User talk:Uncle G/Archive/2009-02-19

Notices
Yes, I am an administrator.
If you wish to discuss the content of an article, please do so on that article's own talk page. That's one of the things that they are there for.
I dislike disjointed conversations, where one has to switch between pages as each participant writes.
For past discussions on this page, see the archive.

� ��

DYK

On 1 January, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article World Conference against Racism 2001, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Wizardman 20:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Tara Whelan

Thanks for your help, but I don't think you fixed the "transclusion". As soon as the next entry was added the Tara Whelan entry got merged with the previous entry. Please fix. Thanks!! Yellow-bellied sapsucker (talk) 17:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Whoa: OK now. Thanks a lot. Happy New Year. Yellow-bellied sapsucker (talk) 17:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC) P.S. - could you direct me to where/how to make 2nd nominations for WP:AFD, so I can do it right in the future. Thanks again.Yellow-bellied sapsucker (talk) 17:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Disputed fair use rationale for Image:New-yorkistan-new-yorker-cover.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:New-yorkistan-new-yorker-cover.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content carefully, then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies for fair use. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it will be deleted within a couple of days according to our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot (talk) 21:48, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "bogus" copy and paste move

I saw that you described my copy and paste move regarding the Yahir page as being a "bogus" copy and paste move. Is that not the proper procedure? If not, then what is? Also, please refrain from referring to my honest attempts to improve Wikipedia as being "bogus". Not all of us spend hours a day working on Wikipedia like you do and don't always know the proper procedures. I just did what seemed to be the common sense thing to do, and if that's somehow "bogus", then I'm proud to be bogus. .Joeschmoe2003 (talk) 3 January 2008 (UTC)

• I didn't call you bogus. I called the "move" bogus. And it is. It's bogus because it isn't a move. It's a copy. And I told you what the proper procedure was. I even handily linked the message to the relevant help page. Uncle G (talk) 23:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

mathematical notation

Hello. Apparently when I posted the material below you had just begun a long wiki-break (several months, I think?), and the matter seems to have been forgotten as a result. But now you seem to be here quite regularly again, so here it is:

---

Hello. When we discussed this last December, it didn't seem urgent to continue the discussion since you seem remote from the Wikipedia mathematics community, but for the sake of completeness, here is the material that you so urgently wished to be communicated to you ONLY by means other than email if at all. I've put it into pdf format so that what you see should not be brower-dependent and email should not be necessary:

File:Notation.pdf

Look near the bottom of the first page of the two-page pdf document.

Here's the point:

• In e^x, obviously the e should be at the same height as the surrounding letters and the superscript x should be higher. That is indeed how it appears in the version that does not use TeX. In the TeX version, on the other hand, the e looks lower than the other letters, and that is clearly incorrect. I've tried this on a variety of different browsers and it's looked that way consistently.
• The letters in TeX are larger than those is the surrounding text; they're comically gigantic. That obviously is inconsistent with standard usage.

Those are among the reasons for the position taken by Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics). Hundreds of mathematicians edit Wikipedia daily and for the most part adhere to the manual. Michael Hardy 20:31, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

• I explained this to you at length in 2006. I explained to you no fewer than three times that on my browser your hand-rolled formula markup looks terrible and is difficult to read, whereas the MediaWiki formula markup that is documented at Help:Displaying a formula looks good and is easily legible. It is ironic that the very PDF file that you uploaded demonstrates the same thing. In the PDF, your hand-rolled formula is quite illegible, with the "e" not even appearing as an "e", whereas the formula using the MediaWiki formula markup intended for the purpose appears as intended. I have to adjust Acrobat's magnification factor to 150% before the "e" in your hand-rolled version even appears as an "e".

  That you think that I asked for a PDF file, let alone "urgently" asked for one, is bizarre. I made no such request. That was entirely your own idea. That you are still trying to persuade me to doubt the evidence of my own two eyes after over a year is mind-boggling. That in all that time you have made no attempt to contribute to the correct discussion page, that I pointed you to at the very beginning and where there is a discussion of this very thing, but as soon as I edit are back here, indicates that you want to vainly try to win an argument with me (which you won't until what I see with my own eyes changes) rather than to participate in a discussion of MediaWiki formula markup and how it is rendered. I repeat my suggestion made right at the very start, over a year ago: Go to the correct talk page and actually participate in the formula markup discussion. Uncle G (talk) 10:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Your conspicuous impatience is causing you to misunderstand what you're reading. I never said you urgently requested a pdf document. I said you urgently requested that it be given only be means OTHER than email. You say the "hand-rolled" "e" does not appear as an "e" in my pdf file. It is a clearly legible "e" in what I read. It appears the same size as the surrounding text. And it is correctly aligned. The one done in TeX on the other hand makes the "e" much bigger than the surrounding text and places it lower than the surrounding text.

Your assertion that a certain page is the "correct" place to discuss this is doubtful, for this reason:

The first thing I notice when I click on that page is someone prescribing notation that looks like this:

$a+...+z\,$

which is clearly incorrect; it should instead look like this:

$a+\cdots +z\,$

or at least like this:

$a+\ldots +z\,$

(But I will look more closely at that page.)

Your own relative inexperience with editing mathematics articles on Wikiepdia (by "relative" I mean by comparison to my own) and relatively small number of Wikipedia edits (fewer than 30,000, I seem to recall) makes it a bit odd that you would feel that you should be the one to instruct me rather than vice-versa. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:53, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

....OK, now I've looked at that page further and contributed some material to the help page. But my inspection of that page causes me to reject your contention that the is "the correct" place to discuss those issues.

(And maybe you should get a better version of acrobat reader.) Michael Hardy (talk) 03:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For constantly contributing to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion discussions, and for your overall hard work, Ten Pound Hammer and his otters offer you the Tireless Contributor barnstar. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 14:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Sri Asaramayan Deletion

Hi Uncle G, I couldn't get a chance to look at the flag of deletion on the Sri Asaramayan page. Can you please tell when did you put the flag or did you just delete it with no consent of anyone else? Also, if you don't mind telling me the reason of deletion as well please. Thanks Rohit (talk) 16:25, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

• Sri Asaramayan was a proposed deletion that was uncontested for 5 days. The proposal was grounded in the Wikipedia:No original research policy. Do you have any sources that document this poem? Uncle G (talk) 17:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Imaginative Sex

An editor has nominated Imaginative Sex, an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Imaginative Sex and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 01:59, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

User:TruthDestroyer

Please take a look at his contribs. Is this another sock of User:DavidYork71 and User:Neverneutral? Time to block him? --Richard (talk) 09:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Never mind. I was about to do it and found that Kafziel beat me to it. --Richard (talk) 09:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

There is also User:Facty, User:Fintimlimbim, and User:TheTrobriandWay. See List of alleged collaborators and Collaboration during World War II. Please drop me an e-mail if you need to know more. thanks! --Merbabu (talk) 23:49, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

F flat

You created an article on F flat major made out of the Afd'd F-flat. However, how about putting in the key signature imagae?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• I leave that to the process of collaborative editing. I don't have software to hand for creating PNG files of musical notation. If you have that ability, and want to know what to create, see the picture of the key signature in the book by Busby that is cited at D flat minor#References. Uncle G (talk) 03:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

AviationWatch

Uncle.... thanks for you support and mentoring recently over Flying Matters, I found it very helpful and encouraging. Since then I have written a number of articles and tidied up others (see User:PeterIto for a summary), and most of which have gone pretty smoothly without conflict and I am now in some interesting discussions about how to organisation information within wikipedia about aviation protest organisations and their associated issues. However... my article on AirportWatch has come in for some stick; could you kindly take a look at Talk:AirportWatch and see if you can make some helpful suggestions as I do find the bull-fight method of improveing article very tiresome and the article needs from over viewpoints anyway. Many thanks. PeterIto (talk) 15:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Argh.

While I'm stomping my feet and griping about the lazy people, I figure I should thank the ones who are not—so, thanks for getting it. Maralia (talk) 23:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1944 D-Day : Operation Overlord

Just wanted to say thanks for clearing up the (my) confusion at the above AfD – I suppose that while it's not really a case of WP policy, it's something I hadn't come across before. Experience is invaluable here. I've removed my vote because it's no longer accurate, I take it there's no problems with doing that? — alex.muller (talkpage • contribs) 23:54, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• It's a discussion, not a vote. There's nothing stopping you from changing your opinion as the discussion progresses. I suggest that if you want to help, you go and double-check whether reliable independent sources can be found, using whatever resources you have at your disposal for finding such sources, and use your findings as the basis of a rationale, per our Wikipedia:Deletion policy. The more editors that do that in an AFD discussion, any AFD discussion, the more likely it is that the outcome, whatever it is, will be the correct one for the encyclopaedia. See what the Wikipedia:Guide to deletion says about the Swiss cheese model. Uncle G (talk) 02:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

NPOV re Annotated Bibliography of Fly Fishing

• Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

"an argument that today seems", "readable but comprehensive", "excellent read", "probably the most", "beautiful compilation", "masterfully", "transcends the cavalier attitude", "very nicely written", "superbly told", &c. — according to whom? If these are merely your personal opinions Mike Cline, they don't belong in Wikipedia. If they aren't your opinions, then please tell readers whose opinions they are and attribute them properly. Uncle G (talk) 15:38, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• Uncle G, Indeed they are not my opinions but in most cases paraphrased from some form of notable review--either by other prominent Fly fishing authorities or as part of larger, academic and scholarly reviews of literature of the sport. Although it will take a bit of time, I will do my best to provide cites for all the annotations. Thanks for your advice.--Mike Cline (talk) 22:42, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • No worries. Cite sources for everything and make sure that the article doesn't read as if Wikipedia has an opinion, and the article will be better. Don't worry about it taking time. Uncle G (talk) 22:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Uncle G. Please take a look at the article as it is now to see if NPOV is still an issue. I still have some referencing work to complete, but can't get to many of my references for a while because I'm traveling so much. Thanks--Mike Cline (talk) 17:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Yeanold Viskersenn

It seems I've ruffled a feather or two. Forgive me if I spend 12 - 16 hours a day here, most of it reverting vandalism and occasionally writing or improving an article or two. But I can't imagine why you think I would see your comments when they are posted to a closed MfD and I have taken it off my watchlist to deal with more pressing matters. My apologies, but I thought I was dealing with a pig-headed editor who was only trying to make a point. As you will understand, I see many of them here. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 00:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• It wasn't closed when I hit the edit button to edit it. Uncle G (talk) 00:43, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. It is now, however; hopefully with a mutually acceptable conclusion. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 00:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for supporting me during the proposal that my user page be deleted. I was not consulted about this whatsoever. (The first thing I knew about Stan Shebs being unhappy with my perfectly legitimate use of the image of him was a threatening message). I believe I acted entirely in accordance with Wikipedia's rules and was civil throughout - only then to be told to stick my thoughts "where the sun don't shine" by none less than an administrator! I'm frankly shocked at this, but I thank you for helping me not think Wikipedia has gone entirely insane. Are there any further steps I should take to prevent over-reaction before the fact, and my rights to display GNU images on my talk page? Thanks again for your time. Yeanold Viskersenn (talk) 01:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Water Well

I see you removed the copyright violation tag for Water well. It is a copyright violation. I was surprised since no one caught for a very long time. But it is. http://jamaicawells.com/JWSGlossaryofTerms2007.pdf. Ohmpandya (Talk) 01:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

• It's not. The article has had that content since December 2004. That document was created in February 2007, as you can see from its metadata. Barring time travel, the article cannot possibly be a copyright violation. The document copied Wikipedia, not the other way around. This is not an unusual occurrence. Uncle G (talk) 01:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Actually, no, the content wasn't added until February 2007. There was only one minor edit in December 2004 --  jj137 ^♠ 02:00, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
    • That's not an addition of content. Please read the diff properly and carefully. Start by reading its edit summary. Uncle G (talk) 02:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Jj137 is correct. Open up the PDF and check the content introduced in that diff (which is the same as what I removed) for yourself - it's the same. With both the edit and the PDF dated 2007, it's not possible to tell which copied the other without spending far more time than it's worth in contacting the author of the PDF. Of course, you could always rewrite the copyvioed content and then re-add it. Tijuana Brass (talk) 02:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
      • No xe isn't. You haven't read that diff properly and carefully either. You'll find that content in the December 2004 version of the article, and a further edit in May 2005. Please read edit history properly. When someone says that the content is in the December 2004 version of the article, go to a December 2004 version of the article and look. Uncle G (talk) 02:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Shut my big dumb mouth... you're right. At least for part of it. I see the corresponding part about the aquifers, but I'm still not finding the second section of the intro. Are you referring to that too? Tijuana Brass (talk) 04:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
          • December 2005. Uncle G (talk) 05:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
          • Or December 2004. Take your pick. Uncle G (talk) 05:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
            • What a headache. Thanks for catching it; I sorted through the histories for 15 minutes and wasn't able to find that. Glad to finally have this settled. Tijuana Brass (talk) 16:14, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem with CSD

The problem is that IPs do not have the technical ability to nominate an article at AFD (you'll notice that I originally simply removed it with "take it to AFD", then realized it was an IP) - and the fact that the article only has print sources in the references section made it difficult to evaluate whether it was real or not. —Random832 15:37, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• The thing to do is wait to see whether they do take it to AFD, by taking the first step of applying the {{subst:afd1}} template, which they can do. That is the point to then step in and help. (Of course, not every application of the template is a good faith one, so pay attention to edit summaries and talk page discussions.) Uncle G (talk) 16:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Musical notes in scales with flats

Yes, I know key signatures with flats do not contain notes with sharps; however, we currently only have joint articles for enharmonic notes, which are named for the sharps; for example. I would like to change that in the future, but it's a big effort. (And if it's not done right, there's no way they'll survive AfD.) Once it's done though, I'll be sure to correct all the scales. In the meantime, changing the links to B-flat etc. isn't a good solution, since it just leads to a disambiguation page, which has a link for the pitch B♭, which...is linked to the article on A♯. I'm going to revert all the changes for now, but I assure you it's not permanent, and creating the flat-note articles and correcting links is high on my list of things-to-do. Thanks. Torc2 (talk) 19:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion/Moff

Thanks for catching that Moff was a valid G4. I must have misunderstood the history when I prodded it. I need to be more observant. Eluchil404 (talk) 04:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

• You didn't misunderstand. What Jecowa copied and pasted from Google's cache did not contain the AFD notice. So without access to the actual deleted revisions, you couldn't have known that the AFD notice really had been properly applied when the article was nominated for deletion. Uncle G (talk) 05:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
• I have created a brief disambiguation page at this title. *** Crotalus *** 11:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

This Is Fake DIY nominations

I'm fixing an incorrect closing, please stop undoing what I'm fixing asn you're causing even more problems as things get more and more confused. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 18:13, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

• No, you're not. You're causing the confusion. As all of my edit summaries have said, I've been fixing a bogus copy-and-paste "move" by doing some history mergers and splits. Not only have you made a right mess by coming in right in the middle of my doing that without paying any attention to what I was doing, instead of waiting a minute until I had finished, you've made exactly the same bogus copy-and-past "move" that I was right in the middle of fixing. And because of your mess, Alexfusco5 has edited the wrong discussion. Please do not do make copy and paste "moves". And please stop making a mess. Your hamfistedness has exacerbated this quite considerably, whereas I was right in the middle of quietly, calmly, and carefully fixing things up and getting the revision histories and edits in the right places. Uncle G (talk) 18:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I didn't make ANY copy and paste moves. None at all. I only reverted history. Period. Please stop making false accusations about my actions. Anyone can look and see that none of what I did even closely resembles a copy and paste move. I've never made one of those, I didn't do so here, and I don't ever plan on making one. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 18:35, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
    • My error. I apologize unreservedly. You didn't do a copy-and-paste move. You reverted this discussion closure, rather. The point that I made about your paying more attention to edit/log summaries and article histories still stands, however. If you had checked the article history that you restored (and that I was just on the point of hitting the restore button to restore, myself, having carefully double-checked which revisions were the right ones to restore) you would have seen J-stan's closure. Now whether the previous discussion should have been closed or re-listed is a matter for the two of you to straighten out between yourselves. But it was closed nonetheless, and a new discussion was then opened some 10 hours later by Redfarmer. Xe opened it over the top of the old discussion (a Twinkle bug, it seems), then renamed it, then blanked the redirect, then asked for admin help, and then Tevildo copy-and-pasted "moved" the old discussion. I was right in the middle of giving that admin help, and fixing things to get the old closed discussion and its history back to where it had been, when you came along. All of my edit summaries quite clearly said that I was doing a history merger and split (a complex operation involving two moves, and several deletions and undeletions). Uncle G (talk) 19:14, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Content Dispute

I could not help but notice from the page history of Tom Leykis that you are currently involved in a content dispute. I would like to humbly ask you to utilize the talk page and the various venues of dispute resolution available to us. Thanks, -MBK₀₀₄ 06:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

proxemics

On 15 January, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article proxemics, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 14:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Christianity and domestic violence

An article that you have been involved in editing, Christianity and domestic violence, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christianity and domestic violence. Thank you. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 20:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Spelling lede

Example: News writing#Terms and structure. Wikipedia:Lead section also includes lede as an alternative spelling. "lede" would be an improbable misspelling for the word "lead", not meriting a redirect. / edg ☺ ☭ 23:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

• Well the word wasn't in any of the dictionaries that I checked before tagging it. "lead" is, and has had this meaning in journalism for years. Note that the external link to the Random House web site that is the citation supposedly supporting that content leads to a page that doesn't exist, by the way. This accords with what dictionary.com reports. It checks the 2006 Random House Unabridged Dictionary, and reports that the word "lede" isn't there. Uncle G (talk) 23:16, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I usually go with The Free Dictionary. / edg ☺ ☭ 23:40, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Again, note that that doesn't actually find a dictionary entry for that word. The page is telling you that the word is not in the American Heritage Dictionary. Contrast what you see there to when you look up "lead", which shows you what comes up for words that are in the AHD. Uncle G (talk) 23:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
      • So you're saying you still consider this a misspelling. / edg ☺ ☭ 00:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Well, the two of us haven't actually found a dictionary that actually lists such a word yet, have we? Uncle G (talk) 00:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Great improvement on Birth aboard aircraft and ships

I think you should certainly consider nominating part of your work here for WP:DYK (although it still bears the stub template right now - but you could further expand it in the same way).--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 14:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

You've been linked

Users have been having a lengthy discussion at Talk: Asian fetish and I thought your work at User:Uncle G/Preference for Asian women by non-Asian men was very interesting. Users have also been discussing possibly renaming the article also. I hope you don't mind that your sandbox (?) will be linked at the talk page of Asian fetish. миражinred (speak, my child...) 20:43, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

• It's a draft article rather than a sandbox. And I had actually already linked to it on that talk page myself. Uncle G (talk) 00:55, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Your note at User talk:Montchav about Index of cooperation

You left a note at User talk:Montchav asking him/her to restore Index of cooperation. You should probably have left it at User talk:Garion96, since Garion96 was the administrator who deleted the article. --Eastmain (talk) 21:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

• You're quite right. My error. I'll follow the right talk page link this time. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 00:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Continuation of AFD conversation

Hi, I hope you don't mind, I'd rather continue our conversation about deletion here rather than clutter up the AFD any more. We aren't really talking about that particular article anymore, anyways, it's more about process in general.

First, let me start by saying that I agree in general that a stub about a notable subject should not be deleted. I disagree, however, with your statement "We don't delete stubs". This isn't true—stubs about non-notable subjects are deleted everyday. In this case in particular, I felt that Giant spider was covering a non-notable subject. I would have simply redirected but there was no clear target as the article listed three games.

If you went to the page for Carl Gauss and the content of the article was "This article is about the famous Carl Gauss. Carl was born in 1980 and lives in his mother's basement. He likes to drink soda and makes rubber band balls, etc." what would you consider the appropriate course of action? Clearly the article is not about the famous Carl Friedrich Gauss, but about a non-notable person that happens to share the name of a notable person. Should the stub be deleted? The easiest answer would be to replace the content with a stub about the notable Gauss, of course. But suppose you ran across this article and didn't know who Gauss was, or if this had been about an obscure (but still notable) person, and replacing with a decent stub would require some work. In this case, I feel that deleting the stub would be preferable to leaving it. Even though the article claims it is about "the famous Carl Gauss", this does not make it true. Similarly, even though the giant spider says it is about spiders in games and movies, that is not what that article is. Perhaps this example is a little extreme, but I hope it conveys the underlying principle I had in mind.

On a separate matter, I'd like to address your statement, "You are here to write an encyclopaedia, not to delete one." First, this statement sets up the straw man that I want to delete the encyclopedia, which is patently absurd. Secondly, I'm not here to write an encyclopedia. Every now and then I like to contribute to articles, true, but if an editor were to do nothing but read articles and revert vandalism, there is nothing wrong with that even though he does not write anything. To suggest that those who do not write articles are not valued does a disservice to those who spend much or all of their time on Wikipedia patrolling pages, reverting vandalism, contributing to discussion, tagging images, or any of the countless other tasks that improve Wikipedia without adding to the article space.

Lastly, you assumed in the AFD that I did not look for sources. Please be careful with your assumptions—you have no way of knowing whether I looked for sources or not. If you approach the situation from my point of view (and I hope you can, as I can see things from yours, and fully understand) you could see that I looked for sources, and found only sources that I did not consider germane to the article. If you're going to tell me I'm ignoring Wikipedia:Deletion policy, then fine, but please don't criticize me for not following something you've written up in your user space, though. (User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage) If you hadn't brought that up, your words would have had more force with me.

Anyways, I apologize, as this turned out to be much longer than I intended. I bear no ill will towards you, and understand your point of view. I do appreciate you arguing your point and actually having something to back it up (unlike a lot of arguments I see at AFD). Feel free to respond or not respond as you wish—I just wanted to explain my side of things. Pagrashtak 23:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

• I am obviously not Uncle G, but I do happen to agree with him and I hope that an argument from someone not him will be more agreeable to you. To clarify, when Uncle G said "We don't delete stubs" he was not referring to any stubs ever. Rather, he was stating that being a stub is not a reason in and of itself to delete.

  If I went to that page on Carl Gauss, my first course of action would be to check sources before doing anything. I feel that I must be confident that no appropriate sources exist before I nominate anything for deletion. If I found some sources to justify the existence of the article, I do not believe that deleting the stub is an appropriate course of action. The minimal effort I'd consider would be adding the newly found sources to the article, tagging it for cleanup, opening discussion on the talk page, and letting other people get involved in the process. If I didn't find sources, I'd tag the article, open discussion on the talk page and, after time has passed and nobody found anything, I'd finally nominate it for deletion.

  When he said "You are here to write an encyclopaedia, not to delete one", I agree that it does set up a strawman, but I do not believe that was his intention. I believe he was attempting to state that he did not see the sense in deleting encyclopedic content just because you personally do not wish to work on the article. Further, I believe the first clause of that sentence to to be in the collective second person. Even if you never write an article, an editor who only reverts vandalism is positively contributing towards writing an encyclopedia, so, yes, I'd agree that you are here to write an encyclopedia.

  Finally, I believe his assumption was on the grounds that you went straight for deletion without waiting after you put up the cleanup tags. While, yes, you did the first step of searching yourself, you did not do the second step of asking other contributing editors to find sources and, more importantly, your nomination did not list the steps you went through in attempting to find sources. And I believe the reason he pointed out something written in his user space was not to try and say he is correct so much as to point out that there were parts of all three levels: policy (WP:Deletion policy), guidelines (WP:N), and generally-accepted essays (User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage) that he believed you did not follow. -- Masterzora (talk) 00:28, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

  • As a matter of fact, the procedure outlined in User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage used to be in Wikipedia:Deletion policy. See this 2004 version of the policy, for example. It was removed when the policy was prosified in 2007. I know that I always found the table of problems and actions helpful, so I created one on my triage page. Others have found it helpful since. Uncle G (talk) 01:55, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
• No worries. And yes, making a good argument is my aim. I try to provide the kinds of rationales that I encourage others to provide.

  To suggest that those who do not write articles are not valued — Ahem! Who is making straw men, now? I certainly made no such suggestion.

  you have no way of knowing whether I looked for sources or not — Actually, yes we have. We know whether editors have looked for sources because they say so in their nominations. They say things like "I Googled it but couldn't find any relevant web pages discussing this subject.", or, in the best cases that I've seen over the years, things like "I did a LexisNexis search and couldn't find anything." and "There's nothing on PUBMED." and "I have JSTOR access via the university, and I couldn't find anything.". Your nomination rationale, in contrast, said nothing about looking for sources at all. See User:Uncle G/On notability#Giving rationales at AFD for how to make a good rationale that something is not notable.

  Uncle G (talk) 01:55, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Most of the articles I nominate to AFD are not so contentious. Although I might look for reliable sources for, say, a minor character that has only appeared in one work of fiction, I often don't bother typing up that I looked for sources and found none, as it is often a foregone conclusion that there will be none, as evidenced by the original research and in-universe content found in such articles. (And, let's face it, it's more typing!) This was clearly not one of those cases, and I agree that a more explicit nomination would have been more prudent. I'll try to keep this in mind for future articles that are not clear-cut cases.

    Masterzora, thanks—I'm always happy to hear from other editors. I hope I didn't give the impression that I found Uncle G's comments disagreeable. In fact it was just the opposite—a cogent argument (sadly, something too rare at AFD) made me wish to continue the conversation. Pagrashtak 06:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

    • I recommend doing it in all cases. Don't assume a foregone conclusion that there will be no sources. I've found sources on the seemingly most unlikely of subjects, from Fetch (game) (AfD discussion) to Baby born in air (AfD discussion). As I said in the former's AFD discussion, it's amazing what people study, sometimes.

      Don't take the poor state of an article as representing the poor state of human knowledge, and as any indication of what sources might exist for a subject. There are thousands of poor Wikipedia articles that people have written lousily, citing no sources and based upon a vague personal knowledge of a subject rather than by finding sources where the subject has been studied fully and in depth and using them. Over the years, many such have been turned into good stubs at AFD. There's a long list of such occasions, from Durban Strategy (AfD discussion) and Hemobag (AfD discussion) through Galactic Empire (Asimov) (AfD discussion) and Bantha (AfD discussion) to Pon farr (AfD discussion). (I've deliberately chosen some fictional subjects, given that you were looking at giant spiders.) I appear to have just turned around opinion on North Asia (AfD discussion) with 2 sources, replacing the collaborative speculation of a group of Wikipedia editors inventing their own agreed-in-house definition of a concept over a period of almost five years with some actual verifiable information.

      What we want is for such articles not to come to AFD in the first place. There's enough work to do at AFD with things that really do need an administrator to press a delete button.

      The best way for that to happen is to have a culture where editors seeing a bad article with no sources don't automatically reach for the {{afd1}} or {{subst:prod}} templates, but look for sources themselves, and when they find them go in and boldly Kerrrzappp! the article to make it a coherent and well-sourced good stub on the subject, without involving AFD or Proposed Deletion at all. This has been our editing and deletion policy from pretty nearly the start of the project.

      The work of writing the encyclopaedia is borne on the shoulders of all editors. Nominating articles for deletion only for them to be rewritten concentrates that burden onto a scant handful of ordinary editors and administrators who do AFD patrol and Proposed Deletion patrol. That's not what we want. It's not good for the encyclopaedia. Many hands make light work. Uncle G (talk) 12:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

King fisher322 (talk · contribs)

King fisher322 (talk · contribs), whom you blocked, is requesting a review. Is he a reincarnation of a banned user or something? There's no obvious reason that I can see for a block. It's unlikely his first experience with Wikipedia, but there needs to be something more than just adding prods. The categories of unsourced articles were being discussed at Wikipedia Review, so it's possible that he saw that discussion and wanted to come to help out with them. --B (talk) 03:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Index of cooperation

I can't imagine I missed the .gov adress. The article is restored. Garion96 (talk) 09:43, 19 January 2008 (UTC)