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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on my current talk page

Administrators' newsletter – February 2020

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2020).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, partial blocks are now enabled on the English Wikipedia. This functionality allows administrators to block users from editing specific pages or namespaces rather than the entire site. A draft policy is being workshopped at Wikipedia:Partial blocks.
  • The request for comment seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure closed with wide-spread support for an alternative desysoping procedure based on community input. No proposed process received consensus.

Technical news

  • Twinkle now supports partial blocking. There is a small checkbox that toggles the "partial" status for both blocks and templating. There is currently one template: {{uw-pblock}}.
  • When trying to move a page, if the target title already exists then a warning message is shown. The warning message will now include a link to the target title. [1]

Arbitration

  • Following a recent arbitration case, the Arbitration Committee reminded administrators that checkuser and oversight blocks must not be reversed or modified without prior consultation with the checkuser or oversighter who placed the block, the respective functionary team, or the Arbitration Committee.

Miscellaneous




sysop flag

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Hello BHG, per the Arbitration Committee remedy at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Portals#BrownHairedGirl_desysopped, and the associated request at WP:BN, I have removed your sysop flag. You are not barred from regaining this access in the future, and may do so by passing at WP:RFA. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 03:28, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you would like your userpage unprotected so that you may edit it, feel free to ping me. — xaosflux Talk 03:41, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Xaosflux: thank you for the notification, and for the note about RFA. However, per my statement above, I will be leaving Wikipedia as soon as I have completed some outstanding tasks. So there will be no future RFA from me ... and If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve.
Yes, please do unprotect my userpage. AFAICR, I had protected it after some vandalism .. but before I leave, I will want to edit it to note my retirement.
Best wishes, --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:51, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I respect your decision, and your forthrightness in posting this here. I wish you well. --Sm8900 (talk) 06:11, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oh no! Have just read about this in the admin newsletter. What a loss for WP. All the best to you; go well, my friend. Schwede66 18:05, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:1951 Brazilian television series endings requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Clean-up categories from 2021 requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Liz Read! Talk! 01:34, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Burkinabé architecture requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:31, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

January 2020 at Women in Red

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January 2020, Volume 6, Issue 1, Numbers 146, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153


Happy Holidays from all of us at Women in Red, and thank you for your support in 2019. We look forward to working with you in 2020!

Online events:


Editor feedback:


Social media: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Stay in touch: Join WikiProject Women in Red / Opt-out of notifications

The Great Britain/Ireland Destubathon

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Hi. The Wikipedia:The Great Britain/Ireland Destubathon is planned for March 2020, a contest/editathon to eliminate as many stubs as possible from all 134 counties. Amazon vouchers/book prizes are planned for most articles destubbed from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland and Northern Ireland and whoever destubs articles from the most counties out of the 134. Sign up on page if interested in participating, hope this will prove to be good fun and productive, we have over 44,000 stubs! Hope you're well, you were always a good admin, hope everything is OK.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:32, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A kitten for you!

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I don't agree with how you handled dealing with portals, but I do think you are overall a good admin. I have been there in wanting to get something done to the point where things get personal here on Wikipedia. I hope for the best for you going forward.

Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:41, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Knowledgekid87, both for your kind words and for reaching out across a chasm of long-term disagreement. That's very kind of you, and much appreciated.
However, my concerns are not really personal. I have been concerned throughout with the quality of Wikipedia's reader-facing pages and the integrity of its consensus-building mechanisms, and only secondarily with the small set of editors who have impeded that. And the arbitration process is leaving me increasingly fearful that community's resolution mechanisms have an inverted sense of priorities which at odds with those goals. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:50, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Its possible that no two editors can read consensus the same way, it seemed to me like you were clearly upset calling other editors "liars" and other labels. Once you started doing that you poked the beehive. So the root of the problem here is addressing your concerns which can be done in the future once things have settled down. Out of all the years you have been here though....why was portals your hang up? Have you ever had this pushback before, and if so how did you handle it? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:10, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Simple: when I ventured into portals I found a morass of appallingly low quality, which turned out to be underpinned by very low aspirations; there was clearly a systemic problem. I had never found such extreme problems before in any other part of en.wp, and I was and remain horrified by what I found, and by the conduct I encountered. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:25, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So your intentions were good in wanting to fix the problem, the issue is that you took on a large part of Wikipedia in doing so. When editors began pushing back on you which you felt were in the minority then you became upset? I'm not sure what actions you took, but I would have worked with each portal separately before deletion. Pointing out things such as outdated BLP violations was a huge favor to Wikipedia. Problems arose though as I said when you began stepping on toes. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:33, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
KK87, the problem was that I found sustained antipathy to tackling the quality problems, and widespread gaming of the system by editors who were intent on preserving that for which they had no plan. I wasn't in the minority; the overwhelming majority of my portal MFD nominations were successful.
The problem was that I severely misjudged the community's willingness to uphold principles that I thought were accepted, such as condemning sustained gaming of the system. In previous contexts, when have seen such behaviour challenged or have challenged it myself, editors who mostly work in other areas have joined in to uphold good practice. But in this case, portals were a backwater which few editors were interested in cleaning up, and the bad practice was much more deeply entrenched than I thought. So the result was escalating drama, and most outsiders were unwilling to examine the substance of what pointed to, and instead attributed the drama to my noting the problem. Since most editors don't care about portals, the just wanted the drama to end rather than the problems to be resolved.
This is a common enough problem in human society. Challenging entrenched malpractice involves noise and drama, and most people prefer to avoid that. So whistleblowers get prosecuted, dissidents get jailed etc. It happens everywhere, and those who rock the boat usually have poor odds in their favour. I thought that odds of Wikipedia upholding good standards were much higher than they actually turned out to be in this case. That's how it goes sometimes.
ArbCom will make whatever decision it makes, and I will accept their decision as binding. But given the likely shape of the decision, I will have to take some time to reflect on how much (if at all) I want to devote further time energy to a project which seems to being deciding as a matter of principle to prioritise form over substance. It's not what I signed up for 14 years ago. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:20, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
BrownHairedGirl, Comment As noted above, I've seen nothing that ArbCom decisions cannot be revisited. Similarly, I note that Jimbo Wales may be an appropriate appeal venue. Similarly, WMF has said it has no intention of using its office actions authority unless there is a community consensus. I suspect you could find a substantial consensus to condemn, all or in part, of ArbCom's Portals decision and, thus, WMF could overturn ArbCom's woefully flawed ruling. Doug Mehus T·C 17:45, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Do you remember when...?

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I suppose that your account name, BrownHairedGirl, can be taken literally. But I lately realised that it might also be a reference to the Van Morrison song, "Brown Eyed Girl". Is that right?

It's interesting to find that that was one of Boris Johnson's Desert Island Discs. What would you take to your desert island?

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:28, 30 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Andrew
It's actually kinda both. One rainy day in Febuary 2006, I was googling around for info on the Churchill Barriers, which I had just heard about. I was fascinated by the idea of such a huge civil engineering project in such a place as remote as the Orkneys, so I wanted to know more. I found a fair bit, but then recalled this new free encyclopedia thing that some people were going on about, so I checked it. Nothing. Hey ho.
Over a tea break, I got thinking. This pedia thing is open source, right? How about I spend a few hours writing that article?
I was between projects, so it seemed like an interesting and useful thing to do, and a break from my normal writing about politics. So I checked rules, and it seemed best to register an account, even tho that wasn't needed.
When asked for a username, I decided I'd go for something fully anonymised, but what? Anyway, the Van the Man song had just being playing on the radio, and it was in my head. I like little of Van; he has had periods of fine poetry, but he is also an arrogant, self-indulgent eejit who has produced a lot of pseudo-mystic junk. The only album of his that really does anything for me Saint Dominic's Preview; but I like that song Brown Eyed Girl. Shallow but catchy. Young Van doing good pop before his brief period of real depth preceded a slide into self-indulgence. I gave up on him entirely after he accepted a big pile of money from a still-very-poor Dublin City to perform at the 1988 millennium celebrations, but just mumbled three songs and cleared off. The crowd was disgusted. I wasn't there, but stopped following him.
As I thought of using his song title, I was wrestling with the idea of naming myself after the writing of an eejit. Would people think I was a fan?
But then I thought that I don't have brown eyes but do have brown hair, so that would make sense without mislabelling me as a VanFan. So why not "Brown Haired Girl"? Because it makes me sound like a cute toddler.
After a minute or two of this, I decided I was being daft and overthinking this. It's just a throwaway account that I'll only need for a day or two, maybe only a few hours. Just do it, and at least that name is easier to remember than a random series of letters .
So I created the account, and wrote a start-class article: Churchill Barriers. That much went according to plan, but the rest of the plan to write one article and move on was a failure. One fix of Wikipedia and I was hooked, churning out stub articles on Irish and British politics, joining in CFD and AFD. And within 5 months I was an admin. Still with that throwaway name.
As to my Desert Island, I won't be bringing Boris Johnson; regardless of position on the political spectrum, I don't like people whose word means nothing. I will bring the fattest extant compilation of Irish mythology, so that as I eat coconuts in the shade I can catch up on a topic I have spent far too little time on. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:26, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for that story about how you chose your username. :-) The bit about overthinking it struck a chord with me, as I didn't put a great deal of thought into my username either. If I'd known I'd be using it 15 years later, I might have gone for something different. I don't think the ArbCom case was the right result, but I don't have time to say much more right now, other than to wish you all the best in your future endeavours (whether here or elsewhere or both). At least for this era of Wikipedia, I will forever associate British politics articles with you (and categories as well). Carcharoth (talk) 13:02, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It was an intersting story, though BHG didnt say what tunes she'd take to the Island. The sounds & images in Sun eyed girl are about quite a few of the same themes as our celtic mythology. FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:17, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@FeydHuxtable, I hoped that I might get away with swerving the tunes question! I dodged it for two reasons: one is that the list of recordings which speaks most to me is always changing as my sense of the world evolves, so the answer may shift radically from week to week. The other reason is that some of the songs which regularly float to the top are recordings by niche artists, some of whom are friends, and the intersection of those might help one identify me.
So I'll throw out a few of the less personal choices which seem to stick feature regularly on the list. In no particular order:
  1. Emmylou Harris's recording of the Townes van Zandt standard "Pancho and Lefty": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3LQeRqTBK4
    There is so much to love in Emmylou's work that I could have chosen any of a dozen other songs, and it's very hard not to pick the heart-rending "Boulder to Birmingham" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klh7sAv9hu4) with its stunning imagery and its expression of the rarely-stated core horror of grief: "the hardest part is knowing I'll survive". But this one wins as an exquisite exposition of Townes's superbly delicate attempt to explore the moral ambiguity of a story usually told with less subtlety.
  2. Leon Rosselson and Roy Bailey's recording of Leon's song "Abiezer Coppe": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgIjTJa5xR8
    It's a joyous celebration of a thoroughly bonkers but deeply courageous freethinker who illuminated the emperor's nakedness in an era of extraordnary intellectual and religious turmoil.
  3. Luke Kelly's performance of Paddy Kavanagh's "On Raglan Road" at the National Stadium in Dublin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv0MxfE8oec
    Luke recorded this song many times, but this is the most tender. It's also full of paradoxes: the product of a dour, rough poet collaborating with one of the great, soft-hearted, working-class bad boys of Irish music; a love song song which is part endearment, part tender lament, part hideous boastfulness, and ultimately an unpleasantly stalky tale of male objectification; and also a skilful romanticisation of the city I was born in. I never hear it the same way twice.
  4. Miriam Makeba's "Qongqothwane" (aka "The Click Song"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhgb60Qsjrs
    Just for for its sheer tender beauty
  5. Alastair McDonald's recording of Jim McLean's song about the massacre of Glencoe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yYjG6nUwyc
    I am Irish with Scottish ancestry, and this song evokes for me the historical pattern of divide-and-rule brutality directed from London which both Ireland and Scotland have had to endure. Plus, we Irish and Scots love self-pity, and this song has that aplenty.
  6. Mozart's Requiem in D minor (K.626): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPlhKP0nZII
    I don't do much classical music, and I usually find Mozart too much like a slightly fermented fruit salad, but the Requiem's deep sense of pain at death is the most life-affirming music I know
  7. Horslips "The Snow That Melts The Soonest": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzz5yew1sDI
    Alternatively, "Drive The Cold Winter Away": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJqeZmj6X2Q. Both songs combine Horslips's exceptional musicianship with a sparse poetry of winter.
  8. Turlough O'Carolan's "Planxty Sir Festus Burke": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av4D5EpGiXU
    Part of me rails against O'Carolan's Europeanisation of Irish music, but at his best he brings great joy like the Beach Boys, and to my mind this is his most joyous composition. It also evokes some places that are very precious to me.
  9. The Clash's "London Calling": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfK-WX2pa8c
    The definitive song of the ferment in Britain as the old social democratic order collapsed in the late 70s, ushering the a new era of conflict which I found myself living in when I later followed the traditional Irish path of emigration to England.
  10. The Dubliners' 1966 song "Nelson's Farewell": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P50PHCHuwo
    This is The Dubliners at their finest, in their early peak when they revived Irish musical traditions with all the bad-ass attitude which twenty years later was seen globally in punk rock. This particular song is also a glorious celebration of the Irish tradition of cutting through crap to resolve intractable absurdities, while laughing lots along the way and having fun with words.
  11. Willie Brady's recording of Percy French's "Slattery's Mounted Foot": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pOwNXJkd7E
    I love lots of Percy's wry humour, but much his work is now known mostly through the sugary recordings of Brendan O'Dowda. Bless Brendan for keeping the songs alive, but he somehow missed that Percy's style and sensibility was more music hall than concert hall; his spirit was closer the The Dubliners than to the respectable audiences which Brendan sought. Willie comes closer to Percy's spirit. And I choose this song because it captures so beautifully the mixed emotions which are held simultaneously around the Irish tradition of insurrection: the deeply complex mix of heroism and futility, the lack of resources, the dedication and the desperation which drives people to risk impossible odds, and the intractable combination of horrible violence, noble sacrifice, and the essential ability to laugh at the most important things. Above all, one's a winner for the line "Best be a coward for five minutes than a dead man all your life".
  12. Tompall Glaser's "Put Another Log on the Fire": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWpYQjuJ0u0
    I love country and bluegrass music in many many ways; for the twang, for the focus on the little people who don't control their own destiny, and for its ability to laugh at itself. This one does the self-parody brilliantly with an unexpected feminist twist, so it narrowly edges out Dolly Parton's very different but utterly magnificent magnificent "Little Sparrow": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoVXz4cMzxc
  13. Sheena Wellington's unadorned 1999 rendition of Rabbie Burns's "A Man's A Man for A' That": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hudNoXsUj0o
    If I had to choose just one song, it would be this. Many of Burns's works seem to make all other poetry redundant, like Now Westlin' Winds, while others such as "Parcel of Rogues" (perfected by Luke Kelly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcm3MmD7uyc) are near-perfect summations of a history. But "A Man's A Man" is a universalist triumph.
In the highly unlikely event that I was ever asked to appear among the great and the good who get invited to Desert Island Discs (pigs might fly!), I'd only be allowed 8 tracks. And I am already way over that tally without even including most of the songs that I treasure the very most. I'd have to make some sort of random choice ... or maybe just make them play "A Man's A Man" 7 times, and top it off with "Wild Mountain Thyme": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I6K9HTa--I. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:11, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There is also this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuG6Ga2Zlno (a perfect track from a duff album which I bought long ago expecting the delights of Astral Weeks). (Perhaps you could do us a favour by leaving Boris on a desert island.) Or this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6kQ2uxkws8 Oculi (talk) 01:36, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I must say that it is sad to read this enjoyable list as a farewell item. But thank you anyway, it is inspiring, especially for a fellow Emerald Isler. If you do go, I imagine these pieces will be good company. I can only join others above in hoping that you think further, and consider seeking corrections of some of the so-called Findings of Fact. When in the UK for work, as so many from Ireland now aged 50-60, I eventually ended up a "lay" justice, so I would never be too hard on those who volunteer for thankless work such as Arbcom. I would also counsel them, however, to be very careful with determinations of fact, harder than motive, so often. I would have, as user BritishFinance, who may be one of the fastest-learning novices I have seen, also suggested, stuck to an admonishment and a ban or two. I am, for health reasons, an occasional contributor, but I lurk too. In doing so I have seen just a little of how much you do, with those 1.6 million edits, half on articles. I still hope the community can learn to take better care of the few who do so much (1000x my humble input, and 1.2 million times the random member-of-public editor. Best wishes from Dublin to Connaught! Twilson r (talk) 16:49, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If ever you're on DID they should give you double the normal allocation. Your exposition & track selection was more interesting / stirring than anyone I've heard on it (not that I listen to DID that often). Maybe it's a good thing for the wider world if you devote some time to writing, where your sensitivity won't be as constrained as it is here. Here's 3 things that might help, first two are new & maybe obscure. The 3rd you almost certainly already know. Claus Levin on time management I'm sure you have your own effective systems, but I've been told by someone who's experienced with lots of these that Claus is the best, & everything he's offering is totally free. Can't hurt to have the best for the blood, sweat & toil of serious writing. Quite a few accademics are saying the roam app has totally transformed how they organise their knowledge, especially new things they find on the web. It's free & has zero learning curve, at least for the basic functions. Lastly, song to the siren. FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:38, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was very interested to read how you started editing, and how you chose your user name. Thinking that your user name didn't matter because it was "just a throwaway account that I'll only need for a day or two, maybe only a few hours" was in a way similar to what I did. I didn't put any thought into what user name to use, because I thought I would never use my account for anything other than very occasional trivial corrections to errors I came across when here as a reader of the encyclopaedia, not an editor. Also, even for doing that kind of trivial editing I thought I would rarely if ever use my account, as I didn't expect to bother to log into my account unless I was affected by an IP block. (It was because of an IP block at the local library that I created the account.) In one way that was very different from your experience, as you thought you would just create one article, whereas I didn't expect I would ever create an article, but like you I was then stuck with a user name that I would never have chosen if I had any idea that I might become a long term editor and administrator, associated with that name by countless people. I see that Carcharoth also said above "If I'd known I'd be using it 15 years later, I might have gone for something different." I wonder how many more of us are in that situation. JBW (talk) 15:37, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

re: Sikivu Hutchinson and David Silverman (activist) articles

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I noticed that you edited the Sikivu Hutchinson article in the past and that you are also a former Wikipedia admin. My edits for the Sikivu Hutchinson and the David Silverman (activist) articles are being reverted in relation to the content relevant to Sikivu Hutchinson. I asked a Wkipedia admin to resolve this matter at this talk page.

Could you please add your commentary to the talk pages of David Silverman (activist) and Sikivu Hutchinson.Knox490 (talk) 18:14, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. There is more on this at Talk:Sikivu Hutchinson, which I moved from my Talk page. I might have done more to help but I have been out of web connection for most of the past four days. Deb (talk) 15:06, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Deb
Sorry, but I can't help, because I am no longer an admin. See above: User talk:BrownHairedGirl#Statement_by_BHG_on_the_ArbCom_decision. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:12, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I didn't realise that until today. But you might still have a view although I'm not really sure what Knox490 was looking for from us. Deb (talk) 15:19, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:1862 in Croatia requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 05:25, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Jordanian television series endings by year requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 06:02, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Jordanian television series endings by decade requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 06:03, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Lists of UK MPs 1974–1979 has been nominated for discussion

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Category:Lists of UK MPs 1974–1979, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Rathfelder (talk) 16:06, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Swiss television series endings by decade requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:02, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@UnitedStatesian: Please can you leave off the TV chronology categories? I am in the midst of a big restructuring/cleanup, and some categories are not populated immediately. That one was only 16 hours old when you tagged it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:08, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, thanks for letting me know. UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:33, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Alfa Records (Japan) albums requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 05:25, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:1810s establishments in Mauritius requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:29, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 March 2020

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Thank you for being one of Wikipedia's top medical contributors!

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please help translate this message into your local language via meta
The 2019 Cure Award
In 2019 you were one of the top ~300 medical editors across any language of Wikipedia. Thank you from Wiki Project Med for helping bring free, complete, accurate, up-to-date health information to the public. We really appreciate you and the vital work you do! Wiki Project Med Foundation is a thematic organization whose mission is to improve our health content. Consider joining here, there are no associated costs.

Thanks again :-) -- Doc James along with the rest of the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation 18:35, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:Teldisestcat

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Template:Teldisestcat has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 07:09, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Year in nationality music category

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Hi BHG, is there a way that you can modify the template for {{Year in nationality music category}} so when it is utilized it will go into the parent category "Decade in Fooish music". Changing to this template has created a bunch of empty categories that are now appearing in Wikipedia:Database_reports/Empty categories. Thanks. StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 02:52, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars: Done[2].
Many thanks for pointing that out. It was in my drafts, but somehow got snipped before the template went live. Facepalm Facepalm
It usually takes a few hours for the category pages to be purged, but it should be done sometime later today. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:44, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your edit warring on Carl Huntington

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AGF? Please. You're the one initiating silly, bullshit, tit-for-tat edit warring. How many of the 30 articles remaining in that category have you similarly scrutinized? Are you really going to venture into JPL territory and tear down the encyclopedia simply because some other editor didn't jump through all the hoops you expected them to jump through without them knowing what those hoops are? Wikipedia:Six million articles is a steaming crock of shit in that it invokes the Jimbo quote about "the sum of all human knowledge". This project is nowhere near that stage despite being around for 19 years. Some editors have spent years making countless edits per day every day and have never sought to achieve that. If you spent even a tenth as much time actually improving content as you do running scripts, this project would have been much better off and I would have more incentive to spend time here helping to improve it. As it stands, you appear to be another editor who is only about passing judgment on the content contributions of others without having much to contribute to content yourself. In other words, you're sitting back expecting others to do the real work for you. When you make hundreds of edits a day, you're setting the standard. Expecting casual contributors to do the heavy lifting and then viewing them as "second-class editors" like I saw in someone's comment a few years ago speaks volumes about what that standard really is.

The creation of the Huntington article is emblematic of Wikipedia's problems. A newspaper archive search clearly establishes his notability. Numerous sources refer to his mushing feats as something special and to his fame during the height of that period. That wasn't why the article was created, however. The article was created because he holds a particular title, namely Iditarod champion. This is the same thing driving the creation of other musher biographies, often at the expense of more historically important (read: notable) persons. The editor who created the article performed only the minimum effort necessary to collect a hat over at DYK, as evidenced by the numerous sources overlooked because they couldn't be obtained by picking low-hanging fruit. In the thirteen-and-a-half years I've been here, there are only two statements I've read which I agree with 100 percent. One of them is that DYK encourages self-promotion and bad writing. I'm no longer emotionally invested in this project, where it appears you are. It's very easy for me to walk away and abandon my efforts to improve this article, leaving it for what it really is, a blatant attempt on someone's part to collect a hat (your actions thus far have already proven that if I do walk away, the article will only be torn down, not built). The countless times I've pointed this situation out with articles nominated at DYK or ITN/C has not resulted in any appreciable improvement to the content in question, only the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. In other words, this evinces the notion that Wikipedia regulars believe readers to be too stupid to know any better or that readers don't actually read encyclopedia entries in depth. This makes your claims of AGF a case of Wikipedia being "the blind leading the blind". RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 18:47, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@RadioKAOS: per the notice at the bottom of this page, I prefer to keep discussions in one place. But in this case I think that moving your post across to User talk:RadioKAOS#AGF_please as a reply to my post[3] would be perceived as as hostile, so I won't do that.
Bluntly, RK, you chose to misinterpret my routine cleanup edit[4] on Carl Huntington (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) as persecution of you, and used your edit summary as an opportunity for a rant[5]. You ignored my reply to you, and now came here to post a longer rant because I removed[6] one of the two categories which you added, since it refers to an attribute not mention in the article: see WP:CATVER.
There are indeed many problems with en.wp, but I don't see how any of them will be resolved by adding an unsourced assertion. If it was a mention in the article text, I would have left it in place and added a {{fact}} tag, since the article is not a BLP. However, there is no way of tagging a category as unsourced, so I removed it.
And as to the rest of your post, you appear to be using me as the outlet for your anger about those wider problems ... so I don't think that further discussion is likely to be productive at this time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:24, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RfA

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TonyBallioni (centre right, with hat and very smart side-parting) prepares to give the oration by the graveside of Arbcom's once-good judgement.

Just so you know, I would support an RfA this instant, and I suspect many others would as well. This is the only time in memory where I’ve seen a desysop where I’m convinced the arbs got it wrong both in my gut and after reading through the case. Thank you for your years of dedication to the project: you are the reason many of us got more involved in Wikipedia. Anyway, take all the time you need, but if you were to run, I’m confident it would be a vindication of the trust many of us still have in you. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:39, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I second that. Reyk YO! 07:07, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:13, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 King of 21:27, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes please. An RfA is the way to demonstrate your wide support. Johnuniq (talk) 22:13, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:19, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 here as well. Doug Mehus T·C 22:29, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Unsure. Would people treat it as an assessmwent of BHG or an assessment of Arbcom's desysop? Some might support BHG because she has been a superior editor, but who also believe Arbcom was justified. Expect a lot of neutrals. Moriori (talk) 22:33, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Not trying to stop you from writing or any other activities you see more deserving for your brain, energy, and time. I fully respect whatever decision you take, and (per Moriori) of course I'm not sure either. But you'd have my support, with bells on. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:27, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 here as well. Cbl62 (talk) 03:26, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I really would personally suggest, just as my own personal opinion, that perhaps BHG might be better off pursuing other activities? serving as an editor of Wikipedia is fine, and I hope she continues to do so. Why pursue adminship again, after all that has happened? who says that would be beneficial? I am not an admin, never have been, and never want to be one. my own personal highly-insignificant personal opinion on this is that, after all that has occurred, I think that BHG deserves a wiki-break from the admin role itself. I am really speaking based upon my own subjective experiences of life, and not for any other reason. you guys simply need to see the wider world around us. BHG gave the admin role their best shot. I don't think we are necessarily doing BHG a favor, by suggesting this so soon after the whole proceeding. I truly mean this as an idea of a positive nature, and I hope my input is seen that way. I appreciate it. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 16:44, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the thinking is that BHG ought to be able to quit or move away from WP on her own terms, rather than on the terms set by ArbCom.--Quisqualis (talk) 18:14, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Quisqualis, Exactly, and I don't think they've successfully prosecuted the case for an ArbCom-directed desysop, either. Certainly, we've had experienced and administrators alike who have used unparliamentary language in their discussions. I do also think BHG raises important points on the lack of procedural fairness employed by ArbCom, and on their (lack of) factual accuracy in their decision. Doug Mehus T·C 18:18, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 ミラP 20:03, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 OhNoitsJamie Talk 20:10, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 I suppose there's no limit to the number of nominators one can have, eh? Schwede66 05:47, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Schwede66, Nope. I assume the nominators would be implied votes of support and thus not need to actually !vote in said RfA? A potential new RfA for BHG may well break wikirecords in terms of the number of co-nominators; would be funny if they had to recode the RfA template to reflect the implied votes of support into the "support/oppose/neutral" template maintained by Cyberbot due to the co-nominees not being reflected in the "support" total. ;) Doug Mehus T·C 17:41, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Dmehus Nominators do vote in RfAs. Schwede66 18:14, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Schwede66, Oh, in addition to their nomination? Doug Mehus T·C 18:15, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. Schwede66 18:38, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Schwede66, Thank you. Doug Mehus T·C 00:45, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 Please consider this path carefully—not just for yourself, but also for all those who benefit from your good work building an encyclopedia. Neonorange (Phil) 07:02, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 (Goodness, all this had escaped my notice entirely.) As discussed above, the FoF can be challenged. As revealed here, it has little impact on the enormously high regard in which you are held by many fellow editors and admins. I've had the privilege to see some of your behind-the-scenes activity on self-populating navigation templates rolled out, and they are works of genius and beauty. If you leave, you'll find other good things to do with your life, but you've been a great fit with this project, and it does not have to end here. – Fayenatic London 08:22, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 Lourdes 17:22, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+100000000 Puddleglum 2.0 01:11, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 –Davey2010Talk 01:36, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 Would support a RFA in a heartbeat; although we quibbled in the recent past, your record and long standing demonstrated integrity speaks for themselves. Agreed with every word and analysis points you made in various portals discussion before the arbcom...fiasco; have always acted like a true content orientated admin. Obviously you have brought huge value to the project and have for years been just irreplaceable. Your closing statement above is one of the most considered, graceful and optimistic I've read on the internet. Really, really really hope you reconsider staying with the project. Ceoil (talk) 18:33, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 Johnbod (talk) 04:47, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 removal of administrator access was a net negative Wug·a·po·des 02:00, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I wish I had said something when you were wronged by ArbCom. I didn't, because I have never really interacted with you, you don't know me, I'm just a nobody, I had nothing to do with the case, and because I'm a coward. I'm very sorry that I did nothing to help you. You deserve so much better. Should you decide to to try to regain adminship through an RfA, whenever the time is right for you, I'd be very happy to support you. Vexations (talk) 03:06, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 ! What unmitigated poppycock. You are and will ever remain one of the best to have wielded a wikipen. 🌤️ – SJ + 21:45, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 You and I have had our run-ins and disagreements in the past and some of the exchanges were not as polite as they could have been, but I never thought you were acting out of spite, only conviction as I was. I cannot believe that desysopping was considered necessary. Like you, I have considered leaving Wikipedia in the past due to my treatment by other editors here (including when I was briefly desysopped myself when my account was hijacked through no fault of my own - the attitude of some editors was not edifying), and continue to do so on occasion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:36, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Necrothesp, Exactly. BrownHairedGirl argues passionately in her arguments, but I've never construed those arguments being made with malice or spite. Like the RHaworth case decision, this was another example of ArbCom coming to the wrong decision based on procedural flaws in weighing the arguments. Doug Mehus T·C 14:05, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 06:17, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You gave me a thorough shake-down at Template talk:UK MP links 5 years and 2 usernames ago. I'm a better editor for it. The power of wishful thinking worked for me there. It's got to work here, right? Cabayi (talk) 11:37, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
+1 as well. Please don't scramble your password and de-link the e-mail. Time for reflection is good, but why take irrevocable actions? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 12:12, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A kitten for you! +

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I know it is not much coming from me, and I have not had the years of experience on this site that you have had. However, I do think it is a mistake for you to give up on Wikipedia now.
In politics, we have what's called a Second Act. BHG the superstar admin who wields the mop with righteous fury may be no more, but that shouldn't stop you from finding something new to become.
Regardless, Wikipedia can use your help now more than ever!
MJLTalk 17:14, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded (so to speak). Surely you joined Wikipedia to edit, not to admin? --GRuban (talk) 20:02, 4 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Good luck BrownHairedGirl in whatever you choose to do. Many thanks for your awesome contributions to the wikipedia. Govindaharihari (talk) 08:11, 5 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators' newsletter – March 2020

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2020).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following an RfC, the blocking policy was changed to state that sysops must not undo or alter CheckUser or Oversight blocks, rather than should not.
  • A request for comment confirmed that sandboxes of established but inactive editors may not be blanked due solely to inactivity.

Technical news

  • Following a discussion, Twinkle's default CSD behavior will soon change, most likely this week. After the change, Twinkle will default to "tagging mode" if there is no CSD tag present, and default to "deletion mode" if there is a CSD tag present. You will be able to always default to "deletion mode" (the current behavior) using your Twinkle preferences.

Miscellaneous



I've withdrawn the CFD so you can discuss with other people on what to do with the category and the constituency categories. ミラP 19:10, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:22, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Members of the Parliament of England (pre-1707) by parliament, which you created, has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Rathfelder (talk) 17:19, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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Hey, I have a question regarding your latest TV-related category templates. Was there a reason why you created both "debut" and "endings" templates, instead of just one?

Take Template:Nationality television series debuts category for example, it checks the pattern "^.+ television series debuts$", but you could just do here a "if pattern1 (debut) ok, then pass debut-params, elseif pattern2 (endings) ok, then pass endings-params, else error. Then to Template:Nationality television series debuts category/core you currently pass "country" and "nationality", but here you can also pass either "debut" or "endings" which you can then use in the category (or header text where present). So here, for example [[Category:Television series debuts by country|{{{nationality}}}]]" can be [[Category:Television series {{{type}}} by country|{{{nationality}}}]]". --Gonnym (talk) 10:31, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gonnym
Thanks for your question. These things are a bit of a toss-up. Over the years I came round to the view that category header templates are a good thing for many sets, especially if they can a) handle all except a few edge cases, and b) are intelligent and don't require parameters. They make it much easier to create new categories, reducing errors and creating consistent parenting and presentation across the set. That's good for both readers and editors.
The problem is that both A and B increase complexity, which reduces maintainability. In general, I think that maintainability gets less critical as usage levels increase. So the cite templates use Module:Citation/CS1, which is an utter monster of a code farm, but it's used on over 4 million pages (nearly all in article space), so I reckon it justifies requiring expert maintainers. Similarly Template:Infobox, with ~3.5 million transclusions.
I feel that in these cases the transclusion count will range from ~100 (for the container cats) to the low thousands for the by-year cats, and they are used on the relative backwater of categories (much lower viewing than articles) which isn't a big enough or sufficiently widely-viewed set to attract many coding wizards. I have stretched the complexity about as far as I want to go for this level of usage. The crudity of the Lua-based pattern-matching matching would make the code even more complex if if I added that extra layer, esp because parser functions don't do if/elseif/else, just if/else, so it would take quite a lot more code (or some hacks which produce code that is less verbose but more obscure). I could write that code easily enough, but each step of added complexity creates a corresponding fall in maintainability.
Over the last 4 decades, I have had several occasions where complexity led to abandonment when key personnel changed, so I am very wary of creating similar problems on en.wp. So in this case it seemed better to just fork each type of template, and have one template for each type of category.
That last para is a judgment call about fuzzy boundaries, and I won't swear that I have got the balance entirely right. What do you think of that explanation? If you can demo a version which does both without getting too ugly, I'd be happy to take a look. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:29, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I completely understand your point about the complexity (which is part of the reason I would have gone the Lua way, as I find template code horrible in that regard). The reason I brought this up was because I changed something in one of the other templates, only latter noticing the same issue, which was when I noticed that the debut/endings template call different /core templates. I'll make a mock up later today as I've used if/elseif/else in template code before without any hacks needed. I'm pretty sure (but I might be wrong) that it won't add any layer of real complexity to the code. --Gonnym (talk) 11:37, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
See Template:Nationality television series debuts category/sandbox and Template:Nationality television series debuts category/core/sandbox on how this works without any problems with barely any change to the structure. In Lua this can be a bit more efficient, as there isn't need to find the title parts multiple times. --Gonnym (talk) 13:31, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Gonnym: Sorry for not replying more promptly ... but many many thanks for making this version. It inspired me to explore the idea, and I have devised what I think is a slightly neater way of achieving the same goal, which I have implemented at Template:(Dis)estCatUSstateCentury and Template:YYYY (dis)establishments in one of the Thirteen Colonies. Basically, my variation is to use string:find to check both versions of the title at the outset, which removes the need for the second call to the core.
I am going to implement that now on the TV templates ... and then do it on other establishments/disestablishments templates. Thanks again for all your help on this; if you hadn't poked me about it, I'd not have tried it.
@Fayenatic london: you may also be interested in this. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:57, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Gonnym: I have now made five of these TV series debuts or endings category header templates:
I may create one or two more, but so far I am very pleased with how this is working out. Thanks again. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:11, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy to see these changes! :) Are the following templates leftovers that should be deleted? Template:Decade nationality television series debuts category/core, Template:Decade nationality television series endings category, Template:Decade nationality television series endings category/core, Template:Nationality television series debuts by decade category/core, Template:Nationality television series debuts by year category/core, Template:Nationality television series endings by decade category/core, Template:Nationality television series endings category/core, Template:Year nationality television series debuts category/core, Template:Year nationality television series endings category/core. --Gonnym (talk) 17:40, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Gonnym: I think they are all leftovers. But I still haven't finished work on the categories (about 7,000 done and and 1,200 still go). I want to wait until the work is all done before deleting anything, just in case there is something weird that might require the old stuff. I can't think what that might be, so it's in the realm of Rumsfeldian unknown unknowns ... but I don't want to have to come back and undelete anything. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:52, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, do you mind renaming the helper templates to something that doesn't use CamalCase? It's not only consistent with the other templates in the set and easier to read but also follows the recommendation at WP:TPN. --Gonnym (talk) 11:35, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Gonnym, and thanks again for keeping a close eye on this work.
My initial thought is that I think I would mind.
I deliberately chose CamelCase for {{TVChronoCatsErrCatName}} and {{TVDebutsEndingsAntonym}} for several reasons:
  1. To distinguish them from the templates used to create categories, which use standard English descriptive names.
  2. To keep the names terse when used in template code, which makes the code easier to read. The main reason for creating them is to make the code easier to read, and since they are used only in the code, that seems to me to be the primary consideration.
WP:TPN says "'Template names are easiest to remember if they follow standard English spelling, spacing, and capitalization". But because these templates are very unlikely to be used to by most editors, the need to remember them hardly applies. If you look for example at the source code of {{Year television series debuts or endings category/core}}, there is a line:
{{Category see also if exists|{{{year}}} television series {{TVDebutsEndingsAntonym|{{{type}}}}}}}
I think that the legibility (and hence maintainability) of that line would be reduced if it was changed to something like:
{{Category see also if exists|{{{year}}} television series {{Antonym of either of the words debuts or endings when used in television series categories|{{{type}}}}}}}
Does that make sense? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:25, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To me personally, it would be easier to read as a sentence, but I'm sure that long version isn't the only possible name this template can have. While {{TVDebutsEndingsAntonym}} is used only in TV templates, it has nothing in the code that cares for TV-specific names. It only accepts |1= and checks if it is either "endings", "debuts" or something else, so the template name also does not need to mention "TV" in it. Niether does it's usage in category has any connection to it. So something like {{Antonym of debuts or endings}} could work. It's short and easy to read. --Gonnym (talk) 12:45, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Gonnym: I considered {{Antonym of debuts or endings}}, but rejected that idea because it lacks specificity. There are many antonyms of each of those two words, but this template is specifically for the antonyms as used in television chronology categories. Using a generic name runs the risk that someone will change it to suit some other purpose or to suit their preferred variant of English, and thereby screw up the templates for which it was designed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:53, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. Heads up Category:British television series debuts has some kind of issue. Also Category:Swedish television series endings. I wish people would report issues instead of just removing the template. --Gonnym (talk) 06:50, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Gonnym: Thanks for the pointer. I sorted out Sweden, by creating and populating Category:Swedish television series. Will look again at the British. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)
Do you think a Category:20th-century American television series is needed? As there are Category:20th-century American animated television series and Category:20th-century American mystery television series or are those categories not needed? --Gonnym (talk) 18:51, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Understanding the category tree

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Hi BHG! (I'm happy you're still editing. Also, I'm happy User:Bhg redirects to your userpage, which makes it so easy to find you .) I was trying to figure out how many articles we have about living people vs. non-living people. It's about 950,000 living people per a WP:PetScan of Category:Living people–that part's easy. So I ran a PetScan on Category:People, 10 subcategories deep, excluding Category:Living people. (It's PSID 15662751 and here's the link [7] but warning, it takes a very, very long time to load, so you may not want to click on it.) The result I got is 3,744,430. That is far too high, and, indeed, the results list includes articles like Anarchism, Autism, and our article on the letter A. The article A is a good example to go with because it's in very few categories: Category:ISO basic Latin letters and Category:Vowel letters. How are those categories ending up as sub-categories of Category:People?

My conclusion – and the reason I'm here – is that I am misusing and misunderstanding the category tree. I already know it's not a strict heirarchy, and many subcategories are children of multiple parent categories. But I'm scratching my head about how Category:ISO basic Latin letters and Category:Vowel letters are ending up as subcategories of Category:People, at any level. Do you have any insight on where I'm going wrong, or how to do what I'm trying to do (figure out how many articles are about people, living v. dead)? Is 10 categories "too deep" such that everything is within 10 category levels of everything else? Is the category tree actually a category circle? (Is... is the world actually round and not flat?!) Thanks for any guidance you can offer! - Levivich [dubious – discuss] 21:13, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Levivich, and thanks. I am still cleaning up unfinished business, so Ill' be here for another month or so. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Still rethinking after the wonderful response above.
The key thing to remember about the en.wp category system is that per WP:CAT it is primary a navigational tool. That distinguishes it from the de.wp category system, which is (or allegedly used to be) purely mathematical, so that all subcats of people would be people.
All the same, the en.wp category shouldn't be that bad. There used to be a tool to check the path between two categories, but it stopped working, and now I can't even recall its name. Pity; it was a godsend for tasks like this, and I used it eliminate some horrors. I looked on toolforge (https://tools.wmflabs.org/admin/tools#!/search/category), and I thought that https://tools.wmflabs.org/catscan2/reverse_tree.php might help, but it's broken. I suggest you may want to post at WP:VPT asking if anyone knows of a currently-working tool to check that path between two categories. There are lots of v good techie folks at VPT who will know if there is something.
As to your immediate problem, there is a workaround that I use. Instead of checking Category:People+subcats, try Category:Deaths by millennium+subcats; optionally add in Category:Year of death missing and Category:Year of death uncertain. That should be fairy clean.
Hope that helps a wee bit. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:25, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I knew you'd be the lady to ask! Category:Deaths by millennium, Category:Year of death missing and Category:Year of death uncertain +10 lvls subcats = 721,883 [8], which is a more realistic number, but still strikes me as too high, and indeed it has false positives like Iraqi opposition (pre-2003) and Iraqi National Congress. (I thought FM-2030 was a false positive but turns out, no, that's the actual name of a person.) I'll ask over at the pump about a replacement tool for category pathing (is that what you call it?). My ultimate goal is to update User:Smallbones/1000 random results but with real counts instead of basing it off a sample, if possible. (Let me know if you have any interesting in working on such a project–your high-level understanding of the encyclopedia's organization [or lack thereof] would be invaluable.) Thanks again for the help! – Levivich [dubious – discuss] 03:45, 3 March 2020 (UTC) Update: There's already a conversation about this from just last week: WP:VPT#Is there a tool, that can search a path through categories, to find a way how an article falls into some category?. Go figure. – Levivich [dubious – discuss] 03:48, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Very glad to read that BHG is still rethinking...
The above was too tempting a puzzle to ignore. I don't plan to spend more time on it, but replied at the VPT link above. – Fayenatic London 21:43, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Levivich: briefly, as this has been discussed elsewhere before (a number of years ago), it is also possible (or used to be possible) to get an approximation by looking at the number of articles tagged by Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography. The claim there (click edit over there to see how that number is produced) is that there are currently 1,665,526 articles within the scope of WikiProject Biography, but this will also include 'group' articles, so that is still only an approximation. Some of the earlier discussion will be found in the talk page archives of that WikiProject, and you could ask there. There will also be a fairly large number (unsure of the size of this) of pages that are not tagged with the right category or talk page tag to be picked up by these counting methods. The BLP figure should be the most accurate one, but some BLPs out there will still be untagged as well, and some articles containing material on living people that are not biographies might be 'tagged' by the category (not sure about that). BLPs used to be around a fifth of the 'people' articles (I can dig up the old estimates if needed), but I may be mis-remembering that as it seems they are currently over half (57%) so it seems that Wikipedia is continuing to create articles on living people and may be slowing down in terms of creating articles on non-living people. (PS. For Category:Living people the current (approximate) number is right there on the category page: "approximately 943,573 total"). Carcharoth (talk) 14:28, 5 March 2020 (UTC) @Levivich: apologies for the second ping, but I found some possibly relevant bits: (1) A Signpost article I wrote just over 10 years ago here (hmm, someone should re-do that survey); (2) The value of numbers (old thread at Wikipedia talk:Biographical metadata); (3) here: "Thom Hickey at WorldCat recently counted the number of biographical articles on Wikipedia using Category:Births by year and Category:Deaths by year, and reached the total 283,655 Dsp13 12:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)" (@Dsp13:; (4) here: "I'm part of the way through building a list of articles within the subcategories of Category:Dead people, and already I have a list of over 100,000 articles. My (wild) estimate is that biographies form ~25% of the over 1 million articles on Wikipedia. [...] kingboyk 16:28, 7 August 2006 (UTC)". @Kingboyk:. Carcharoth (talk) 14:57, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Carcharoth, thanks for all this info! Very interesting! I have a lot of reading to do Levivich [dubious – discuss] 17:17, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think what I was remembering with the "one-fifth" bit was that biography articles (in around 2008) were about 20% of the articles on Wikipedia. I still can't find the earlier discussions, which is very annoying, but will drop you a note if I find them. If you do come up with a current set of article statistics (and a better way of generating them), please let me know. Carcharoth (talk) 17:23, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
They are now about 25%. This is probably the one and only thing for which Wikidata is useful. There is a lot of discussion on this topic, as you can imagine, over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red. This extended discussion from last year is especially illuminating, and links to the work being done by User:Andrew Gray and others. Johnbod (talk) 18:25, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Or just these stats from Wikidata. Johnbod (talk) 20:25, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This template, which you created today, seems to contain an error. Many category pages transcluding it have popped up in Category:ParserFunction errors. See, for example, Category:Canadian television seasons by decade. Deor (talk) 19:56, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Deor. Now fixed[9]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:03, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

TV templates part 2

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I've been playing around with module code to see if groups of the TV templates can be combined.

Module:Sandbox/Gonnym/sometest5 is an example of combining the code from {{Year in television category}}, {{Decade in television category}} and (a not created) {{Century in television category}} and their /core counterparts. You can test this on Category:1938 in television, Category:1930s in television and Category:20th century in television by placing {{#invoke:Sandbox/Gonnym/sometest5|main}}. This basically reduces 6 templates to 2 (template/module). What do you think? --Gonnym (talk) 20:07, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for trying this, Gonnym. I think that the proliferation of intricate templates has gotten to the point where something like that would be a good idea in principle.
I had had mulled over this a little in the last few days and had formed some some vague notions, but I'm getting a bit tired tonight ... so I hope you will forgive me for not even looking at them until tomorrow, when I hope my head will be clearer. I have enough energy left to continue down the path I started on, but not enough to engage with new concepts, or ti give meaningful feedback. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:48, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, there is no rush (and any module work is anyways based on your research and template code, so that isn't wasted work). --Gonnym (talk) 20:51, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Arbcom decision redux

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Nobody cares about an Arbcom finding of fact three minutes after it is archived. Don't scramble your password just yet; take a month or two off finding other things to which you might volunteer your time. If working on Wikipedia still makes sense after a period of cooling off and looking around, come back strong! There are many here, myself included, who hope that you do. If other ways to volunteer make sense for you, do those. Just make like an Ent and don't be hasty. Carrite (talk) 17:41, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, @Carrite. I am thinking a lot about all the wonderful encouragement and support I have had in the last few days from you and others. It has been quite overwhelming to find so much kindness from so many.
But my three-score-and-ten is ticking away towards its limit, and I need to think long and hard about how to use whatever years are left to me. There's a time for everything, and the discomfort of this ugly episode may be a sign that I should finally take firm action to clear space to do the substantive writing which many of friends rightly accuse me of dodging. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:27, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
BrownHairedGirl, bravo!! there is plenty of other great ways to use your considerable talents. if you have friends encouraging you to write, then I say go for it. Wikipedia will still be here whenever you want to come back. We all have a certain amount of time to use our talents. I think you should pursue any creative areas that seem worthwhile for you. good for you! I hope all's well. best wishes. --Sm8900 (talk) 16:50, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've cut my WP content writing time way, way, way back for a couple years now to work on a book series so I know exactly of what you speak. I'm the last person to fault you for that decision. But there's no need to scramble a password even if you do go that route — let it sit. Come back if it feels right and seems important; correct two typos a year if it doesn't. If you're like me, you'll be using WP as a book-writer even if you don't write much for WP when you're so engaged. All the best either way, —tim /// Carrite (talk) 19:36, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I want to add my words of support to what my friend Carrite wrote above. Take some time off, as long as you like, but please don't do anything irrevocable. I know that you are hurting right now, with a lot of justification. However things turn out, I just want to say that I am very grateful for all of the excellent work you have done for this project. Thank you so much. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:57, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
My three-score-and-ten came and went and I'm ticking along on borrowed time according to my physician, so I hardly have time for those who use their claims of PSTD as an excuse for their behaviour to insult, harass, and bait admins in the hope of a reaction they can complain about, or get away with paid editing. I haven't forgotten Jimbo Wales' 'civility' speech 2014 in London and the message he was trying to impart without directly naming names of people who have deliberately made breaches of civility their stock-in-trade for years. At Arbcom, defence is characterised as 'doubling down' , so in my case I'm not even watchlisting Arbcom. In the words of Iridescent: ...something as blatantly "verdict first, trial later" as this one. I've semi-joked before that it's possible to predict the outcome of arbcom cases before they even take place just by looking at the personal grudges of the participants and calculating how far they each think they'll be able to push their preferred outcome and still call it a compromise, but I'm not sure I can recall an example this blatant before. When It's all over and done with, I'll also probably be scrambling my password, but maybe not until I've had the opportunity of meeting some friends and enemies alike at the next Wikimania which will be taking place in a few months right on my doorstep. And then I'll have more time to spend with my adult grand children, get back to composing some serious music, and write some more books. BrownHairedGirl, your work on Wikipedia will be sorely missed, but I know how you feel. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:12, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@BrownHairedGirl and Kudpung: I wanted to wish you both the best for your creative endeavours outside of Wikipedia. Getting those things done is a struggle a lot of us have, to be honest. Airbornemihir (talk) 04:09, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is actually exactly a reason to take a break, not to scramble the password.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:36, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I concur 200% with all of the above; you could scramble your password, for security purposes, but don't remove the e-mail link just yet. If nothing else, I would encourage you to seek a new RfA, which you would undoubtedly win handily, as a method to rebuke the ArbCom decision. Notionally, Wikipedia has no rules, so there's nothing in set in stone that ArbCom can't pass a motion to refine the wording of its previous rulings, to the extent that anyone cares about ArbCom rulings as @Carrite and GoodDay: have pointed out. I haven't read the GoodDay ArbCom case because, frankly, I spent all of two minutes with it, and it was a grossly erroneous smear job. GoodDay, like you, is one of the finest and hardest working editors Wikipedia has. Doug Mehus T·C 16:40, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Moreover, even after seeking and winning a new RfA, whether or not the ArbCom decision is amended or not, you could still decide that you've got other priorities in your real life you want to take care of, so could retire your mop shortly thereafter anyway. But, crucially, you would give yourself the satisfaction of knowing ArbCom was dealt a crucial blow to their credibility with your re-election as an administrator. Doug Mehus T·C 16:42, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with Doug and Kudpung. You have your life to live; still, Arbcom should be forced to examine its actions, however little good it will do them. Consider your de-sysopping a blessing in disguise. Life is too finite and uncertain to donate your blood time any further.
Wikipedia will miss you far more than you will miss Wikipedia. I have no knowledge of the workings of ArbCom, yet, from reading every post in this thread, I am somewhat appalled that they would choose punishment over rehabilitation.
Let them eat dirt cake; you are a hero(ine) to the many Wikipedians familiar with your show trial case, and an inspiration as well.--Quisqualis (talk) 18:06, 3 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi BHG, I was away for 3+ months from October to February, and I missed all of this. I think it's just ashamed you were de-sysopped and I think that decision was a poor one. I can't think of anyone who has so tirelessly and humanely contributed to the encyclopedia. I'm shocked at this result and can only shake my head in disbelief. I know you want to decrease your time spent here, but lifespans are very long these days and I hope we will continue to be blessed by your presence. In terms of "ArbCom decisions are unappealable", I'm not sure that is entirely correct; I've seen many ArbCom decisions revisited and overturned down the line, usually at least a year or two later so fresh Arb eyes are in play. I think if you want the tools back, you'd pass an RFA even today with flying colors.

It's so sad to see female admins leave or be desysopped or both. I hope you will stick with us. Softlavender (talk) 13:25, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry

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Walk in, chips and sauce for everyone  :)

Hit the wrong contribs button before blocking. You’re now the first victim of being accidentally blocked be me. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:31, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tony gets a trout. Hehehe –MJLTalk 14:51, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That was probably a deserved fish, but Tony is one of the good guys, so I think he deserves chips with that. And curry sauce. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

Hi TonyBallioni

We're all human, and mistakes happen. Thanks for remedying this one so promptly and for your speedy apology ... but it would have been helpful if the unblock had used a more informative explanation than just "ugh". I hope that doesn't get used by miscreants as a stick to beat me with. I fear that I will need to bookmark the diff[10] of your apology above.

Anyway, congrats for your solution[11] at the ANI thread. It's a pity when it has to come to that, but I think it was the right decision. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:53, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you want I can block you for a second to note the previous block was a misclick. Up to you. I’ve seen it happen enough that I thought it’d be obvious to anyone looking, but get your concerns. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Tony, but I think that extending the block log would be worse than leaving it as it is. It's done now, and you're probably right that the v prompt unblock will be evident. It's a pity that there isn't some power for bureaucrats to amend block logs so that an easily-done good faith misclick like this doesn't become a permanent part of someone's record.
Anyway, the main thing is that the timewaster is no longer wasting people's time. So we can all get back to work. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:03, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If you both agree to it, I wouldn't see any issue with redacting the relevant entry from the block log since it's clearly there in error. It theoretically would breach policy, but since neither of you are likely ever to want to use it as evidence against the other, I'd be willing to apply IAR and take the hit should one of the usual busybodies haul me off to Arbcom over it. ‑ Iridescent 16:10, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Iridescent, that's v kind of you. I absolutely would never want to use that against TonyBallioni, so I'd like this redacted.
But it's Tony's actions, so I'll leave the final decision to Tony. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:19, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I have no objection if Iri wants to redact it per IAR. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:21, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm now having second thoughts, as if I revdelete it, it will still be visible to admins in the block logs with the reason hidden. (I just checked on the long-suffering User:ThisIsATest; logged-in as a non-admin the edits are fully hidden, but logged-in as an admin they show as greyed out with the "(Username or IP removed) (log details removed) (edit summary removed)" summary.) That might actually be worse than leaving the "ugh" in situ, as it will mean admins looking at it in future will potentially assume that it was some kind of child-protection or legal block that's been hidden by the WMF; even though it means more paperwork, it might be better asking Arbcom to oversight the relevant log entries. ‑ Iridescent 17:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That’s fine from my end. In terms of OS: I’m obviously not going to suppress it myself, and I doubt this arbcom would. It’s likely there to stay :/ TonyBallioni (talk) 17:43, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Thanks again, Iridescent. I wasn't aware of that twist, but I agree that the whiff of legal smoke is best avoided.
If you feel up to making the request to ArbCom, that'd be great. Or does that need to be done by me? Or by TonyBallioni? I dunno the procedure at all, so I am in your hands. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:44, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You could ask, but it doesn’t fall under the oversight policy as written, and in my opinion the current ArbCom is probably on the stricter end of the spectrum on their reading of policy re: CU/OS (that’s not a bad thing). I don’t think it’s likely to be suppressed, and they’d likely point to all the other admins with misclick blocks in the log as a “no big deal” type of thing. (I’ll ping Bishonen because she’s the first example that comes to mind of this, but there are others.) Anyway, up to you. I don’t mind whatever as it was a misclick on my end. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:50, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There is at least one precedent for Arbcom oversighting a block log, albeit that was different circumstances (the block reason was "hate speech" so there were reasonable grounds to think people would draw seriously negative conclusions from seeing the incorrect log entry). I assume it's safe to say that in light of Recent Unpleasantness at least some arbs have this talkpage watchlisted and will be aware of this thread. ‑ Iridescent 18:11, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Iridescent: I happened to be watching from another (as yet unresolved! any category enthusiasts around?) matter. I think simple revision deletion would be fine if consensus exists to perform same: the revision deletion itself has a log entry for any future administrators to understand the reason for the revision deletion e.g.. The relevant policy is Wikipedia:Revision deletion#Log redaction which calls for "consensus or Arbcom agreement" to redact logs. Suppression might raise more questions than it quells. (Does the log entry just disappear altogether?)
While testing, I saw I had the ability to change the "tags" of the log entry. What about just adding a tag "Mistaken block"? –xenotalk 01:15, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
xeno, tagged this as "revert" and there's a log entry somewhere saying it was a misclick. Figuring out tagging and the like is a bit beyond me, but I tried. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:13, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
talk page stalker - phab:T160233 has a patch pending that would accomplish that (allowing annotations in the block log) DannyS712 (talk) 21:14, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That looks stalled DannyS712, is someone going to pitch it at WP:VPR? –xenotalk 01:15, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Xeno: maybe when I have time... way too much stuff to do. Do you (or anyone else watching) want to open a discussion? DannyS712 (talk) 01:17, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(exec. summary: Danny wrote code to add comments to block logs but it won't be considered for addition to MediaWiki without a project on record as actually wanting the feature.) DannyS712, can the comments be inserted anywhere or do they just go onto the next line of the block log? –xenotalk 01:23, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Xeno: next line. See the screenshot at [12] - basically its to replace the 1 second blocks used today. Some places where this can be used: Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Recording in the block log, Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Recording in the block log after a "clean start". Some places where this could have been useful (random): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=User%3AAanmoldhiman (note in the log that the block now has a different reason, rather than unblocking just to reblock), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=User%3AREMEndofTheWorld (to correct the reason, instead of unblocking just to reblock). Some points of caution: shouldn't be used to issue warning, but rather just in place of the current places where this should be used DannyS712 (talk) 01:28, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"shouldn't be used to issue warning" Tasty beans! Beware of unintended consequences... –xenotalk 01:45, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Correct category

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Hi this edit is wrong[13] Because Counties change, Please create them, not delete them, See also here. Thank you M.k.m2003 (talk) 22:42, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@M.k.m2003, please create the articles, citing sources, ... and only then create the category page.
Your edits placed many dozens of articles to a non-existent category, in edit which included no edit summary to explain why you had done it. In many of the articles which I checked, the county name had not been changed, so the article said the place was in one county, and the category said another county. Categories should reflect the content of articles, and changes such as this should be sourced: see WP:CATVER. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:48, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
These edits require 2 days Because of 500 edits And sorry I didn't explain M.k.m2003 (talk) 23:07, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you don't know But I'm not allowed to create a category (User_talk:M.k.m2003/Archive_1#Blocked_2) I thought you didn't know! Anyway thank you M.k.m2003 (talk) 23:16, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You can go back to the first Because I don't want to change the category again And I'll finish the pages tomorrow Only the category should be created Which is created as soon as the articles are moves. Thank you M.k.m2003 (talk) 23:51, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
M.k.m2003: If you are not allowed to create a category, then you should refrain from this task. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:13, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Draft: InfoBeans

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Hi BrownHairedGirl,

Could you please take a moment to review the Draft: InfoBeans and suggest the specific changes required to make it notable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Everything in the article is sourced from news articles, official reports of the company. If there are particular statements you object to I would appreciate you letting me know and I can rephrase them.

I am not getting a clear idea about how this article is not meeting the guideline as I can see the similar articles in the mainspace and are active. Reviewed the below articles and many more with the similar flow of content and third party references used:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCL_Technologies

I'm new to Wikipedia and willing to work with you to remove or rephrase the article to meet the notability guideline of Wikipedia. Please help me in editing the content.

Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1994vd (talkcontribs) 05:48, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Harare Polytechnic alumni has been nominated for discussion

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Category:Harare Polytechnic alumni, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Coyets (talk) 16:59, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Jordanian television series endings requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:00, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Baba Farid University of Health Sciences alumni requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:39, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on Category:Articles with Ladino-language external links requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Gonnym (talk) 22:07, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In media

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Question, do you think that the categories of xx-century media (Category:20th-century media) should be moved to "Category:20th-century in media"? The decades (Category:1900s in media) and years (Category:1900 in media) are using "in". --Gonnym (talk) 08:47, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

March 2020

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Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. ミラP 22:23, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, that ANI discussion is archived at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1031#BHG_again.
The outcome was that the complainant User:Miraclepine (who signs themself as ミラ) was indefinitely blocked for WP:CIR. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:57, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are removing categories

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Do you realize that this edit to Category:2017 beginnings removed Category:21st-century beginnings? Was this deliberate? ―Justin (koavf)TCM 21:16, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. Seems deliberate because it's in a child category. Brilliant. Keep up the good work and ignore me. ―Justin (koavf)TCM 21:17, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, per WP:SUBCAT, Category:2017 beginnings should not be in both Category:2010s beginnings and its parent Category:21st-century beginnings.
So I have rejigged Template:Beginnings by year to stop it populating both. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:31, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Category:1950 in Taiwan and subsequent categorization

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Hello, I've noticed that your placement of {{Year in country category}} has subcategorized all years in Taiwan within years in China. This is correct for Category:1946 in Taiwan through Category:1949 in Taiwan, as the Republic of China controlled both Taiwan and mainland China. However, I suggest that you reconsider the subcategorization, from 1950 onwards as from that year, the Government of the Republic of China, no longer exercised effective control over mainland China. Likewise, the government that replaced the Republic of China on the mainland, the People's Republic of China, does not have effect control over the island of Taiwan. Firstly, consider an example from the Chinese Wikipedia, in which zh:Category:2012年台灣 is not a subcategory of zh:Category:2012年中國.

As another example, Hong Kong has been a special administrative region of the PRC since 1997. Category:2020 in Hong Kong reflects the fact that this rule continues today. However, Category:1995 in Hong Kong is subcategorized within Category:1995 in British Overseas Territories and not within Category:1995 in China.

Taiwan's sovereignty is muddled in the present day due to several transfers and other factors, but it was under Qing rule until 1895 when it was transferred to Japan and invasion. As a result, Category:1895 in Taiwan is subcategorized under Category:1895 in the Japanese colonial empire and Category:1895 in China, because Taiwan was ruled by both governments in that year. However, from Category:1896 in Taiwan, categories referencing China are not included, because Taiwan was not under Chinese rule. Category:1945 in Taiwan is rightly a subcategory of Category:1945 in China, and Category:1945 in the Japanese colonial empire, which references to rule under two governments in one calendar year, when Japanese rule ended after World War II. The government of the People's Republic of China and the government of the Republic of China have been separate entities since 1950, so from then on, years in Taiwan should not be subcategorized as years in China. Vycl1994 (talk) 19:17, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Vycl1994: there are several different ways of viewing this, and I chose what I thought was the least controversial. Here's why.
The Taiwan/China thing is an unusual case, and possibly unique. In many cases, there is an asymmetric view of sovereignty, e.g. in Abkhazia which is de facto sovereign, but is regarded by Georgia as part of its territory. That's common to many other cases of secession, or of contested colonisation. The example of pre-1997 Hong Kong was of contested colonisation, which produced a clash of views similar to that in Abkhazia.
But in Taiwan China, we have broadly two views:
  1. the govt of the Peoples Republic of China regards Taiwan as a part of China, but accept that it does not currently have de facto control of the island of Taiwan.
  2. the govt of the Republic of China regards Taiwan as a part of China, but accept that it does not currently have de facto control of mainland China.
So both parties agree that Taiwan is de jure part of China ... but disagree about which of RoC or PRC is the legitimate govt of the whole.
Yes, there is a non-trivial Taiwanese independence movement, but it doesn't hold power ... and United Nations classifies Taiwan as Taiwan, Procince of China".
Given that situation, it seems perverse not to categorise Taiwan as part of China. That would amount on en.wp effectively choosing the view of the Taiwanese independence movement over the view of both the PRC and ROC govts, and the view of the UN. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:43, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Because articles like Government of the People's Republic of China and People's Republic of China redirect to Government of China and China, I don't believe that direct categorization of Taiwan under China is neutral, as it implies that Taiwan is a current part of the PRC. As it stands, English Wikipedia has chosen, not the widely-recognized One-China Policy, but the non-neutral One-China Principle. In a similar way, Chiang Wei-shui was active in politics on Taiwan, and died in Taiwan before Republic of China rule began, so he is listed within Category:Taiwanese politicians, but is not included a member of Category:Political office-holders in the Republic of China on Taiwan, nor is he included within Category:Japanese politicians. English Wikipedia, has I believe, a good system to maintain neutrality in these cases, with the creations of categories such as Category:Political office-holders in the Republic of China on Taiwan and Category:Politicians of Taiwan for people. Perhaps, Category:Years in the Republic of China would be a suitable container category. Vycl1994 (talk) 20:39, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Vycl1994: neutrality is maintained by both/and categorisation, rather than by choosing one view over another.
That's why in each of these cases, Taiwan is also categorised in "Cat:YYYY by country". So the current setup reflects the 1992 Consensus, i.e. views of both the PRC and the ROC, and the mibority view of those such as yourself who disagree with the position of both govts and of the UN. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:54, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say the 1992 Consensus is set in stone by either side, considering developments in January 2019, which that article covers. In addition, the Kuomintang's original candidate for president in 2016 was replaced as her interpretation of the consensus came into question during her campaign. The more recent developments makes it seems as if the consensus is headed toward "agree to disagree" status, in particular when considered alongside the election of a younger reformist in the 2020 Kuomintang chairmanship election. In any case, then, I'll note that Category:2020 in Kosovo and similar need to be subcategorized also. Vycl1994 (talk) 21:23, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Vycl1994: I reckon that you are sweating this too much. Please remember that per WP:CAT, the primary purpose of en.wp categories is navigation. They are not some of Linnean classification. The current setup for Taiwan assists navigation.
I think you have a point about Kosovo. I'm not familiar with the nuances of Serbia's stance, but in general I think that is Serbia regards Kosovo as a part of its territory, then Kosovo should be categorised both as an independent country and as part of Serbia. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:32, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]