User talk:Bgwhite/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Bgwhite. 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 the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

"Not a biography"?

You appear to be using an automated tool to add biography-related templates to the talk pages of BLPa with edit summaries which declare "not a biography." This doesn't look right. . . . Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:07, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes I know. I run AWB manually, so any error was done by me and not AWB. I made that goof for 7 entries out of 12,000 so far. Bgwhite (talk) 02:02, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Tamás Hausel

Please be more careful when using AWB. It recently changed Tamás Hausel to Tamas Hausel. His name includes an accent. If you follow the Hungarian Mathematicians category link then you will see that the page is awash with accent. The problem with automated processes like AWB is that they have no brain. Please be careful in future; otherwise you are creating work for other people. Thank you. — Fly by Night (talk) 23:34, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I did it correctly. AWB did not do it, my brain did. I check every sort value because of so many errors like Hausel's article. Sort values cannot contain diacritics

See: WP:MCSTJR
See: Category talk:Biography articles without listas parameter under What is a listas_parameter?
2. "Do not include ANY alphabetic characters other than the 26 letters of the English alphabet. No diacritics whatsoever."

Bgwhite (talk) 02:00, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, you better get cracking. Wikipedia's full of articles with evil diacritics. Have fun. — Fly by Night (talk) 12:56, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Listas

Actually, ha-ha-ha (queuing the same frightening, sinister music), it was not so much by mistake as it was by choice. I know that the rest of the banners would inherit the listas of the first one, but since people delete, add, and move around the banners all the time, it often results in a good number of screw-ups which later need to be cleaned up, again and again (OK, maybe not so much in the bio articles, where WPBIO comes first, but still). Specifying listas in all the banners prevents this problem from ever occurring, which I've always presumed to be a good thing, no? Does my "overlistassing" create any problems I am not aware of? Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 10, 2011; 20:53 (UTC)

   Well, I normally copy-paste them, which ensures that I don't screw them up, so typing-wise it doesn't really matter to me. Thanks for being vigilant though! Not many people these days would bother to point out something minor like that. See you on the pages I assess :) Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 10, 2011; 21:14 (UTC)

       Nah, yours is not a mistake either, it's just a different approach. I don't mind either way.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); March 10, 2011; 22:11 (UTC)

Re: Ethiopian sort order

Yep, sort them all by "Tekle". The names are either compounds (as in "Tekle Haymanot"), or the individual's name is Tekle & the second part is his father's name. Thanks for asking. -- llywrch (talk) 01:36, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in responding. Yes, sort them by the first name, "Tesfaye" & "Tesfai". (I don't know why this name is transliterated in 2 different ways.) You may want to consult Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ethiopia-related articles). Despite the slightly misleading tag at the top, it's still the best guide we have. -- llywrch (talk) 21:04, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Well Done!

You have been awarded the Manliness Award for helping to construct a great encyclopedia.

Keep up the great work!

A Very Manly Man (talk) 07:50, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Request

You recently contributed to Big Chuck and Lil' John. I am requesting your input on the article's discussion page at Talk:Big_Chuck_and_Lil'_John#Subject:_Hosts_or_Show.3F. Thank you. Levdr1 (talk) 19:31, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Re:listas

Thanks for the help, will keep that information in mind. --J36miles (talk) 22:50, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Bgwhite. You have new messages at Philosopher's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

yeah

looks suspiciously like a paid for bio - or self made Satu Suro 06:27, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Can you add these to an Afd?

I saw where you nominated Tone Boyle for deletion (here). Since you are the original nominator, can you also add these two players to make it an umbrella nom, since all three articles are exactly the same and created by the same person: Anthony Hill (Basketball) and Tony Meier? Jrcla2 (talk) 12:51, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Done Bgwhite (talk) 17:32, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Kingbotk not adding WikiProjectBannerShell

Status	Not a bug/currently unresolvable
Description	I'm running plugin Kingbotk. Sometimes it will add WPBS correctly, but most of the time it does not add it at all. Bgwhite (talk) 08:01, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
To duplicate:	Following articles added WPBS correctly: Tsang Lap Chuen Twinka Thiebaud Laura Constance Netzel Minnie Nast Following did not add WPBS at all: Patricia Jünger Ludmila Jeske-Choińska-Mikorska Tsujii Takashi Dorothy James Natalia Janotha Najla Jabor Susanna Nerantzi Maria Francesca Nascinbeni
Operating system	Vista
.NET FW Version	4.0c
AWB version	5.2.0.0 svn7471
Workaround
Fixed in version

I moved it here since it's not a bug:

WPBS is added by AWB now and not from the plugin anymore
As the manual writes, this function works only if all wikiprojects are in th "WikiProject foo.." form and not in any other form like "WPProject...", "Composers...", etc.
Kumioko created a custom module which bypasses all redirects to wikiprojects so they are all in "WikiProject ..." form. It can be found in User:Magioladitis/WikiProjects.
I suggest you download the latest snapshot from http://toolserver.org/~awb/snapshots/ I did a lot of improvements to the logic lately.

Watch for "of=" in photo requests

Hi, Bgwhite. I see you're doing the same kind of thing I'm doing, namely reviewing Category:Articles which may no longer need images. I noticed you deleted the photo request on Talk:Knob Lick, Missouri. Did you notice that it included a specific request, "of=the Knob Lick sign"? The page didn't have a photo of the sign, so I restored the request.

Of course, it's possible you removed it because you thought it was not a reasonable request. I can understand that. But since you didn't say that in your subject, I thought I should check with you.

-- Ken_g6 (factors | composites) 22:36, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

That was a goof on my part. I had removed it because I thought the current photo on the article satisfied the request. I didn't notice the photo request was for the sign. I had a good laugh when I read the comments on the talk page and should had put 2 + 2 together. I have been adding listas to bio banners and just got done with a section. So, doing the image doohickey is my version of giving me a "break". Bgwhite (talk) 00:43, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Re: Ethiopian sort order

Just a "FYI" note; no, you didn't do anything wrong -- but maybe I did. I was working on some Ethiopian-related articles when I discovered the two names you asked me about a couple of weeks ago -- Ugaas Abdulrahman Muhumad Qani & Ugaz Abdulrahman Abd Ghani -- were actually duplicate articles! Someone didn't like the choice of the name I picked to refer to this guy, but not understanding how to move an article, he cut-n-pasted the contents of one into a new article. Next time you ask me a question about a couple of articles, be assured I'm going to also read the articles, just in case. Have a good one. -- llywrch (talk) 21:29, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

AWB

I noticed you were doing a lot of work on regular article space as well as talk pages. I have some code for the main space too if you want it. --Kumioko (talk) 02:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes please. My primary goal is adding a listas parameter for bio banners. I have two AWBs open for each article I'm working on. One for the talk page and one for article space. This way I can quickly add to talk pages listas, an assessment, add *-work-group=yes to bio banners, add any extra banners, etc. On the regular article, I usually only add/change DEFAULTSORT and PERSONDATA. Bgwhite (talk) 06:11, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Sammy Sharp

Hi, re this edit [1] where did you get the reference for his birthdate from, and can you add it to the article? Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 16:56, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Sandra Gal

Hi, I took the stub rating off of Sandra Gal earlier today and then you put it back. I think it's more than a stub but, to be honest, even with all the biographies I've edited on Wikipedia I don't pay a lot of attention to grading. Can you tell me why it's been rated as a stub and also who has the power to increase the grade of a biographical article? thanks. --Crunch (talk) 23:17, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I saw there was no assessment made on any of the banners and I made a quick judgement call to label it as a stub. Instead of removing the "stub" tag, you should have replaced it with the "start" tag. Here is biography's quality scale that tells if it should be labeled stub, start, C, etc. Anybody has the power to increase or lower the grades. If you feel it should be higher, raise it to start or above. Same goes for priority/importance... If you feel it should be low, mid, high on any of the banners, feel free to do so... actually PLEASE do so. Over 150,000 biography articles don't have any assessment and alot more don't have priority, so any help is welcome. Doing the assessment in this instance wasn't my primary motive for visiting the article, so if the class parameter is empty, I make a quick judgement call and fill it in. Bgwhite (talk) 23:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the excellent explanation. --Crunch (talk) 00:59, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Listas

You may be interested in Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Yobot_19 too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:02, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The Mandarax Barnstar of Excellence

		The Mandarax Barnstar of Excellence
		Bgwhite, I am pleased to award this MBE to you in recognition of your outstanding work on cleaning out Category:Biography articles without listas parameter. Completely wiping out everything in the category from "T" through the end was a very impressive accomplishment. Your work is much appreciated! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:41, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Mac/mac and "listas"

Hello. I've seen a few edits ike this where you've changed the "listas" parameter. Problem though. While the "Mac Y" in "X Mac Y" is a surname, and should be listed as "Mac Y, X", "mac Y" in "X mac Y" is a patronymic and should normally be listed as "X mac Y". The same would apply to X Ua/ua Y. Not sure how to handle this with AWB, but no doubt there will be something. Regards, Angus McLellan (Talk) 08:24, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

It wasn't done by AWB, it was unfortunately changed manually by me. I've also done the same thing where listas was blank. I'll go back and change as many names as I can find. Bgwhite (talk) 17:43, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

If it was me, I wouldn't bother going back and changing stuff. If you leave it for me (or anyone else who'll be much bothered) maybe we'll be able to make some improvements to the articles at the same time. Cheers, Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:50, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Re: Articles for deletion/Robert Edward Hayhurst et al

Please read my comment here carefully. Thanks. Dru of Id (talk) 02:22, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Attacked for following rules

That is how I feel. One of the clear cases of notability is if someone is the holder of a named chair. So I note at the begining of an article on a BYU professor what named chair the guy has, and people are still impressed. Still, the one that galls me the most is the editor-in-cheif rule. Being an editor-in-cheif of a major scholarly publication makes someone notable. Thus From the beginning the article on Marie Cornwall has noted that she is editor-in-cheif of the Journal of the Sociology of Religion. No one has ever questioned that this is the case. Yet when I mention this article, I still get people telling me it is weak. True, it could use more work, but to say it is in anyway marginally notable is just wrong. I know you are not responsible for most of these issues, but whenever I bring them up with the administrator who started the crusade (I can think of no other term to describe his unremitting attacks) against my editing, he just comes back with more cutting and denigrating remarks and I am even more worked up. His dismissiveness twoards the bios of Sue Rocca, Sal Rocca, Tory Rocca and Doug Carl is just one example. Ture, these biographies could use more sources. However it is clearly stated that members of state legislatures are notable. The complaint about turning out too many articles ignores the fact that currently there is an unjustified prepondenence of articles on Democrat members of state legislatures (which Sal Rocca once was in fact) and that when I brought up this issue in a discussion the response was I should seek to rectify it by creating more articles on Republican State legislators. I would much rather create articles on scholars and Church leaders than legislators though. I have sought to find more information on James Arrington, but I am still not very convinced the article is good. I just do not have the patience to read all the way through articles on his "Farley Family Reuion", nor am I very skilled at sumarizing creative works. It might help if someone else were to do this. At times it seems all that ever happens is that people criticize my contributions. It is quite frustrating, especially when they do so in broad terms, and refuse to admit anything good.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:49, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

There are a couple of things going on here, with the biggest out of your control.

New articles are scrutinized way more than regular articles and alot more so as the years have gone by. If you create new articles, you have to expect people questioning if they belong. So, don't take it personal (rude behavior however should never be tolerated).

I'm not sure why the Rocca articles were questioned, maybe the rules were different a few years ago. In articles about sportpersons and politicians, the rules are now cut and dried. The entire article can be two sentences and you can immediately know they are notable. (Key words of State Senator, Member of Parliament or Governor) You deal in articles with alot more grey. How do you tell if a professor or journalist are notable? There are no specific rules. 1/2 of articles on professors I can tell if notable or not, but I haven't a clue on the other half without doing some digging. So, it's going to take alot more than just a couple of sentences. James Arrington is a perfect example. From the article, he is not notable. But, if you add something about all the plays he has written, then he becomes notable. For Seventy articles, maybe for now only add Seventies that have a source other than just the Church. I couldn't find anything in English about Yamashita, so maybe not add him for now.

In Aquabanianskakid's case, I think he/she has handled things just fine. If I came across the articles he/she did and I didn't know about the Seventies, I would question things too. In fact, I they have done a great service... the articles will improve.

I'll spruce up Arrington's article tonight. I'm not an expert, but how about when you create a new article, you create it in your sandbox. I can then take a look and offer some suggestions. Hopefully with two sets of eyes on an article, it will stave off all the deletion requests. Bgwhite (talk) 23:33, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Thankyou for the thoughts. I may actually follow your advice on a sandbox creation, or I may just give up on creating an article on chemist Adam T. Woolley. His work in chemistry may or may not have yet reached notability. I am not yet sure.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Iorio

Hi. There are couple of answers here. ;) --Lucas (talk) 14:45, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

All right. I'll write you a line when the procedure is finished. In the meantime I noticed that the article has been already deleted here too. Bye, see u soon. --Lucas (talk) 07:53, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Hello. The page has been deleted (percentage 82.76%). If you need some translation of comments, put me a line. Have a good day. --Lucas (talk) 00:12, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The Ministry of Education is the institution witch manage the whole italian education system (included university): we do not have private universities. Every professor, researcher (many thousands)... in Italy, is financed by this institution through the respective local school (high school, university, and so on). For eg: some of them recive more than 5500 euros after-tax per month (plus extras for research projects), but he could be not relevant anyway in his works (researchin, teaching, peer reviewed things, and so on: none of our universities is listed in the 100 better university in the world). This is not anyway the case of Iorio: he is too young to recive this kind of funding, in italy we have the oldest professor in Europe. I'm telling you this things, just to let you understand our system. On it.wiki, many users and sysops cheched the number of relevant pubblications, important reasearch projects, and all the other infos. The article was written in a VERY smart form (and the same is about the english one, I see). For eg, this is a phrase from the italian article, "Iorio is an elected member of the Royal Astronomical Society", the truth is: he is a "RAS FELLOWS MEMBERS", you could be Fellows Member just by submitting a form (even without having a degree). I'm trying to explain the users researches the best i can, but it's not so easy for me to speak this kind of technichal english. Thanks for understanding. ;) For other questions, I'm here. --Lucas (talk) 23:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Impressive work and great reserach, nothing else to say, i think. --Lucas (talk) 00:09, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikify Template tagged on Tomomi Nishimoto

Hi there. I've added several links to the article of Tomomi Nishimoto and would like to know if it's OK to delete the "Wikify" template now. If not, can you give me suggestions on what else I need to do? Thanks. RUGGER (talk) 05:41, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Article looks great. Go ahead and remove the template. Couple of suggestions... Make the dates consistent in the references. There is a combination of writing it out (24 April 1980) and numbers (1980-04-24). Your pick on what format to go for. Second, the references don't have a "publisher" parameter. Third, there is a couple bad links on the references. Otherwise, I wish 99% of editors would do an article as nicely as Nishimoto's. I hope you do many more. Give me a yell anytime you need any help. Bgwhite (talk) 05:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll move ahead and remove the template and see what I can do with the things you've pointed out. Thanks again. RUGGER (talk) 04:22, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Line of succession to the throne of Baden

Excellent solution. I went ahead and did the dirty work. I added the "blue linked" Hereditary Prince. The other heirs seem to be his brothers and his sons, followed by perhaps an uncle and a cousin. Add more if you think they're justified, etc. There may be other lists like this which would benefit from similar merging. Will Beback talk 08:08, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Living parameter

Hey, thanks for following me around and batting clean-up on the many articles I've created--the "living person" parameter is an important one! I'm not always sure how to handle it. Your help is greatly, greatly appreciated!

Therefore...

		The College football Barnstar
		For cleaning up behind me and paying closer attention to detail than I do, specifically with the "living person" parameters for head coach articles, I gratefully award you this Barnstar!Paul McDonald (talk) 20:55, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to take part in a pilot study

I am a Wikipedian, who is studying the phenomenon on Wikipedia. I need your help to conduct my research on about understanding "Motivation of Wikipedia contributors." I would like to invite you to a short survey. Please give me your valuable time, which estimates only 5 minutes’’’. cooldenny (talk) 17:43, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Re: Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr.

Closest I found was his appearance on "I've Got a Secret" Nov 1958; I think this is IAR, but someone with access to the references I listed may find something that passes GNG other than just the sum of coverage. Dru of Id (talk) 02:26, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, oddly, 'how does history's portrayal of your grandfather compare with what your family told you?', while likely common to him, seems like it might be interesting; not sure other presidential grandchildren would be as interesting, and the telescoping time view would make for an odd inclusion criteria, but can't even claim 'presidential grandchild born furthest from president's YOB' due to younger siblings. Dru of Id (talk) 07:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

U Gambira sort

Minor question, but I'm hoping to write some more Burmese articles soon and wanted to clarify, since it may be a running issue. On U Gambira, you changed the defaultsort from Gambira, U, to U Gambira and referred to WP:NAMESORT. Since U is an honorific in Burmese, I wasn't sure what do with it myself, but the examples at U Nu and U Thant suggest that "Gambira, U" would be the standard sort; my understanding is that looking for these men under U in the category list would be comparable to looking under "Mr" or "Sir." Would it be okay for me to change it back? Any guidance you can give me on how foreign names should be cat-sorted is appreciated. Thanks for the help! -- Khazar (talk) 14:06, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

You are correct. It is an honorific, so it should be sorted as Gambira, U. I wasn't aware of the U being an honorific, so I sorted as if it was a normal Burmese name. There are so many different honorifics and ways to sort, that it make is next to impossible not to screw up. Best guidance I have is to look up the naming convention for a particular area. Examples are Burmese name and Vietnamese name. But, even that doesn't give all the information on how to sort a particular name, so use your best judgement as the last resort. Bgwhite (talk) 16:53, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the swift double-check as well as the guidance! -- Khazar (talk) 16:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

H. L. Carnahan

Could you please drop by Talk:H. L. Carnahan#Date of death and clarify this edit? You cite a source dated April 1 for Carnahan's death on May 31, two months afterward. I'm assuming "May" was a typo for "Mar.", but if you have access to the article in question, it would be nice to nail this down. Thanks. TJRC (talk) 22:40, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Boy, that was awhile ago. It's worse than a typo, because I don't abbreviate months. I must have had a brain freeze (what little amount of brain I have left) and typed May instead of March. He did die on March 31 and not March 13... another idiot like me probably switched the numbers. Bgwhite (talk) 06:52, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. TJRC (talk) 17:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It is not my fault

That my signature has changed. And i suggest that the articles be improved by you if you think they don't deserve ^{[citation needed]}. That is why i calim my user name. I's my a free world. PS don't reply on my talk page.Other dictionaries are better (talk) 22:43, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Zack Heart & Outback Zack Pages

Dear Bgwhite, 2 questions, can you please instruct us on how to get off the Orphan list? We cant understand why the warning has come up for the page. Also, we would like Outback Zack page to have a page to itself as its a fictional character like Tarzan or Mowgli. How do we go about having a separate page for him? Thank you Regards, Outback Zack Productions (Krystic1 (talk) 02:24, 6 May 2011 (UTC))

Boy, this is a can of worms.

Be vary careful as you are on thin ice with a conflict of interest. Please read Wikipedia:Conflict of interest to learn more. This doesn't mean you shouldn't edit and create your articles. Just make sure you are neutral and use reliable sources. Other editors will edit your articles. Some may be vandals and their edits should be erased. Others may add reliably sourced material that doesn't shed a positive light and these should stay around.
You have "Copyright (C) Outback Zack Productions. All Rights Reserved." in the articles. This is not permitted on Wikipedia. Wikipedia follows a sort of public domain license. Here is Wikimedia's Term of Use that explains it. It is also at the bottom of every wiki page.
Make sure the articles have citations that are reliably sourced. See Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources for more info. At the moment, only the filmography section is sourced with imdb.
To get off the orphan list, there has to be at least three other articles on Wikipedia that has a wikilink to your article. On the left hand side menu of any page -> Toolbox -> What link here, will show you what wikipages has a wikilink to yours.
There can be two separate pages. The problem currently is they essentially both have the same material on each article. Therefore, one of the articles becomes redundant. Also, the majority of the article about Tarzan and Mowgli are not about the characters, but about the movies, books, reception, etc. Personally, one article is best because Zack Heart and Outback Zack are intertwined, and if separate, both articles would be small. But, two articles can work too.

Bgwhite (talk) 07:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Dear Bgwhite,

Thank you for the advice its much appreciated. We'll get to work on sourcing the links and also see if we can separate the two pages. Warm regards, Outback Zack Productions (66.209.120.50 (talk) 16:33, 6 May 2011 (UTC))

Happy WikiVersary!

Happy six year WikiVersary! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 21:50, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Tommaso Ciampa

Thanks for fixing typos! Miztreated (talk) 09:49, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Cláudio César Dias Baptista

Thank you for approving and publishing the page "Cláudio César Dias Baptista", which I created - I am a reader of Cláudio's books and I utilize his siglum "CCDB". In the top of that page there is an allert telling the page is an "Orphan". Reading that allert, I went to several pages in En Wiki where the name "Cláudio César Dias Baptista" is mentioned and transformed that name in a link to the above mentioned recent page. Please, if the links are enough, remove the allert. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.13.70.63 (talk) 12:31, 19 May 2011 (UTC) comment added by CCDB

List of cities and towns in Utah

I appreciate your input on the article. I had recently viewed the article Colorado municipalities, and found the population change section quite interesting. There is certainly other info on that article that is unnecessary, but I do believe that it is useful and interesting information, or at the very least I don't understand what makes it less relevant than something like elevation or especially median household income. The 2000 census info itself may not be current, but I feel that the growth of the city is relevant to the subject - certainly the growth rate of a city is a useful piece of information? I understand the argument that colored text is not acceptable because of color blindness. I was simply copying what was found in the Colorado municipalities article. I do not know enough about how the tables work to do it in a more acceptable way myself, but I would ask that the population change information allow to be included - if the color of the text were black then I don't think that information alone would keep it from remaining a featured list. As for the argument that the change list will become obsolete - well, I think we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it. 2010 is the most recent info we have, and it will stay relevant at least for another year. bob rulz (talk) 16:36, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree that growth is a useful piece of information.

I looked at Colorado's article and it is a full blown mess. Way too many columns and some of them (lat, lon, land area and water area) should not be on the table. Plus, there are 6 different city type lists for Colorado which contain duplicate info and can be condensed into less articles.

Background. I had just completed bringing List of counties in Utah upto FL. What you can have on that table is very defined as WP:COUNTYLISTS states what to have, but there is no such guide for cities. There were 4 different Utah city lists with redundant info. There were complaints on the talk pages on why so many lists. So, I condensed three of the lists down to List of cities and towns in Utah. My hope was after 2010 data came out, I could add per capita income to the table and be down to one list.

When creating this type of table, I was told by editors that it should contain the basic information from the infobox: county, population, area, elevation and year incorporated. Also, only use info from the infobox was suggested. Year incorporated was very hard info to get for 1/2 of the towns. Year settled is in the infobox, was very easy data to get and is more prominent for Utah towns, so that is why that is there. Etymology is in the infobox template (under "named for") and was used on county lists (used in a ton of different county lists), so I added that. Medium income came from condensing a list. There are a ton of per capita income lists and it is a very prominent piece of data, however I consider it somewhat useless.

So..... I can see two options. 1) Adding just growth percentage (not 2000 census) and deleting it after a couple of years. Keeping per capita in a separate list. 2) Adding per capita into the article. Having growth percentage a separate article. But, the article including census population and growth percentage from every year starting from X. Say 1940, 50 or 60?. Do you have any other ideas?

btw, I saw your user page and see you are into meteorology and geography. The piece of paper I got from the U says meteorology degree on it. Are you in school going for meteorology and/or geography? Bgwhite (talk) 08:25, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your input. It's nice to have a constructive discussion on this, there's been too many times I've encountered people who just shoot down ideas with no discussion. Now that you bring it up, and after some considering, I think it would be quite useful to have a separate article for the population history of cities and towns in Utah. I agree that per capita income (or household income in this case) isn't a particularly relevant piece of info, but it's useful enough to keep around, and hopefully updated statistics will be released soon. Year of incorporation would be more useful than year of settlement (mainly because the list only includes incorporated places), but as you said, incorporation info for towns and cities in Utah seems to be too difficult to obtain. So yeah, in short, I think creating a separate population history article would be quite interesting. I'm not aware of any other such lists - we could be trendsetters! Haha. But really, I think it's a good idea, although if you have any other ideas to bring up I would happy to hear them.

As for school, I'm currently at Salt Lake Community College, but I'm not sure yet what I want to go into. I have strongly considered meteorology, though. bob rulz (talk) 06:09, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Zzoli

Dear Bgwhite

I hope I'm posting my post in the right place. I would like to ask you for a small favour. If you're asking yourself why, it is because I saw your username among the ones who editet the article. There's an article "Ziherman Sandor". It's about my father. I recently edited it, because it was lacking almost all the info needed, and some other info on it was just plain false. However I was unable to edit the title of the article, because I'm not yet an autoconfirmed user (hopefuly I will be soon). Why I want to edit it, is the fact, that my fathers proper name is Zicherman Sandor with a "C". Also if this is done, I guess it'll be possible to connect it with the russian/hungarian/ukranian page.

Thank you in advance.

If you're not the person I should be bothering with this, than sorry, for your time.

best regards

Z.Zoltan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzoli (talk • contribs) 16:52, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

The page has been moved. Bgwhite (talk) 21:23, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much. One more question. At the moment the same page opens for "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandor_Ziherman" and "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandor_Zicherman" too, and while searching for the article both result come up. Will it stay like that? Or will the other, wrong result slowly disappear? Thank you for your help once again. All the best. Cheers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzoli (talk • contribs) 14:05, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I've requested a deletion. It can be found at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion#Sandor_Ziherman. Bgwhite (talk) 22:47, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.0.215.67 (talk) 22:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Wow

I hadn't looked at Category:Biography articles without listas parameter for a while. Congratulations on the progress you and your bot are making. Oh, and in case you didn't notice on my talk page, thanks again for reverting the vandalism to my user page. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:06, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

A-F went thru relatively fast because the weird names had mostly been removed. Things are much slower now because I have to go thru weird names too. I'm almost done with G. AHHHHHHH, I hate footballers. One of these days, we will be done. Bgwhite (talk) 05:19, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Jonathan Stephen

Although you voted to delete at this AFD [2], I hope that you will take another look now that I have added references to the article.I.Casaubon (talk) 22:22, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Politicians?

Please note that in Norwegian diplomatic tradition, the ambassadors are not politicians and do not depend on the support of a sitting government (like in the US?). They are more like civil servants. Some diplomats happen to be politicians as well; this is noted in each article. Geschichte (talk) 09:16, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

If you are referring to the politician-work-group parameter on the talk pages, then I am correct in placing them there. Politician is short for Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Politics and government. Ambassadors are "ranking government representative stationed in a foreign capital" and are part of the functioning government of Norway regardless of how they were appointed. Bgwhite (talk) 17:51, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Politics and government page makes exclusive reference to elected politicians. Geschichte (talk) 18:09, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Where does it say elected only? Elected only has not been rule since the start. Gandhi, Condoleezza Rice, Nobel peace prize winners who never held government positions (Liu Xiaobo and Aung San Suu Kyi) , King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia all have the tag and none of them were elected. Dictators, kings, non-elected cabinet ministers and people fighting for political or human rights change are included. Bgwhite (talk) 18:36, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for saying "elected". The Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Politics and government page makes exclusive reference to politicians. Geschichte (talk) 19:35, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, not sure where you now stand on Norwegian ambassadors being a politician or not. Comes down to the definition of a politician and this is where things get murky. Wikipedia has a politician as "an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making" (Peace Prize winners) and can be "a member of the executive branch of government." Therefore, ambassadors would be a politician as they are influencing public policy in a foreign land and are in the executive branch. [Merriam Webster has it to include "one actively engaged in conducting the business of a government". Dictionary.com and others have it worded to not include the Peace Prize winners or non-elected cabinet ministers. BTW... Ambassador is in the WikiProject Politics. U.S. Ambassadors are appointed by the President (most are given who gave them money during the election). Norwegian ambassadors are also appointed. Bgwhite (talk) 20:21, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks.

Thanks for your help cleaning up the references in the William Beebe article. I get the sense that you’re able to do this a lot more efficiently than I could, and I appreciate the amount of time you’re saving me with this.

Please let me know if you intend to convert the rest of the article’s citations to use the harvnb template. If you don’t, I might convert them myself eventually, but I’ll leave that to you if you were planning on doing it yourself. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll probably get to a few more. I'm a little burned out on what I've been doing on Wiki for the past few months. So when I want a change of pace, I'll probably visit the article. Anything I do beyond the harvnb, I'll let you know what I did on your talk page. Bgwhite (talk) 22:25, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Bgwhite, I just noticed this edit, in which you replaced all of the citations to Bridges (1974) with citations to Brand (1977). These are two separate sources, so by replacing all of the citations to one source with citations to another source, you’ve caused the article to be cited incorrectly. But due to conflicting intermediate edits, this edit from you also can’t be reverted. In the places where you replaced the citations to Bridges with citations to Brand, would you mind changing the source back to what it was originally? --Captain Occam (talk) 00:37, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah crap. I just fixed it. Bgwhite (talk) 05:56, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

In response to your questions:

There’s only one book by Welker. Different websites list different years as the copyright date for it, which I guess is why I was inconsistent about its date when citing it. But the date listed in the book itself is 1975, so it’s probably best for that to be the date of this book given in the article.

I’ve added a source for the date of Beebe’s birth and death now.

The reason the infobox only lists a source for one of the awards that Beebe won is because the others awards are sourced when they’re mentioned in the article’s text. The Elliott Medal is mentioned and sourced in the last paragraph of the “Return to Guiana and World War I” section, the John Burroughs medal is mentioned and sourced in the last paragraph of the “Galápagos expeditions” section, and the Theodore Roosevelt Medal is mentioned and sourced in the fourth paragraph of the “Final years in Trinidad” section. But since the Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Medal is not discussed anywhere in the article’s body, the only place where the source for that can go is the infobox. If you think the other awards should be sourced in the infobox in addition to the article body, you’re welcome to copy the existing refs for these awards from the article body to the infobox.

I don’t have a strong opinion about the other things you mentioned (Who to cite for the quoted citation, how to make the Fucheng reference work, or whether some of the wikilinks for Bathysphere and Trinidad should be removed.) I think you have a lot more experience than I do with the norms for formatting issues like these, so feel free to handle them in whatever way you think is best. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:21, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I think I’ve fixed the Fucheng citation now. The problem with it is was that the paper has more than one author, and they have to all be listed in order for the link to work properly. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:21, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar

	The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar
	For your wonderful work in WikiProject Biography and especially your great work for finding the appropriate `\|listas=` value for every weird, crazy, uncommon, unique person in our world. Thanks again for your contributions! Magioladitis (talk) 07:30, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Euthalius

Regarding your edit to this article, please take note and fix the error. If it is caused by AWB, perhaps you could report it so that it can be fixed. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:08, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cheyenne Monique

Regarding your modification of my nomination for the above referenced article. It is highly inappropriate to remove or modify other people's comments. The only time this would be acceptable is if the user has been banned from editing the relevant pages, or they are making a blatantly offensive personal attack or a defamatory comment about a living person. With all due respect, please keep these standards in mind as you participate in discussions and generally edit Wikipedia. Thank you, Cind.amuse 08:25, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Stub class?

Had you you seen the article Herbard VIII von Auersperg before you classed it "stub"? What is missing? --Marschner (talk) 18:15, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

There are over 120,000 biography articles that haven't been assessed. So, when I'm visiting the article for other reasons, I'm just doing a quick judgement call on if it is a stub or a start. If you disagree with an assessment, you can change it yourself. The article does deserve a higher rating. As you are more familiar with the subject, please assess it to where you think it should be. Bgwhite (talk) 21:23, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Bgwhite. You have new messages at Sadads's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Again, Sadads (talk) 20:37, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Malay names

Just a reminder when you sort biographies of Malay people, read the hatnote, e.g.:

and sort accordingly. Thank you. - Yk³ talk · contrib 02:08, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Um, no. Arabic names in Malaysia follow both the "standard" way of Arabic names and also the Malay way of names. I goofed on Ibrahim Ali. However, somebody goofed on Sidique Ali Merican as Merican is most defiantly a surname even though there is a hatnote that says otherwise. Also, Malaysian Chinese names follow the standard Chinese way of sorting names. Names of Tamil follow patronymic standards even though in India this is not always the case as it is becoming more and more the western way. Bgwhite (talk) 07:36, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Your recent edits to article Bhagwan Gopinath

Hi, seems like you/your BOT did the recent edits on this article and inadvertently added "Category:Living people" at the end, though the subject is not a BLP because of which, seemingly it got a rating of start class too! Please remove the category and in good faith, I would highly encourage and appreciate your re-look at the quality class rating. Many thanks, in advance. Sharda Mandir (talk) 06:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Not sure why the category was added... that is weird. I go thru hundreds of pages a day and make a brief assessment of stub or start. I actually visited the talk page because living or listas wasn't set and those are required parameters. It is a very impressive article for a new editor. Majority of "experienced" editors don't nearly do that good of a job.

Two things... You should take this article to Wikipedia:Good article nominations (GAN). There are only around 12,000 Good Articles (GA). Before you do, take it to Wikipedia:Peer review. There is a backlog at GAN, so it will take awhile. If you want to write more articles, GAN and Peer review are very good learning tools.

Second thing. You need to redo your references if you take it to GAN... too much restating about the same books. Take a look at William Beebe for an example of what I'm talking about. Bgwhite (talk) 07:18, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for such unseen (at least for me, for now) speed of response and those good words. It actually took me a month of research for the whole thing incl. the wikimark up etc and its heartening to see it getting at least a B. With all the ref. changes happening, believe it or not, I was thinking of the exact same thing as what you pointed out in William Beebs article. So, with some gas still left in me, I will try and take it to the next level. Best Regards, Sharda Mandir (talk) 07:40, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

William J. Toye

You rated this article as a stub. I thought a stub was for tiny bare-bones articles that were essentially blurbs. Is this not a start? There is more I can write about him, but most of the articles about him are about his most recent arrest and his guilty plea. There is really just one article that gives details covering his life, so I was fairly selective about what I included. I knew this wouldn't be a very high rating, but I thought at least it would be a "start". I don't like to rate my own articles because I feel it smacks of COI and therefore lacks validity. Marrante (talk) 11:52, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I have re-worked the article, gave it more headers, re-arranged thinsgs, removed some unnecessary details. Marrante (talk) 14:58, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Nigerian Names

I saw you added a listas on the talk page for Danladi Abdullahi Sankara that made the sort sequence "Sankara, Danladi Abdullahi". I am not sure. The Hausa do not have family names in the western sense. They have formal names given to the child at birth (e.g. Abdullahi: servant of God) and everyday names that are also held throughout their life (e.g. Danladi: boy child born on Sunday). A name could be preceded by an honorific such as Mallam or Alhaji, and could followed by place of origin (e.g. Sankara: a village in Jigawa State) or occupation (e.g. Mai Rediyo: radio man). These descriptive additions are less stable and may be omitted. My instinct is to use the everyday name as the short form in the text, as in "Danladi was PDP candidate for...". See also Abdul One Mohammed - the number one Abdul Mohammed in the Nigerian army. What is the short form, "Abdul", "Mohammed" or "One"?

Confusing the problem, non-Hausa people tend to be inconsistent in handling Hausa names. Newspaper reporters writing in English who want a single name will avoid Abdullahi because that is clearly a given name, sometimes use Danladi and more often use Sankara. But the Electoral Commission lists this person as "Abdullahi Danladi S." and an official report of Senate proceedings lists him as "Abdullahi, Danladi S." Not sure. Is there a guideline somewhere for cultures where there is no family name? Aymatth2 (talk) 14:17, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

There are other cultures that also don't have family names... Icelandic names for example use a patronymic naming convention where the surname is based off of the father's first name. Old Irish, Scottish, Scandinavian and some Arabic names are also this way. Hausa names are more like Burmese names and alot of older Arabic names in that there is no family, patronymic or given name. In fact, Burmese change their name whenever they feel like it. With "western" naming conventions becoming more common, some places have old and new systems at the same time. The "elders" of Wikipedia have decreed when a name is patronymic, the sort value is just the name, no commas. I believe the Icelandic WikiProject people have decided to do the same regardless if the last name is patronymic or and actual surname. Other cultures are not so easy as there is no "official" decree on what to do. Malaysian names that are Arabic go both ways, but non Arabic/Chinese names are more like Hausa You will see somebody got after me a few sections about this on my talk page.... They said to use the standard Malaysian way on a Arabic name, which is not true because Arabic can go both ways.

What to do... When in doubt, follow the local naming convention. So.... I haven't a clue. What's worse is that I've already done alot of Nigerian names and will do more in the future. Do Yoruba and Igbo names follow a different convention? I wouldn't have a clue to which group a person belongs with. As you are the Nigerian expert, I'll follow which way you think is best. Bgwhite (talk) 07:22, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I just came across Abubakar Umar Tutare. I used the value you put in DEFAULTSORT for the listas value on the talk page. Bgwhite (talk) 07:57, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I am no expert. From what I can tell, the Hausa names are a bit like Arabic. There has been Arabic influence for many centuries. There is no concept of family name (there are "tribes", but the tribal name does not seem to ever be included in the individual's name in the Irish way). Arabic names may include a genealogy as in Saud bin Faisal bin Turki. I don't think Hausa ones do. I suppose Hausa names are rather like English names a few hundred years ago. Given names from the Bible (John, Mary) and/or traditional pre-christian names (Ralph, Edith), that may or may not be followed by a place name (Cromwell, Churchill) or occupation (Smith, Weaver) or some other descriptor (Brown, French). But you could only be sure of at least one given name - all other names optional.

I don't know, which is why I wondered if you knew of any guideline. Yoruba and Igbo are completely unrelated. The Igbo at least may follow a European convention, sometimes including European names as in Goodluck Jonathan. A Yoruba writing in English may well choose an odd sequence for a Hausa name, trying to put surname first when there is no surname, but the Hausa do not seem all that picky about sequence either. I don't think you should worry about names you have done. Even the Senate of Nigeria is often confused about the name sequence of the senators. The last word in the name is likely to be a place name, as good a choice as any. When you get a name like Isa Mohammed, two birth names and nothing else, flip a coin. I tend to put in redirects from different sequences - a lot. :~) Aymatth2 (talk) 13:40, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Avinash Patra.Sr.

You did a good detective job on this one. In fact, this is a long-term hoaxer and if you see him again (he's persistent) you can simply tag as G4 citing WP:Articles for deletion/Avinash Patra. This is about his 25th sock - see SPI case - and he has been formally site banned. Salting doesn't work because he makes minor variations in his titles.

His "books" make quite entertaining reading - sections I have checked have always been copied from somewhere. At the end of "Lord Curzon exposed", it says "This book has been written as a guide for those who are compelled to purchase a horse in the absence of skilled assistance. The author, Avinash Patra, being a veterinary surgeon, is well qualified to advise... "

He fooled quite a lot of the Indian media, including the Times of India, into accepting his Royal Wedding story; I'm surprised their fact-checking is not better. There is a Youtube clip of him holding his "invitation card" which is (needless to say) different from the genuine ones. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 09:18, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Afakriya Gadzama

Started, then abandoned - I have to expand that one. I will try to remember to add DEFAULTSORT to any new articles. I used to do it conscientiously, then for some reason stopped. Maybe because I was not sure I was getting the sequence right, or maybe because editors like you were so helpfully cleaning up! This one is a bad example. I have not seen a name like this before, but suspect it is Marghi language, in which case I have no idea what the right sort sequence is. News reports often treat Gadzama as a surname, rightly or wrongly, so Gadzama can go first. That may well be correct...

I think my interest in Nigeria started with a TfD for a navbar that listed senators, with reason for deletion that there were only articles for two or three of the 100-odd senators and unlikely to ever be more. Yet in some ways a Nigerian senator is more powerful and influential than a US senator. I started knocking off thumbnail bios, got hooked, and got diverted into other subjects like dams, musicians, kingdoms etc. There are masses of subjects that clearly deserve articles and have excellent English-language coverage. I suppose piecing together start-class articles on Nigerian topics is an obscure hobby, but it does no harm. :~) Aymatth2 (talk) 13:17, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Herlinatiens

Nice work--thank you. Listen, that article is a DYK waiting to happen--a nice coup for you and for the new editor. Drmies (talk) 19:43, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Code

I just updated the code again per your suggestions. Im not sure if I got the merger code quite right so let me know if I need to refine it.

Let me know if you find anything else that needs fixing. --Kumioko (talk) 20:43, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Removal of "living" parameter

Here. Why? Is it an AWB bug or did you make the change on purpose? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 15:39, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I haven't a clue, but was probably a mistake on my part. I add parameters to pages with bio banners newly added and editor GB fan and I also check bio banners without living parameter. Bgwhite (talk) 17:44, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay; just thought I'd check. If anyone else comments on something similar in the future, I'd guess that it is some strange AWB bug that should be reported. Thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 18:12, 28 June 2011 (UTC)