User talk:Andy Dingley/Archive 2010 March

Aarne-Thompson

This was not an "unexplained deletion". The Aarne-Thompson system of classification of folktales is a universally accepted system taught at the academic level. One person (Uther) cannot decide to revamp this system and hijack the wiki page for the Aarne-Thompson system to promotion of their own, not universally or peer-edited, version and expect that to hold to referenceable standard. Just because they add their name on the end to make some "ATU" system does not mean that is credible. If they want to try and slide in this type of advertisement they can make their own page for it, and not dilute the value of the Aarne-Thompson page, which clearly should only show the true Aarne-Thompson system.

Furthermore, I am working to provide the correct inline citations for the references because there are many good (credible) ways to purvey this information without personally marketing for someone's (Uther) book.

Thank you for not continuing to undo my work.

Adl0090 (talk) 03:52, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that it was an "unexplained deletion". In your sequence of deletions there isn't a single case where you used an edit summary. Now your edits might well be genuine, but it's hard for other editors (such as myself) to see this. When an editor first appears, their first actions are to delete sections, and there's no other evidence or explanation to support this, the sad truth of WP is that they're far more likely to be a vandal than anything else. Aarne-Thompson isn't a subject I'm familiar with, so all I have to go on is whether it looks like a good edit. Without an edit summary or a comment on the talk page, yours do indeed look like vandalism.

It seems that there is an AT system and a later ATU system. Your argument here would seem to be that AT is notable and the topic of this article, but that ATU is not. I would find it hard to justify removing mention of ATU from the article, given that it appears to be the work of a bona fide published author. Admittedly I'm not knowledgeable in this subject field (I try to avoid editing in such cases), but as far as I can see, the article was reasonable as it was.

Would you claim that ATU is simply too trivial to be notable?

Too different to incorporate within the same article, unless clearly separated to its own section?

Simply beyond WP:UNDUE for the article to list categorization, as anything more than a passing note that ATU exists?

Maybe there's scope for a re-write that covers both, i.e. both are covered, but it's clear which sections related to which and it doesn't have the recent problem that ATU does seem to have wholly subsumed AT.

I would also suggest moving this discussion to the article's talk page. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:30, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

"Sorry Mr President"

Ha, good one. --CliffC (talk) 21:20, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Couldn't resist. 8-) Normally I never comment, just in case a response encourages them. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Aha - so it was the President all along!  :-> --CliffC (talk) 21:36, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Undid deletion of my links

Andy, you recently undid the deletion of links to my webpages regarding simulation of excavators, dump trucks, and tower cranes. I would appreciate it if those links stay deleted. I deleted them for a reason. The simulations were research that is over 10 years old and no longer supported. I get too many questions about them and most of the hits I get are through Wikipedia. We're also redoing our webpages and those simulations are likely to go away. Please redelete those links. I look at it the same as deindexing pages from Google. I'd like these deindexed from Wikipedia. You'll also notice that I added the links on 24 January 2006. Thanks, Robert Lipman

Thanks Robert, I'll delete them. I'd actually noticed this myself and was thinking it was a bad move (from tracking your IP). My apologies.

The trouble is that when an anon IP deletes content and the message isn't very clear as to why, the empirical likelihood round here is that it's just some teenage vandal. Oddly in this case, I'm believing you mostly because you are an anon IP and I can thus see which IP you are...). Andy Dingley (talk) 15:20, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Cawl

Hi! Did you get anywhere with finding sources for Cawl with cheese? It would be good to add something to the article on it. garik (talk) 11:16, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid not. Too busy of late to do anything with content 8-( It's somewhere in my shelves of medieval travel writings, but I went for the obvious ones (like Gerald) and couldn't find it offhand. Still looking. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:25, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Dirk van Erp image

Hello Andy, Thanks for getting this image squared away. It's a great addition to the article. - Jim Cullen328 (talk) 04:40, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Rai Stones

I'm a bit puzzled as to why you reinstated the category of modern obsolete currencies into the Rai Stones article. What did you mean "it would apply to text descriptions, not the catgeorization"? I also take issue with the very notion of defining the stones as currency in the first place, as I think they would be better defined as prestige objects. Asarelah (talk) 23:01, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Categorization is a way of using articles to automatically create a navigation structure, no more than that. It's not a change to the definition of the article or the object itself.

The questions for their inclusion in a category are, "Would a browser through this category find it useful to see this article listed there?" or, "Would a reader of this article find a link to related articles useful?" We don't have a category for "prestige objects" - the nearest I'm aware of would be the obsolete currencies. This isn't great, but I know of none better (if you do, then please add it). Your distinction is a good one, but is it enough to justify removing the category, and this potential browsing route?

If you think the category is so inappropriate, then remove it - I won't stand in your way. It is admittedly a rather poor match to the real concept. Maybe you might even want to set up such a category for prestige, and to include Thai white elephants, potlatch, wampum, Costa rican stone spheres and other non-money obejcts that conveyed a sense of prestige without being tradeable in the "cash" sense. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:39, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Categorization IS a change to the definition of the article of the subject itself. That is why it is against the rules to put LGBT and religious categories into biographies of living people unless the person publicly self-identifies with the label(s) in question and it is relevant to their public lives. Therefore, my distinction is a very valid reason to remove the category of "obsolete currency" from the article. I put the "trade" category in as a substitute and that should solve any problems. Asarelah (talk) 16:19, 31 March 2010 (UTC)