has been decapitated by helicopter blades, the apparent belief that only the US and Saudi Arabia conduct executions… ‑ Iridescent 19:15, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

List of causes of death by rate contains too many causes to include statistical information for all years, there is a recognised difference between causes "natural and unnatural". List of causes of death by rate includes information of natural and unnatural causes; looking at G Intentional injuries (suicide, violence, war, etc.) the information on Intentional injuries, these articles Homicide#Global_statistics, List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate, contain information on the specific subject homicide - all these articles belong to the general subject "Non-natural death", Death by natural causes exists, why "Non-natural causes" shouldn't exist. What is the reason. Because you must have simply forgot to look at my discussion of the article to have simply deleted. I'm sure non-natural death is not a childish snowball fight, do you think it is fun? why you think the analogy is appropriate to this particular deletion discussion? You can handle cold things, but you can't discern the nature of the argument on the subject of death, that is what I feel about my detractors and yourself I want you to understand that. Sederecarinae (talk) 19:27, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

You are actually stating that my personal failings with respect to my inclusion of a jokey addition to the debate, expressing my frustration with the debate, is the same as a legitimate reason for deletion. The article exists, I am the creator and contributor, I made a stupid and irrelevant contribution to the discussion, therefore you deleted the article, that is your logic, am I correct in thinking this is true of you or I'm infact just imaging you deleted the article because I must be stupid, so therefore thousands of others cannot contribute the article instead is that all - given the sources and the existence of Death by natural causes my behaviour and R. J. Rummel (and why you haven't nominated this article to deletion if he is so ridiculous that the article shouldn't exist?) Sederecarinae (talk) 19:32, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

you don't like what I'm writing now so therefore there is no reason to like the article is that all? Sederecarinae (talk) 19:35, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Enough. Sorry to be blunt, and I know it's annoying to put work into something and have it rejected, but Wikipedia operates on consensus, not on what you personally want. Your page was utterly indiscriminate and riddled with errors. In the (impossible, but for the sake of argument) event that you had managed to tabulate a full table of death other than by means of natural causes for all 195 countries in the world it would again be inappropriate as hopelessly large. Despite appearances Wikipedia actually has a fairly tight remit and is not a directory of everything, and some topics just aren't appropriate to be hosted here.

Hectoring me is not going to get your page undeleted, since given the unanimous consensus it would be supervoting for it to be closed as anything other than delete. If you genuinely feel my closure was in error then I'll repeat that going to Wikipedia:Deletion review and following the instructions there is the way to go, but be warned that there's only one way a review of my closure will end. ‑ Iridescent 19:37, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

try opening this link > https://www.google.com/search?q=random+number+generation&oq=random+number+generation&aqs=chrome..69i57.5047j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 that is how random the article was, look at:

https://crvsgateway.info/External-causes-of-death~340 "A common problem in many countries is that deaths due to external or unnatural causes" c.f. "Death by natural causes is death resulting of an illness or an internal malfunction of the body not directly caused by external forces, in contrast to non-natural death"

compared to:

an indiscriminate mess of random facts with no obvious inclusion criteria

you understand what I'm trying to indicate to you ?

no obvious inclusion criteria > "deaths due to external or unnatural causes" i.e. non-natural causes c.f. "Death by natural causes is death resulting of an illness or an internal malfunction of the body not directly caused by external forces"

Sederecarinae (talk) 19:42, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

natural death = internal causes, non-natural death = external causes, therefore external causes is the criteria Sederecarinae (talk) 19:44, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Again, enough. Wikipedia doesn't operate either on the basis of my opinion or the basis of your opinion, it operates on the basis of consensus. Thirteen people supporting deletion and nobody but you supporting keep is an absolutely clear consensus. ‑ Iridescent 19:46, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Consensus yes, but WP:CON "Decisions on Wikipedia are primarily made by consensus, which is accepted as the best method to achieve Wikipedia's goals, i.e., the five pillars." is the purpose of consensus, consensus is the slave of the goal of achieving the five pillars.

it was clearly an indiscriminate mess of random facts (i) with no obvious inclusion criteria(ii) and some ridiculous howlers(iii) R. J. Rummel, a professor at University of Hawaii, has identified nine separate periods of killing in the Soviet history producing a total of 143,822,000 deaths within the populace of the USSR, the claim that(iiii) only one person has been decapitated by helicopter blades, the apparent belief that(v) only the US and Saudi Arabia conduct executions

(i) - the headings were in alphabetical order; is not random - the article was still developing, and I hadn't included all the possible sources, it appeared random, but I hadn't drafted the article to the extent that all possible sources might be included before publishing, it would therefore appear random - the headings were chosen from the criteria (ii) - non-natural death is death caused by external forces, using a reliable source, (iii) if you look at vthe source you see the numbers in the chapter page for deaths, I understanjd the number seems ridiculous, but are you actually in a position, as a wikipedia editor, to disagree with the published work of a university professor?, (iiii) the wording of that entry to accidental deaths was not meant to indicate there has only been one death, the sentence begins examples of include, was meant to indicate there is such a thing as, not this is the only example of. (v) I hadn't included all information on this aspect of the article, I don't believe that these countries have an execution policy - you could simply have removed the parts that were unacceptable and maintained the article, why delete? The consensus to delete > the original nomination criteria was based on a different version than the version that was deleted - the version at the time of nomination was worthy of criticism, but I made changes to the article, so the criticisms were not applicable, and the nominating editor didn';t even understand the article look at the nomination "a bucket list" hasn't actually understand what a bucket list is, the nominator included non-valid reason. Sederecarinae (talk) 20:08, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Consensus is Wikipedia's fundamental model for editorial decision making as the best method to achieve Wikipedia's goals, that 13 editors decided deletion does not indicate any of the editors were correct. If there were 100 people somewhere in the world today who would choose to keep the article, but were unable to contribute to the discussion, then there would be 100 opinions to the contrary of deletion; that 13 editors decided the same thing could indicate they all shared the same flaw, or error of judgement, or failing to understand - I want to try and create a better version in draft and have it subject to review, but this isn't possible because by deletion you have outright denied the possibility of re-inclusion (please see Wikipedia:RADP and the reliableness of the source(s), irrespective of the criticisms of the content, that the title might exist, is now impossible, this seems unacceptable. Sederecarinae (talk) 20:17, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Er, have you considered the possibility that you are wrong? The books of that university professor do not seem to mention the number the article gave at all, for one thing. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:20, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus:The chapter title shows different numbers I added them together Sederecarinae (talk) 20:23, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@Iridescent: Your decision is not by policy Wikipedia:Snowball clause > "This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Is not thoroughly vetted by the community a principle of consensus?" Sederecarinae (talk) 20:23, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Snowball_clause#A_cautionary_note This is because discussions are not votes; it is important to be reasonably sure that there is little or no chance of accidentally excluding significant input or perspectives, or changing the weight of different views, if closed early. Especially, closers should beware of interpreting "early pile on" as necessarily showing how a discussion will end up. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Polling_is_not_a_substitute_for_discussion Sederecarinae (talk) 20:28, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

For the third time enough; if you want to challenge this take it to WP:DRV as you've been repeatedly told. Being banned from French Wikipedia doesn't mean you just hop over to another project and pick up where you left off. If you want to participate here, follow our rules. ‑ Iridescent 20:30, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Just as a mention to Iridescent, I would prefer you to not respond to my comments if you arrive at an answer to my queries and challenges, because I see a different position and you do not see my position, I would prefer if we both disengaged from the discussion for a day or two perhaps for you to think to the reasons, simply because the extra time allows more time for cognitive processing, instead of attempting to force perhaps an answer, which might cause error of judgement, because you think I expect you to respond ASAP, just as a precaution, that the time is made available to you. If you don't respond in the 24 hours, I'll go to a different process of review or appeal, or perhaps to work on the draft and if possible to make a version which is more acceptable to yourself, since it is you who is now the editor who must assent to re-creation. Thanks Sederecarinae (talk) 20:38, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

For the fourth time, if you want to complain about my closure then go to WP:DRV and follow the instructions there. Now get off my talkpage; any further posts from you here will be reverted. ‑ Iridescent 20:39, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Not that Iridescent needs much help, but maybe hearing it from two people will help: he doesn't want to discuss this here with you anymore, and if you disagree with him, take it to WP:DRV, though the outcome there is going to be endorsing his deletion as the obviously correct outcome.

Also, Iri, as an aside, I really like the new checkuser cat in the photo lineup. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:42, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I imagine you can guess what prompted it. ‑ Iridescent 21:37, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I'll admit though that I am not sure what File:Rossetti Annunciation.jpg is a reference to. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:46, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus that one went up back in WP:OBOD days when someone leaving a message on your talkpage resulted in your having an enormous orange bar across your screen until you did something about it, and expressed my opinion at being unable to do anything for more than five minutes without

You have new messages (last change).

annoying me. Traditionally in iconography of the Annunciation Mary looks ecstatic at the presence of Gabriel, but in Rossetti's Ecce Ancilla Domini she has a (considerably more plausible) "who are you and what are you doing in my house?" expression. ‑ Iridescent 20:57, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

• • Look what Sederecarinae is up to now. -_-. You're an admin, can you stop this display of oblivious ineptitude? Cheers, Reyk _YO! 10:03, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
    • Oh for heaven's sake. I won't take action myself as given the above thread I'd be WP:INVOLVED, but any passing admin do feel free (or raise it at ANI). Given the history—not just the siteban from fr-wiki but the goofing around on Meta as well as the drivel like this here—AGF is in extremely short supply. ‑ Iridescent 15:05, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

• • • • No problem, I can completely understand why you don't want to get involved. Thanks for your attention. Reyk _YO! 18:14, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you

I wasn't sure anyone would see this plea before it archived and that needed to be put out to pasture. StarM 02:08, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I hadn't actually seen that; I noticed the AfD owing to the creator's mass canvassing, and it was obvious it needed to be closed despite technically having two more days to run. ‑ Iridescent 06:29, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Whee accidental alignment then. Looks like Sandstein spared all of us in general as s/he is now blocked. StarM 01:34, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Curious question for you and stalkers

I think you’re familiar with the Clarice Phelps AfD (tl;dr lab techs aren’t notable regardless of demographics.) but out of curiosity other than Jimmy making some random African meat market notable by writing about it, have we ever had a case where the author of the article succeeds in making the subject notable because they got deleted from Wikipedia? This could be an interesting case study. It’s an op-ed by the Wikipedia author (not outing as her identity is on her userpage). It wouldn’t fail traditional independence tests, but I’m not sure writing an op-ed complaining that your article gets deleted counts even if it’s in one of the two main national papers in the US is what the GNG was thinking of... TonyBallioni (talk) 13:42, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I, personally, think that an article cannot be considered notable if the only coverage it has received is about the article itself, and not the article's subject. An article about a chess website should not be considered notable if the only independent coverage is on the chess website's page on Wikipedia, not the website itself. In other words, an article cannot make itself meet the GNG guideline, it must meet GNG before it is created. That's my 2 cents, anyway. Jeb³_{Talk at me here} 13:48, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't know if that WaPo column contributes to the notability of Clarice Phelps, but it does contribute to the notability of Tony Ballioni. :-) However, it's not just that Washington Post column. Have you seen this from yesterday: "A deleted Wikipedia page speaks volumes about its biggest problem"? Reprinted by Fast Company and The Wire. Phelps was also mentioned in this podcast from two days ago. We almost have sigcov here. This may be the first person notable for having their bio deleted from Wikipedia–which would be a heck of a meta moment. By the way, one last thing: can we please stop calling her a "lab tech"? She is the program director for two isotope programs. Don't forget that of all the thousands of scientists who have ever worked on discovering chemical elements, we only know of one black woman: Clarice Phelps. It's why people are freaking out so much about her bio being deleted, because on Wikipedia, this isn't considered important enough in and of itself. We can argue about whether or not that should be important, but let's not demean her and her accomplishments along the way. I imagine being called a "lab tech" when you're actually a "program director" is the kind of thing black women have to put up with that white men like me don't. Leviv ich 14:40, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Based on my experience, program manager (not director) is usually a low-level administrative title. Your insinuation of racism here is unwarranted. I would call anyone with that title a lab tech (though, depending on the institution the actual lab work may be minimal, so I suppose I could better clarify by saying “low-level positions at research laboratories that do not require anything above a B.Sc. are not notable.”) TonyBallioni (talk) 14:50, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm not insinuating you're racist, or sexist, just that by using this language you're being tone-deaf. I'm saying don't call her a "lab tech" based on your experience or your assumptions. Even if you don't intend to be insulting, it comes across (at least to me) as being insulting. Call her "program manager" because that's the title she is given by her employer. Or call her "scientist". This is exactly like how the media calls you a "moderator" when you're not a moderator, and while journalists might assume based on their experience that website administrators are moderators, that assumption would be wrong when it comes to Wikipedia, and the word "moderator" carries implications that are inaccurate when applied to Wikipedia administrators. You're an administrator, not a moderator; she's a program manager, not a lab tech. Respect a person by respecting their title. Leviv ich 15:08, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Glazing hygienist? - Sitush (talk) 16:56, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

We have a "Talent and Culture Administrator", which I think is Wikispeak for "Personnel". ‑ Iridescent 17:05, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree that sadly Clarice isn't notable. I say 'sadly' because she's a fabulous role model for both girls and ethnic minorities and as a result, her story should be far more widely covered in the mainstream press. We have, by default thanks to the NPROF SNG, a wide array of people who have done very little and get an article on Wikipedia by virtue of promotion and title, whereas Clarice is someone it would be really nice to have an article on as a result of her achievements and attainment. Nick (talk) 14:58, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Back to the original question, there's no instance I'm aware of in which the coverage of the deletion of the article has been deemed to make the topic notable in Wikipedia terms, but I can see the theoretical potential for it happening. There have certainly been incidents on Wikipedia which have received enough coverage in the mainstream press to make them noteworthy in their own right (Hillsborough Wikipedia posts, United States Congressional staff edits to Wikipedia, Essjay controversy, Jar'Edo Wens hoax, Seigenthaler incident…). ‑ Iridescent 14:59, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I guess the article wouldn't be Clarice Phelps, but rather Deletion of the Wikipedia article on Clarice Phelps... ——SerialNumber54129 15:07, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I always find Wikipedia coverage of Wikipedia to be interesting. I suspect I’ll be getting a lot of moral outrage over it on my talk page, thanks to the blogging over the deletion, which is why I was curious as to if it had happened before outside of Mzoli's (which IIRC, is now mainly known for Jimmy writing about it.) TonyBallioni (talk) 15:06, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

The topic itself would only become notable beyond the context of the deletion if it prompted reliable sources to start covering the subject itself independently. If a few newspapers decided to go and run full page interviews with Clarice on the back of the incident then she'd start to creep back into GNG territory. Outside of that it could only ever be the deletion incident itself that was notable, not the subject. (And I think we rightly shy away from such things without very good reasons per WP:NAVEL  — Amakuru (talk) 15:18, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I see the article has been recreated as Clarice E. Phelps having been accepted from draft by DGG and almost immediately tagged {{db-repost}}. I can't bring myself to delete it, as I don't fancy being in the news as a clod-hopping deletionist, but somebody will surely do it. I suspect not RHaworth, though had he not had a grilling at ANI this past week, he probably would have. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 22:51, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I strongly and repeatedly opposed the original article, which made entirely unjustifed claims fror a BLP, and was therefore in effect promotional, besides being of borderline notability . I have been consistently arguing against the inclusion of 21st century and late 20th century people from underrepresented groupds that are of lower notability than than our usual standard, because of publicity campaigns for them --publicity campaigns sometimes, as here, undertaken by employers who are trying to prove they are no longer prejudiced. But sufficient publicity does give notability, regardless of the reason for it, although this is an argument I would make only as in exceptional cases--I've almost always argued against it.

I was notified that it had been rewritten as a draft, making minimal claims. I checked it and it was still unacceptable , because it claimed she was one of the co-discoverers of the elment, which she was not. I thought that she had gotten sufficient attention that it would be a good compromise to have an appropriate article, so I rewrote the claims,and added a little about local activities to give some context for the coverage. I then accepted it.

Even if one still thinks her un-notable, this is still not a db-repost, because it is the first version that is accurate with respect to BLP. I will almost certainly defend it at Deletion Review, or , I would suggest more appropriately at another AfD. I don't like to defend notability as IAR, but if necessary I will use that argument, that havinga proper article is an acceptable compromise.

As is obvious, I have been arguing on both sides of the question. Unlike many of the others in these discussions, I think it well to solve disputes, especially disputes that are in actuality at a borderline between two positions, by compromise. Consensus does not mean finding which of two opposite positions more people agree with. Consensus means finding a position that everyone can at least tolerate. That means that most difficult problems will reach a solution that completely satisfies nobody. But we're here to write and improve articles, not argue about them; and even when we do need to argue, our arguments about them should be aimed at finding tenable solutions, not winning a position. I'm not sure everyone agrees with that. But if I wanted to argue for a deeply held conviction, I'd discuss politics, not WP articles. DGG ( talk ) 23:14, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

DGG, since this seems to be the centralized discussion of it, having looked at the version Amakuru deleted, my rough view is that it is worse than the original creation, and that someone recreating an article that has less of a chance of passing AfD on the merits than the original article does still qualify for G4 (i.e. it makes no sense for us to have another discussion when the article in question isn't nearly as well written as developed as the original version.)

I think something else that is worth discussing from an ethical standpoint beyond the Wikipedia policy is how we treat the creation and deletion of articles like this. The unfortunate reality is that Ms. Phelps is now known more for the fact that we deleted her than for any of her professional accomplishments. This is a travesty caused by the attempt to get her in Wikipedia that is unfair to her. I think to an extent the points made in the arb case about it are true: having a biography on here is not always a blessing, and the fact that it would inevitably be dominated by the deletion controversy here is almost certainly a BLP violation waiting to happen.

I very seriously believe that we have a moral duty not to let an early career individual be defined by the fact that one of our editors has decided to make her an apparently unwilling mascot of some internal Wikipedia squabble. If the situation changes, yes, then we certainly should have an article, but right now, where the only major change is that the original author has written an op-ed about it (and some other non-mainstream sourcing, which I suspect can also be traced to someone involved in the on-wiki dispute), I don't think we can really justify doing that to the person just to come to a on-wiki truce about it. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:40, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

This was different from the original article in one key respect: the basic statement of what she has done is accurate. The original article said she " is the first African-American woman to identify an element", and the basic objection to that version of the article was that she did not do that. An ORNL press release can be read as asserting she did, but it is not borne out by the published facts in the scientific reports., which are of much higher authority. That is why I noticed the article in the first place: to be the first person of a particular group to have p discovered an element is an extraordinary claim, and it requires extremely reliable sources. That is the basic BLP matter; it is similar to some other exaggerated claims for the importance of work done by beginning scientists here, and I saw this as a particularly easily disproven example, and as a warning to those whose atempts to show notability lead them to careless reliance upon press releases.

otherwise, I continue to think that the best way to deal with difficult questions about coverage in WP is by compromise. I continue to think that having a compromise here is the best way to avoid repeated contention on matters like this. Looking now again at all the the various versions, it does seem I could have done a higher quality version for my proposed compromise.

I am sometimes willing to engage in a argument I am almost certain to lose, for the sake of making a point about principle which I think may be accepted later. In this particular instance, there are too many competing principles to make a clear point, and I no longer intend to carry the argument further.

The question of how we will deal with our actions on WP receiving press coverage is one of those. AsWP becomes the information source most widely accepted in the world, and because our actions here are so visible, will will have to deal with it, just as , for example, the NYTimes deals very well --objectively, not defensively, with the criticism of its coverage. I think an appropriate example for this discussion will not be a BLP, especially a BLP on a non-public personality. because I do agree with you that further attention there is unfair. DGG ( talk ) 05:59, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

@DGG: Apologies for not notifying you of the deletion. I had assumed that pinging you in my note at User talk:TonyBallioni would be sufficient, but obviously that was not very courteous of me and I should have notified you directly. As I said in my reply to you on my talk page, I also commend your efforts to broker compromise and dialogue - of course that's what we should always be striving for. I disagree, though, that recreating this article with different text and a slightly different title has any consensus or is likely to achieve the sort of dialogue you want. Emotions are still running high, and this is now the second re-creation following the initial delete. We just need to let things rest a bit to avoid fanning the flames of conflict. Hopefully with time, and as her career progresses, she will become an easy shoo-in for an article but for now the consensus at two AFDs and a DRV is that she does not meet GNG or PROF, and it's IMHO not going to do anyone any favours to keep going through a delete—create—delete—create cycle ad infinitum, or to have a fresh AFD on the subject every three weeks. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 08:42, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

When I said above I was not going to pursue Del Rev, I should have said that I was also not going to re-create, neither an article nor a Draft. DGG ( talk ) 16:37, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Good grief

I'm away for three days and this happens? Courtesy links for anyone trying to untangle this who's not aware: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 May 1#Clarice Phelps and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Rama.

Commenting here rather that at ARC, to avoid adding to the wall of text, to avoid another encounter with the Conformity Police as this certainly isn't a "statement", and to allow people to reply if need be without complying with whatever arbitrary rule the clerks happen to have made up this week:

Speaking as someone with no interest in the topic and who has never heard of Clarice Phelps in any context other than this discussion and has no opinion on whether she warrants coverage on Wikipedia, at the risk of challenging the wikilawyering skills of the consummate wikilawyers, @Newyorkbrad, SilkTork, Opabinia regalis, I think you're in the wrong here. It's almost a full decade since Jimmy renounced godking status,and since then Arbcom has zealously guarded its "sole body with the authority to desysop" status. If someone is bringing a case in good faith, supported by evidence, that an admin has done something that could lead to desysop, and if it's clear from initial statements that the person bringing the case isn't a lone outrider and there's at least some degree of support for the view that the admin's actions were wrong, then Arbcom has a duty to accept the case, even if it's just to issue an "Arbcom rules that the admin did nothing wrong", or "The admin did something wrong but it was a one-off that doesn't warrant sanctions" motion. The case possibly shouldn't have been brought so quickly when tempers are still hot, but now it's been brought the committee have a duty to examine the allegations.

Otherwise, you're setting up a very problematic precedent, by effectively formalizing "no admin action should be considered wrong if the admin claims they thought it was in Wikipedia's interests" as a defense. WP:IAR is an essential part of Wikipedia, but is intended for such things as "I'm intentionally forcing this image width to twice the recommended size because it contains a lot of detail that would otherwise be obscured" or "I'm closing this thread early because consensus is clear and the parties are starting to argue", not "Being an admin means my opinions are so much more important than anyone else's, I'm entitled to unilaterally overturn any consensus I personally feel came to a questionable conclusion". (I don't see any other way to interpret this statement.) One of Wikipedia's more underappreciated strengths, and the reason we survive when the Citizendiums and Everipedias wither, is that we at least try not to act arbitrarily, so people editing here know that they'll by and large be treated fairly. (Sure, we screw up—there are plenty of editors banned and articles deleted that shouldn't have been, and editors not banned and articles not deleted that should have been—but they form a small minority and we do try to have workable processes for appeal.)

IMO the "admin as super user" issue was exacerbated in this case, as another manifestation of the "legacy admin" issue of admins from the old days re-emerging to try to enforce the values of Early Wikipedia. Prior to the Phelps restoration, the last time Rama restored a page was in 2010 Correction to this; on closer inspection, other than one redirect, two templates and a handful of files, Rama has never restored a page of any kind other than [[Clarice Phelps]] and its associated talk page, and while there are a few deletions between 2010 and now they're all either routine maintenance deletions or unilateral deletions without even an edit summary. I can't find a single instance of Rama ever actually assessing consensus at a deletion discussion (full deletion log if anyone wants to double-check), and yet they're effectively saying that they're so much more knowledgeable about Wikipedia's deletion processes than anyone else, they have the right to discount the views of everyone who commented at the deletion debate because they happen to disagree with the conclusion reached. At some point someone (not me) is going to need to set the ball rolling on a formal discussion of how we deal with the legacy admin issue, as otherwise people are going to keep pulling this "I am the king under the mountain, risen from my slumbers to save Wikipedia" routine. ‑ Iridescent 07:39, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah; some people, metaphorically, can't be trusted alone in the kitchen... ——SerialNumber54129 08:04, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the insight Iridescent (and happy are ye who can make your comments on your own user talk and have the world take notice 😎). I pretty much agree with everything you've said. The incident itself was relatively minor, but what it says about process and the way we work here is far more significant. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 08:13, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, that. I don't think anyone other than professional offense-takers (on both sides) really cares whether we have an article on Clarice Phelps—and there are certainly precedents like George R. Caron for people who had relatively minor roles within a team attaining wiki-notability inherited from the accomplishments of that team. The issue here is one of to what extent and in what circumstances admins have the right to supervote to overturn consensus decisions, and of whether they have an obligation to justify themselves when they do so. ‑ Iridescent 08:24, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, I'm only 60th on the list of people who can make comments on their user talk and have the world take notice. (It shows as 64th but four of the entries are bugs.) ‑ Iridescent 08:36, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Professional offense-takers - be afraid, be very afraid. (There is possibly some irony in someone who is profoundly deaf being accused of tone-deafness.) - Sitush (talk) 08:39, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

This is someone who recently refused to come to a WMUK event because the attendees planned to meet in a pub owned by a Leave supporter and he was afraid that he might see pro-Brexit literature left on customer tables if he came. Treat any claim he makes of being offended with the credibility it deserves. ‑ Iridescent 08:46, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I don’t have much to add beyond my brief comments on the requests page. Regardless of past formatting squabbles, I do think you should post your thoughts where everyone voting on the case will see them. Regarding “legacy admins,” I’m not sure that those sysopped in the early days get into or cause trouble at a greater rate than others, but I haven’t done the math. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:27, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

The issue isn't whether those sysopped in the early days get into trouble at a greater rate than others, it's whether those who return from long breaks (either from Wikipedia altogether, or from adminny stuff) cause a disproportionate amount of trouble. Someone, somewhere, has probably worked out the statistics.

It's not a case of past formatting squabbles, it's the absolute certainty of future formatting squabbles given the obsessiveness of the current clerks; something as simple as this reply to you would be forbidden under the current regime, as not only is it underneath your comment rather than in my own dedicated section, it takes me over the 500 word limit. Besides, is this list of names a group with whom you want to get into an extended conversation? ‑ Iridescent 08:36, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

All fine upstanding members of the community; some of us, at any rate  :) ——SerialNumber54129 08:48, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

There is a place to discuss these issues. Please do not ping me again to your talkpage as though I am a servant who has to answer your queries. Very pissed off indeed. If you wanted to discuss this away from the arena with me, then via my talkpage or email would have been acceptable, and you would have found a warm welcome and a cup of tea, and perhaps a cake. Good fucking grief indeed! And be aware that if you wish to respond to this, I am not watching this page, and will not respond to pings here. Come over to my place, and I may even have a beer for you. SilkTork (talk) 09:14, 1 May 2019 (UTC)