User talk:BrownHairedGirl/Archive/Archive 036

click here to leave a new
message for BrownHairedGirl

List of archives

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

Category:Lists of Hong Kong politicians

Category:Lists of Hong Kong politicians, which you created, is now empty.

There is also Category:Lists of political office-holders in Hong Kong, which could be placed inside it to populate it, but if there are no other contents I am not sure it is worth keeping, – Fayenatic London 08:50, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Fayenatic london

Thanks for the notification.

I have reverted[1] the removal of the sub-category. This appears to be the work of a relatively new editor, unfamiliar with the broader category structures. There may also have been other content which was removed; I dunno yet.

In any case, this is part of the established series Category:Lists of politicians by nationality, so WP:SMALLCAT does not apply. So I have contested the speedy[2]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:47, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please respect the naming by Chinese people

In Hong Kong and Macau media, the pro-Beijing camp is just called "建制派", and it is NOT an abbreviation of "親建制派". The Chinese name need NOT be a direct translation of English name. It is offending to include "親建制派" but not "建制派" in this article. 182.239.79.93 (talk) 10:08, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea why you have addressed this message to me. Would you like to explain why you think I might need to know your views on this? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:10, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Volkskammer

Hi BHG, well done for raising this and "job done"! --Bermicourt (talk) 10:28, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Bermicourt. It was good to have your eyes scrutinising what what was otherwise a rather poorly-attended move discussion.

I have now created speedy renaming requests[3][4] for the two related categories: Category:People's Chamber and Category:Members of the People's Chamber. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:44, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

☺ --Bermicourt (talk) 10:47, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Paraguayan designers has been nominated for discussion

Category:Paraguayan designers, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides 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) 12:09, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Accused of canvassing

I have been accused of canvassing for making the following post on the project page for the religion of the subject.

"== Octaviano Tenorio ==

There is a discussion a Article for deletion on the inclusion of the article on Octaviano Tenorio.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:44, 8 July 2016 (UTC)"[reply]

Do you think that is a reasonable accusation?John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:51, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Really, JPL, REALLY? You respond to an accusation of canvassing by...canvassing. p b p 18:06, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry, pbp. JPL's canvassing has created a WP:BOOMERANG effect.

My comment[5] at User_talk:Johnpacklambert#July_2016, and my !vote[6] at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Octaviano Tenorio. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:36, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mass-moving categories against consensus

User:Graham11 has been mass-moving women-categories to female-categories against consensus. On July 1 I requested that he reverse his edits but he has not been active since I posted to his talk-page. Is there anything that can be done about this? I would appreciate a response on my talk-page since I do not follow yours. Thanks in advance. Ottawahitech (talk) 14:12, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ottawahitech

Thanks for the notification. I have posted[7] on User:Graham11's talk page to notify them that I am reverting all their bold moves.

Please lemme know if there is any recurrence. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:38, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ottawahitech, the job is done.

I have posted[8] at User talk:Graham11#Reversions_done (permalink) a full list of the reversions, and a lengthy explanation of why I did it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:49, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

BHG, I just noticed that for the article Abby Joseph Cohen, your category reversion/cleanup efforts ended up removing the article entirely from Category:Women financial analysts. I presume this was accidental? Should we just change it back manually, or is it part of a larger set of errors that you'd want to correct as a batch? (I'm pretty sure the Category was much larger than its 4 current members, but I'm not sure how to find other dropouts.) —Patrug (talk) 02:54, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Patrug

Many thanks for spotting that. As you suspected, it was indeed a part of a wider set of errors. It turns out that in one use of Cat-a-lot, I had mistakenly done the same thing to 16 articles. Now fixed, in these edits.

Sorry about the error, and thanks again for the tip-off. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:07, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. I was able to remember & restore Garzarelli & Krawcheck & Meeker, but never would've remembered the rest of the names. Thanks for the quick fix. —Patrug (talk) 18:58, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome, Patrug. I did review my reverts after completion, but with over 2000 edits I guess my cursory checks were not enough. It was your vigilance which detected that glitch, and without your kindness in drawing my attention to it, I wouldn't have spotted that a fix was needed. Many thanks! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

Please remember to AGF

Complaint by Montanabw

I am rather disappointed in your personalization of tone at the LDS Afd discussions. (Such as "as Montanabw falsely claims", which implies that I am lying or something. It is not a "false" claim, it's simply one where we don't agree) I thought you were more gracious than that and though you encourage civility, you and PBP are not being very civil to me there. You are treating me like your enemy, and I am not. You should know that JPL and I usually are on the opposite sides of many discussions, particularly at AfD, but here, I tried to put my own personal views aside to see if Mormonism was being treated fairly, and in good faith, I do think a double standard is being applied. I often see a double standard applied to hold articles about women or people of color or people from the third world to a double standard, and applying my own understanding of systemic bias to Mormonism, I see a similar pattern. (particularly when compared to cricket players and pornstars). Perhaps you don't live in a place where there is discrimination against LDS people, but I do live in such a region (about 7 hours north of Salt Lake City by car), and I think it is important to look at this objectively. Montanabw^(talk) 23:46, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: I am not trying to personalise the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Octaviano Tenorio. I am trying to apply the policy set out at WP:N.

The issue in dispute here are fairly simple: are the sources independent of the subject as required by WP:N?

Instead of honestly assessing that issue, you have repeatedly tried to drag the drag the discussion off track with a series of red herrings and straw men, including:

your attempt to divert the discussion into tests of journalistic ethics
your false claim that any topic carries a presumption of notability
your attempts to mischaracterise the objection to wholly-owned publications as objections to "specialty press"

Taken singly, I would see each of those errors as a mistake made in good faith. Taken together, less so. And the clincher is that in this discussion, you have persisted with them long after they have been clearly disproven. One of the characteristics of a good faith editor is that they review the evidence offered by others and are willing to reconsider, but you are not. That's why I questioned your good faith.

Now, in your message here, you have confirmed that you are not acting in good faith, in two key respects:

You compare this discussion to those on cricket players and pornstars. You may well be right that standards are applied too loosely on those articles (I haven't checked, but it sounds like a prima facie) plausible claim. However, that's not the argument you have chosen to make. If you had been honest enough to simply say directly something like please apply to this article the same ridiculously lax standards as are applied to XYZ topics", then you would be making an honest argument. I would disagree with you, but it would be directly and honestly setting out the reasons for your objections. Instead, you repeatedly have tried to misrepresent policy and to misrepresent the arguments of other editors. That's dishonest; shame on you.
You make it very clear above that one of the factors in your support for this article is real-world discrimination. I have no knowledge of that, but am quite happy to accept that you genuinely believe it to be the case that mormons are one of the many classes of people in this world who are subject to discrimination. If you based you arguments on that claim, it would be an honest argument, perhaps phrased something like this: "sure, this article doesn't meet WP:N, but there is so much discrimination against Mormons that we should relax our standards". I would disagree with that argument too (explanation to follow, below), but it would be an honest argument. Instead, you have tried to press your case by repeatedly misrepresenting policy, and misrepresenting other editors.

Shame on you. As you make clear here, there are two honourable reasons for your support of this article ... but instead of making that case directly and sticking to it, you have chosen to throw up a smokescreen of misrepresentation. Please clean up your act, by following WP:DGF: "demonstrating your own good faith. You can do this by articulating your honest motives". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:51, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. Do not ever tell another user "shame on you." That is an absolute violation of NPA. You are casting aspersions on my motives and you are accusing me of dishonest motives! I am misrepresenting nothing, I am expressing my own views and to accuse me of what you have just said is terribly, terribly offensive. If you want me to "articulating your honest motives", here it is and when you finish reading, I think it will be reasonable for you apologize to me:

I have been beating my head against the wall with the waves of knee-jerk AfDs and PROD tags that appear almost daily at Wikipedia:WikiProject Women/Article alerts. I've never seen such a systemic set of attacks on a single project (and I subscribe to several of these)
I have been trying to explain the sexism and systemic bias that exists on wikipedia against women, against people of color, against people from third world nations that is a plague at AfD. (and I also had further frustration that almost every pornstar article AfD wound up a keep while women who were academics, development workers, business leaders, and did other real work were routinely being deleted or barely salvaged)
I finally opened an RfC at WT:N to try and get some input and perspective on the issue. Reading some of the (often ill-informed) comments led me to ask myself if I had perhaps opened myself to criticisms of bias because I was exclusively focusing on articles about women.
So, I started looking around, casually and a bit at random, for articles about men but also inappropriately AfDd -- and also for articles where I felt I could legitimately !vote delete by applying my interpretation of WP:N. (so my AfD stats didn't run 90% "keep")
Because one of the most "frequent filers" at the women's AfD list was JPL, I went over to his talk page to discuss the matter because I was getting very frustrated with him (admittedly, some of the beauty pageant contestant pages he tagged probably were rightly done, but he did have about a 90%"delete" !vote record).
Once there, I saw two of "his" articles with AfD tags. Intrigued, I decided to check them out, and saw (to my surprise) that the articles actually looked notable to me, certainly by application of some of the same interpretation of WP:N I had applied to women's articles, and so, to my complete surprise, I found myself defending some JPL articles.
Also, I live in a part of the country where there is a significant Mormon population but also a substantial amount of anti-Mormon sentiment; even though I disagree strongly with many of the political and theological positions advanced by LDS leadership, I also think that discrimination against anyone based on their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) is wrong and the tone of the AfD was starting to sound very anti-Mormon to me.
Then everything just blew up. I have no idea what other issues may be going on with JPL, but lumping me in as part of some vast conspiracy was completely inappropriate.

So, now, over there at the AfD and here you are attacking me, casting aspersions on my character, attributing motives to me that are just flat wrong, accusing me of bad faith, telling me that I am somehow in on some conspiracy or otherwise doing all sorts of bad things. NO, in fact, hell no. I used have some respect for you, we've agreed on many issues in the past, but at the moment, I think you are acting like someone who is just losing their cool. If anyone needs to take a deep breath and apologize, it is YOU. If your pride will not permit that, I do expect you to at least take a step back and recognize that I made a good faith effort to apply my own values and criteria in fairness to a subject where I might normally have a bias in the opposite direction. Montanabw^(talk) 08:56, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: You title this thread "Please remember to AGF" and then you write "I also think that discrimination against anyone based on their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) is wrong and the tone of the AfD was starting to sound very anti-Mormon to me." Come on. BHG is Irish. There are at least three other editors who are not American (including myself) and presumably don't care about the Mormons, one way or the other, !voting delete. Perhaps the issue isn't with these editors but rather with the editors who don't understand, "People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:13, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

NeilN, some biases are not conscious until raised to awareness. There are a lot of dismissive attitudes on WP about anything that occurs west of the Mississippi river and particularly when it smacks of one of America's many "fringe" branches of Christianity (Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, etc...). Similarly, there are dismissive attitudes toward the global south and so on. (Do point me to the policy that interprets "independent" as "intellectually independent" by the way) This reminds me of how we used to have to explain ad nauseaum to British writers that saying "red indian" to describe Native American people was very, very offensive. Montanabw^(talk) 17:58, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Montanabw Do us all a favor and argue using Wikipedia's policies and guidelines rather than assuming you need to make editors of their supposed hidden biases that you've been able to ferret out. And "intellectually independent"? Seriously? That's straight from WP:BASIC - the guideline we're supposed the be applying here. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:39, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@NeilN: WP:BASIC conveys the core issues here in simple terms. Thanks for linking it.
It is sad that Montanabw is apparently unaware of the deep irony of their unevidenced allegations of hidden biases in other editors, while demanding that others AGF in Montanabw. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:25, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@NeilN: than you. I really have no views either way about Mormons, and have not expressed any. It is a great pity that Montanabw has chosen to allege an anti-Mormon tone, esp when no evidence is offered to support that. I am satisfied that anyone who reviews my contributions to the AFD will see that I have consistently stuck to the same narrow point: lack of independent, reliable sources.

It is a great pity that some editors have chosen to interpret that point of principle as evidence of prejudice. As NeilN notes, that assumption of prejudicial motive is a long way from AGF. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:43, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) @Montanabw: I am not attacking your character; I am attacking your shoddy conduct. And I will do so again now, because the conclusion of your latest reply is blatantly dishonest. You accuse me of lumping me [i.e. you, Montanabw] in as part of some vast conspiracy. I did no such thing. I criticised, individually, those editors, who had in the course of this discussion misrepresented others or misrepresented policy; you did both, repeatedly, and you persisted even after your errors were demonstrated. On top of that, you clearly did so in pursuit of a broader policy-changing agenda. At no point did I suggest that you or anyone else was engaged in any conspiracy.

So, I repeat: shame on you. Clean up your act.

I have read your numbered points above, and I am saddened, because they are a mixture of the well-founded, the misplaced, and plain wrong. There is clearly good intent there, but also a lot of confusion. I'll take a few minutes to unpick some of it.

You raise a lot of issues of genuine concern for Wikipedia, such as a perceived systemic bias at AFD. I think you are probably right about the existence of bias, but in my experience it is rather different to how you characterise it. Rather than a surfeit of inappropriate deletion, there is a vast swathe of inappropriate keeps.

Part of that derives from the misconception that it is somehow the responsibility of those proposing deletion to "prove their case", including demands that they do a trawl of all possible sources. That is a reversal of the policy at WP:BURDEN, which has always been very clear that any editor adding content has a duty to justify its inclusion. That logically includes a requirement that an editor should have evidence of notability before creating an article. However, I have been through far too many AFDs where that burden is inverted, and editors round on the nominator for not doing the checks which the creator should have done. Sure, if other editors want to do that research for them, then great -- but placing the burden on the nominator is not just a breach of policy. It gives a near free-ride to POV-pushers and others who can lazily create articles on non-notable topics, and then demand that others spend hours of their time doing the checking which the creator was obliged to do. At its best, the Article Rescue Squadron does heroic work performing that research, but at its worst it has been a vote-stacking effort and a vehicle for people who find some snippet of a passing mention which they misrepresent as "substantial".

I see a further bias in the keeps, attributable to the skewed demographic of en.wp editors (mostly American, mostly male, mostly under 30, mostly college-educated, mostly secular). That demographic is keen e.g. on sport and porn computer games, and strong on recentism; so it piles in to keep articles on those topics, and has created some notability loopholes for those topics such as WP:PORNBIO.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think that the para above is common ground between us (tho pls correct me if I have misunderstood you). However, that's where we part company.

My remedy for all of the above is to reassert core policy, and to remember that two wrongs do not make a right. By contrast, it seems to me that what you are doing here amounts in effect to "other crap is being kept, so let's keep this crap too". (That may not be your intent, but it is the effect).

The diverse, consensus-driven Wikipedia model is almost guaranteed to produce some degree of capture by people who either let their obsessions override their commitment to core policy, or (more charitably) have too narrow a worldview or life experience to critique their own assumptions of what seems to them be commonsense.

AFAICS, a lot of your concerns about AFD derive from that well-documented problem. I don't see that core problem being fixed without a big change in the skewed demographic, and if that change happens it won't be quick. (My own unscientific hunch is that the overall mix of editor diversity and skill is sliding backwards, but that's only a hunch based on anecdotal observation).

In the meantime, what to do?

I reckon there are basically two options. One is to try to challenge the free ride given to favoured topics (porn, sport, gaming, etc). The other is to try lowering the standard elsewhere.

What you are arguing for is the latter: lowering the standard. I will oppose that every time, because the more that lower standards become normalised, the less chance we have of ever reversing the mess. However, if you had made an argument on that basis (preferably in a policy-discussion area rather than at AFD), I would have disagreed with you, and argued back; but I would regard it is an honourable disagreement. Sadly, you chose not to do that. Instead you used a series of opportunist proxy arguments, in which you misrepresented other editors and misrepresented others. That's the conduct I am criticising: trying to mask your substantive goal of loosening policy in a series of sustained misrepresentations. That's why, as you put it, everything just blew up.

Finally, you raise again your view that Mormons experience a lot of prejudice. I dunno whether you are right on that, but even if you are, there is no basis in existing policy for introducing that as a factor in how we construct an encyclopedia.

This goes right to the heart of what Wikipedia sets out to be. First of all, per WP:V it is a tertiary publication, i.e. one which summarises the existing secondary sources. It does not include original research or primary sources, but it does use the secondary works which have conducted that original research. And note that WP:V explicitly warns against sources which have a conflict of interest (see WP:NOTRS).

Secondly, it has a policy of WP:NPOV, which I urge you to re-read, because it is widely misunderstood. The first para says: All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.

Many editors seem to think that Wikipedia has a policy of fairness or balance, but they are mistaken. WP follows the sources. It sets out to use the sources fairly, but it respects the balance of sources rather than imposing its own view of an appropriate balance.

That means that Wikipedia replicates all the flaws in the existing scholarship, as well as its strengths. So, if journalists and scholars give almost no coverage to a particular topic area, Wikipedia will also have little coverage ... because we cannot follow sources which are not there.

It also means that where existing sources favour a particular perspective on a topic, that should be reflected in the Wikipedia articles. It is not for editors to judge whether the resulting balance is unfair to the subject of the articles; our job is to assess whether it is a fair use of the sources.

In some cases, that will mean en.wp's policy-conforming coverage of a topic area is scanty, and overwhelmingly negative, because that's where the sources lead. In other cases the policy-conforming will be extensive and positive, because that's where the sources lead.

So, for example, we have vast swathes of coverage of video games, replete with copious detail about each revision and the exact sequence of commercial release schedules.

OTOH, we have very little coverage of the civilian casualties of war. That appals me; my own sense of justice cries out in horror at it. But the sad reality is that it is well-founded in policy. The video games industry has hordes of customers who are (in global terms) relatively-wealthy, and can afford to buy magazines about their hobby; so there is a lots of independent journalism on video games, some shoddy, but some v high quality. Result=lots of sources, lots of articles. OTOH, the civilian victims of war are predominantly disconnected from the media and scholarship. They are geographically remote from the western-dominated media on which we rely, they are usually culturally distinct from both the media workers and the audiences who choose to pay them, and their relatives and communities usually lack the finances to support a media covering things from their perspective. Result=not enough sources, too few articles.

Please don't think that I am somehow personally exempt from these issues. I am a woman in a male-dominated world, where men still predominantly choose which stories to tell and how to tell them. I am Irish, of Scottish ancestry, and for centuries both countries have suffered appallingly at the hands of a large, bullying neighbour who has also largely determined how the story is told. The result is that much of the history of my ancestry is written on en.wp in terms which reflect the bias out there in the existing sources. If you came to visit, I could take you on a short walk from my home to a large mound which is a mass grave of unidentified people, victims of The Great Hunger in the 19th century. They are nameless, and their lives almost entirely undocumented, while the people whose greed left them to starve are copiously documented, in works about their great houses and their titles of nobility. Scholars are trying to document the great hunger, to reveal more of the lives of the million dead and the million displaced. I wish them luck, but their resources are few and their progress is inevitably slow ... and in the meantime, en.wp has to rely on the existing, grotesquely-imbalanced sources. That's what en.wp is, and what it does: it reflects the existing sources, however ugly we may find the result.

The same goes for Mormons. If the independent, reliable sources aren't there, then core policy is that we can't have the coverage. It is not for Wikipedia editors to make a value judgement on that lack of sources. Maybe it's a quirk of the media biz; maybe it's because of massive and unjustified prejudice against Moromoms; maybe it's because of well-founded prejudice. Heck, maybe it's even because of organised conspiracy against Mormons. But the reason doesn't actually matter; it's the result that counts. Either we have the independent, reliable sources, or we don't. And if we don't have them, we don't write.

You are arguing from a sincere and genuine concern about injustices which exist in the world out there, and which you do not want en.wp to replicate. That is a noble and honourable starting point. However, as I have pointed out above, that is a pretty fundamental diversion from our long-standing core policies, which are procedural rather than ethical. You are of course fully entitled to argue the case for change, but any such discussion should be centralised and overt, and not pursued by proxy in discussions which are based on existing policy.

I am sure that there is a good case to me made for the sort of changes you seek. However, I would oppose them, because IMO they would a) make Wikipedia something very different to what it has set out to be so far; b) probably be unworkable (because it would require an unachievable consensus on ethical values). But if you want to propose that sort of change, please WP:DGF by doing it directly and explicitly. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:35, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

BHG:

first off, as to your "you want to propose that sort of change", I already am, not the RfC discussion thread below; I started the second of the two linked RfCs.
Next, I commented more in the next section on the false reasoning of the "right great wrongs" idea that WP is balanced to the real world as it is; no, it is slanted to the single white male under 30 techno urban dweller with libertarian/anarchist tendencies.
But finally, you defeat everything else you write above with continued ad hominem remarks like " I am attacking your shoddy conduct. " My "conduct" is not "shoddy"; I have an interpretation of the issue and I am defending it; you disagree. We discuss, sometimes with a bit of heat and some frustration. That's normal wikipedia. But then, when I propose that commenters on various topic possibly have a (perhaps unexamined) bias; you in turn accuse me of "dishonesty" -- that's using a baseball bat to swat at a horsefly. In any case, judgmental personal remarks shut down dialogue, and certainly statements like "shame on you." (That's a cruel statement that should not even be delivered to a small child, let alone an adult) Both remarks sound like emotional rants. I am over 50, I've been here since 2006 just like you, and I suspect that I am old enough to be your mother. So do not lecture me about how I am wrong about policy; you can present your case, I present mine, and we can disagree. To attack my character and make inaccurate statements about my motives is unhelpful and inappropriate.
and of note, I simply do not agree that you are properly stating "our long-standing core policies"; I see you putting your own interpretation on them.

So, this may be going nowhere until or unless you drop the stick about my "behavior" and stop making inaccurate statements about what I think, intend or believe. You owe me an apology for those remarks, or if you cannot do that, at least do me the courtesy of ~~striking~~ the most egregious of your accusations. Montanabw^(talk) 17:58, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: I have already spent a lot of time dealing with this, and am going to limit my further replies to you, because you continually dodge issues of substance, misrepresente others, and then divert discussion into a meta-dispute about being called out on that misconduct. So I'll just do a quick reply to these numbered points, but before then I'll note that I spotted in your contribs that you appear to be engaged in a similar demand-apology-and/or-strikeout exercise with User:EEng, who you say[9] has accused you of Delusional smoke and mirrors. I suggest that you reflect very carefully on why two uninvolved editors are making near-simultaneous comments of such similarity about your conduct.

Anyway, those numbered points:

Well done starting the RFC. I wasn't aware of it until another editor linked to it below, but that's the right way to pursue such a change. Smoke and mirrors at an AFD is not the right way.
Your conduct is shoddy, as I set out above. I do not intend to repeat myself. And BTW, you are unlikely to be old enough to be my mother; I was born before JFK was shot (tho I do have an alibi<grin>).
If you dispute my interpretation of core policies, I invite you again to respond the references I have made to them, in which I have cited the relevant passages. You have repeatedly failed to either cite any passages from policy to support your assertions about those policies, or to reply to my quotations; instead you have simply repeated your unsubstantiated assertions elsewhere in the discussions. That is the conduct which I find most shoddy: your repeated use of policy assertions which you are unwilling to test in debate.
This discussion will continue to go nowhere until you clean up your behaviour.

Finally, note that you again try to personalise the discussion into an allegation of personal bias propose that commenters on various topic possibly have a (perhaps unexamined) bias and then you come to me to complain about alleged ad hominem remarks? Sheesh, that's a nasty little bit of smearing. Go buy a mirror, and clean up your own act. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:28, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And I was born during the Eisenhower administration, just for the record. E Eng 20:08, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, EEng, but do you have an alibi for 18:30 UTC on Friday, 22 November 1963?? <grin> --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:17, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Under the terms of my testimony before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, that information will remain sealed until 2062. Speculate if you must. E Eng 20:55, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Reposting another editor's note from EEng Talk page: I'm going to suggest that persons actually interested in retaining the article spend their time adding citations and content to it, rather than arguing needlessly over other people's AfD comments. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:08, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Centralised discussions on notability and systemic bias

FYI

– Wikipedia talk:Notability#Systemic Bias: Proposing a separate standard of notability and Wikipedia talk:Notability#Adding ways to assess Systemic Bias to WP:N

@BrownHairedGirl: (sorry for the talkpage stalking) the two currently active RfC's linked above discuss what seems to be the wider picture of this issue. Specifics aside, the general approach maybe doesn't need to be analysed on a case-by-case basis? --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:08, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Francis Schonken: talkpage stalkers are v welcome here! I even have a note at the top of the page to say so :)
In this case, you have added some v useful links to centralised discussion on these issues, which is v helpful, and v kind of you. It's a perfect illustration of why I welcome talk page stalkers .. so please, keep on stalking!
Pinging Montanabw and NeilN to draw their attention to Francis's links. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:57, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at the RFC when Francis posted here. Pretty poor proposal in my opinion. WP:RS, WP:N, and WP:V all tie together. Weaken one and you weaken the others. Looks like other editors agree. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:08, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:NeilN, I was not the person who filed the "weakening" RfC, and in fact I have opposed it. I filed the second one that has opened the discussion. Montanabw^(talk) 22:00, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(watching:) I confess that - as much I support fighting "minor pornstars being routinely kept because they "won an industry award", while women with doctorates and academic careers ... routinely deleted as "not notable" (quoted from Montanabw's RfC, the second one) in general, but don't see precisely a change that would do so. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:26, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with NeilN that this looks like a poor proposal, which undermines the collective effect of WP:RS, WP:N, and WP:V (and, I would add, WP:NPOV).

I agree with Gerda Arendt that there is prob with minor pornstars. But I think that there are two solutions there, useful either separately or together:

Remove the presumption of notability for getting an award. AIUI, the porn biz hands out awards like confetti, and they are no guide to the extent of coverage in independent reliable sources.
Explicitly note that a) all the specific notability guidelines are simply guides to which topics are, from experience, likely to be notable per WP:GNG, and that b) that presumption of notability for such topics is disprovable by evidence of extensive search of relevant sources

That would clear out a lot the chaff. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:00, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do note that the second of the two RfCs was the one I created. The filer of the first one doesn't understand that fighting systemic bias isn't about "relaxing" standards, it's about understanding how to properly apply source material. And the discussion pretty much already agrees that SNGs are not policy and that many AfD discussions raise SNGs inappropriately. Someone put it pretty well that WP covers the white male under 30 pseudo-libertarian tech millennial crowd exceedingly wel; but falls well short in many other areas. Its not so much the "right great wrongs" problem (which is an essay mocking fringe theories and POV-pushers) it a "get it properly balanced" approach. Montanabw^(talk) 17:17, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The personal side, and perhaps a truce

Do you see how mean, preachy and ineffective your personal attacks are? Can you hear yourself when you say, "this discussion will continue to go nowhere until you clean up your behaviour." or "Shame on you."? Well, shucks, thank you for setting the record straight that you were born in the ~~Eisenhower~~ Kennedy administration, I guess that does explain your tone. Adults used to talk like that when they scolded small children (us) back in the day, and it was cruel, ineffective, shame-based parenting/teaching then, it was never a way to communicate with an adult, ever, and it is particularly bad communication style now. Do you honestly and sincerely think that that schoolmarmish tone is going to change anyone's behavior, let alone mine? Of course not. Would you talk to someone like that at a real world job? No.
Frankly, I'm now beginning to wonder if you are WP:BAITing me. What are your goals? Do you want me to explode into four-letter words? Not going to happen. Do you want me to put up the rage-retired banner and go away? That is not going to happen. You want me to quit editing wikipedia? I've been here 10 years. No dice. Is that your intent? I'm starting to feel that you want that.
If you want me to change my position on the AfD, telling me how generally stupid, ignorant of policy, and completely wrong I am in your eyes is clearly not working for you. If you want the article deleted, then go canvass, I honestly don't care what you do. I sincerely do think the article topic is notable, meets GNG, and while you can disagree with me all you want, I made my arguments, said my piece and my position has not changed.
Again, I think you owe me an apology. Here is what I want. Three things:

Apologize for accusations that I am using "smokescreens, manipulation and dishonesty." None of those things are true. (You can't read my mind, but I have said this repeatedly). You are making false claims and casting WP:ASPERSIONS by accusing me of having bad motives, of doing things I have not done and of thinking things that I do not think.
Apologize for using shaming language and making this about motives; that is nothing more than setting up a straw man argument to provide grounds for browbeating, bullying and pure meanness.
Apologize for accusing me of not taking up discussion at the policy level; I think I filed the RfC before I even showed up at this JPL AfD.

And then practice what you preach; you kept raising WP:DGF without stopping your onslaught of unkind, shaming, inaccurate remarks. So let me try a little DGF at you to see if it primes the pump:

If you were personally offended when I suggested that there was anti-Mormon systemic bias in the general discussion at the JPL AfD articles, let me make it clear that I did not intend to personally call you a bigot or a person who had religious intolerance. (I do think that there are a lot of stereotyped assumptions about the LDS church, and I live in an area where one hears a lot of them, but I also know a fair number of people of that faith and know these stereotypes are hurtful, so I have some sensitivity to the issue.)
I may not have articulated my position on WP:N as applied to issues of systemic bias at AfD with adequate clarity. I have gotten very tired of making the same arguments every day and apologize if by now I'm just too grumpy and irritable now.

Finally, if you will consider a WP:TRUCE I shall consider it as well. Montanabw^(talk) 21:53, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

FTR it was I who was born during the Eisenhower administration, though it sounds like you have some cartoonish ideas about what went on back then. When someone's acting the fool, or shamefully, there's nothing wrong with telling them so -- you'll even be doing them a favor, if they're otherwise surrounded by people who won't give voice to what many are thinking. WP:STOPDIGGING. E Eng 22:08, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) @Montanabw: if you are as old and experienced as claim, you should have learnt by now that demanding apologies rarely does any good to anyone, either in meatspace or in cyberspace.

What I would like you to do is very simple. I don't see any reason to expect that you will do any of it, but here goes:

Stop misrepresenting other editors, such as your repeated attempts to misrepresent opposition to sources wholly-owned by the subject's organisation as generic objections to the "specialty press"
Don't claim that I was born in the Eisenhower administration. That is not true either temporally or geographically, and that sort of false assumption is no basis for leaping to conclusions about cultures in a v difft time and place. Note BTW that is your second such unfounded assumption. Up above you told me you were old enough to be my mother. Stop personalising things!
Stop accusing other editors of bias for simply upholding WP:BASIC, as you have done since your very first post in the AFD. You may disagree with WP:BASIC or its application, but stop accusing other editors of being biased for upholding it.
Stop demanding that others AGF you when you dropped good faith on your first post
Stop demanding that en.wp drops its basic content standards in order to satisfy your sense of injustice about something. (That's POV-pushing; others may take the opposite view of that perceived injustice, and your view is no more right or wrong than theirs.)
Stop making WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS arguments. Such arguments are unfounded in policy, and just waste everyone's time
Don't accuse others of IDONTLIKEIT when your own arguments express a value preference on a topic where those others remain value-neutral. That's called psychological projection.
Consider User:EEng's advice[10] that you WP:STOPDIGGING. It's very good advice, especially since you seem to be in multiple similar holes at the same time, and that rarely ends well.

But above all, stop whining about be called out on these things, and in particular stop cluttering my talk page with your moans at being called out on your shoddy conduct.

As several editors have noted: if you can find the substantive independent reliable source, then add them, and if they really are substantive independent reliable, then I'll switch to a keep vote. If you haven't got them, then it's still a delete. Goodbye! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:48, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Montanabw has just edited their comment to change[11] a false assertion that I claimed to have been born in the Eisenhower administration, replacing "Eisenhower " with "Kennedy". That also misrepresents what I wrote. (Yes, it's all about a trivial aside, but it's a good illustration of the poor std of Montanabw's conduct.)

For the last time, Montanabw: clean up your act. Now get of my talk page, and stay off. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:09, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Quick aside

here, you left (probably accidentally?) an extra copy of Unscintillating's crazy quote at the end of your comment. p b p 23:07, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, pbp. That was clumsy of me; now fixed.
As to the substance of what I replied to, I can see that it might perhaps have been a very poor attempt to express one of several different lines of argument to what was actually written, but which came out as a blanket denial of policy. If that speculative possibility is actually the case, it makes me despair even more than the policy-denial, because I don't see how we can hope to build an encyclopedia on the basis of an inability to convey a coherent proposition in writing. Maybe Larry Sanger was right after all :(

Discussions like this make me feel that en.wp is doomed. Between the editors who think that a wholly-owned subsidiary is "independent" (boggle!) and those who think that a rationale which flatly contradicts policy amounts to a valid !vote, it feels like I have strayed into a convention of Humpty Dumpty fans:

“

When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.

”

At times like this, I miss Giano. He could be very obnoxious and was usually arrogant, but at his best he was an expert at calling a spade a spade in the exquisitely withering prose of the English at their most disdainful. He bravely challenged a lot of silliness and worse.

The saddest thing about it all that so many editors don't seem to be able to accept that some of us a) have no view either way about Mormons, and b) care much less about the breadth of Wikipedia than about its quality. If we start allowing biographies with no sources other than wholly-owned subsidiaries of the subject's team, then we open the door to every sort of hagiography, from the corporate promo to the fringe politician. We will massively expand the width of Wikipedia, but in doing so we will degrade it into a repository of fancruft.

Some editors clearly want to get broad coverage of Mormonism, partly to make Wikipedia as broad as possible, partly to balance the extensive coverage of other religions, and partly to avoid association with those who discriminate against Mormons. Both are honourable aspirations, but pursuing them in the face of basic content policies has much wider ramifications ... and I deplore the sophistry used by some of the keep supporters. I can respect those who say directly that they want an article regardless of its policy-compliance; I'd disagree, but I can respect an open and honest argument. But I deplore those whose comments, read as a whole, make it clear that they want the article for reasons extraneous to policy, and then offer policy-warping proxy arguments to achieve that result. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:03, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, Unscillinating's behavior of misunderstanding policy and misrepresenting everything we say is very, very disturbing. He's driving me up the wall. He makes JPL look like a saint. JPL! p b p 04:27, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

He makes JPL look like a saint. Perhaps a latter day saint? (har har – please just ignore my bad page-stalking joke.) Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 05:39, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Irish Ombudsman has been nominated for discussion

Category:Irish Ombudsman, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides 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. Tim! (talk) 19:47, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Carrite

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Well, another one of our keepists has derailed: User:Carrite has taken to refactoring my comments, specifically bolding and unbolding words for the heck of it. He started doing it here in the AfD. When I told him in no uncertain terms to stop, he just did this. And here. And here. And for some reason, he made up some talk page ban and decided to demand that I be blocked here on the AfD. What the hell is going on with this guy? p b p 04:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@pbp, I have to say that Carrite is right on this point. You are WP:BLUDGEONing the process, and have continued to do so after several requests to back off. And Carrite is right that you have been using bold far too much in your comments at AFD. That is specifically deprecated at WP:SHOUT, and while you may be within your right to revert Carite's unbolding of your comments, you should then do the unbolding yourself.

At this stage, I urge you to back right off that AFD, and refrain from further comment there. Otherwise, the issue there may become your increasingly shouty conduct, rather the substance of the case against having a standalone article on a topic where all the sources are wholly-owned by the subject's organisation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:42, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I see the keepists found somebody sympathetic to their cause. It's as User:NielN feared: the closer claimed there was a specific notability guideline when there isn't one and the discussion to have one is failing. I'm not sure if I'm going to DRV it or relist it. Maybe I'll leave that up to User:NeilN as to what he wants to do. I AM likely going to complain about the close on the closer's page.

I think the reason I commented so much was I was so frustrated at the bad arguments advanced by some of those people, particularly the claims by Cullen and Unscintillating that you had to be bigoted. That and people who openly ignored policy in their keep votes.

Will you at least concede that it was inappropriate of Carrite to do the repeated bolding of words in his comment on my talk page? He was pretty clearly trying to BAIT me into something he could use in an ANI/ArbCom thread p b p 13:33, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@pbp, you are clearly angry. Please may I ask you -- plead with you -- to think long and hard before posting on the closer's talk? An angry message will do you no good, and it won't help the chances of reopening the discussion.

As to the bolding, you should both stop it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:52, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I will refrain from posting on his page for a day or two. For the life of me, I don't understand why you don't see to be as outwardedly angry as I: your name has also been dragedd through the mud by those crazy keepists. p b p 13:56, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, pbp. Good call.

Why am I not angry? Because I have learnt through my own mistakes and those of others that getting angry never helps on Wikipedia. Every time that happens, the issue becomes the anger of the complainer, rather than the substance of the complaint. So getting angry amounts to busting a blood vessel to make the situation worse ... which is why I have leant to step away from the keyboard at any sense of red mist, and find some release for my annoyance which doesn't involve typing angry words. It's nicer for me, and it gets better results.

Sure, I have had my name muddied. That's happened before and it will happen again. I don't like it, but I can't really control it. What I can control is whether I muddy my own name, which is what happens if I allow myself to be provoked into anger.

As you may know from my contribs, I am a politics anorak. Sometimes, amidst all the bluster and grandiloquence and spin and evasion and downright lies, politicians can say very wise things. The English politician Hilary Benn is a fairly centrist son of the radical left orator Tony Benn, and the contrast is often noted. One journalist asked Hilary what political values he had inherited from his father. It was of course a trick question, designed to persuade the son to either disown his father or to align himself with values that weren't his own. He reply evaded the question with a piece of wisdom, telling how after one bruising political encounter his father had told him "your opponent climbed down into the gutter, but you didn't have to get down there with him". That advice has stuck with me for a decade or more, and I think it's v relevant to wikipolitics too. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:21, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I honestly believed that I had told PBP to keep off my talk page a couple years ago when I ended up taking him to AN/I due to his refusal to drop the stick. It may have been more like 4 years ago, reviewing my talk page history, and I'm not finding the original instance of telling him to keep off. Perhaps I am misremembering. What I am not misremembering is that I told him to keep off my talk page during the current completely ridiculous visits he has made to my talk page. He is banned from there by me if there is such a thing as an individual having that much control over their talk page. Carrite (talk) 13:08, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Carrite, it's quite simple, really: if you don't want me on your talk page, don't engage me elsewhere. In particular, don't refactor my comments. It's pretty clear to me that last night you were trying to BAIT me into doing something that would justify taking me to one of the noticeboards. You even threatened to take me to ArbCom last night while I slept. p b p 13:33, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I point out that on your talk page it was you and your friends who were pondering taking JPL to Arbcom due to some agenda or another. Go for it, let's see how it turns out for ya... Carrite (talk) 02:12, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Carrite, I hadn't noticed this before. Your analysis of my posts is completely out to lunch. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:09, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Before defending JPL, you might want to check the skeletons in his closet. p b p 03:22, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)BHG lacked the skill at the AfD to refactor comments, and you think that removing and adding bold is "refactoring". Your comment to me that you were at the end of your "tether" is a real-world statement that only you can interpret. Are you prepared for what happens beyond the tether? I vaguely recall that you banned me from your talk page. Is it ok for you to post on my talk page, if I am banned on your talk page? As for the "big.try" word, a fact check of the AfD shows that only you and BHG used that word. My argument for the seventy being judges appears to eliminate any future need for the seventy to satisfy GNG. Given the alternatives to deletion that retain the topic as a redirect, even if you want to argue notability, you've got no case to use admin tools, so what is your theory that there was an incorrect closing? Unscintillating (talk) 02:43, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Unscintillating: I am pinging you so that you see this post, but do not reply. I am about to close this discussion, and it's my talk page, so I get the last word. Bluntly, you are being petty and ridiculous.

Here's what happened. You inserted a comment into the middle of my comment, contrary to WP:TOC, so I reverted, in such a way that you would be notified. You objected, and reinstated the modification of my comment.

So I moved your comment to after mine. And you proceeded to whine that I had "modified" your comment, when I had done so only by moving it because you won't move it yourself. And you then piled up several rounds of whining that the meaning of your comment had been changed by the move ... when the whole damn thing arose from your attempt to modify my comment.

Stop trying to have it both ways. If you don't want other editors to modify your comments, then don't place them in the middle of what others have written. And when you have finished this little game, try to have the manners not to come to my page accuse me of lacking skill.

As to the big.try thing, a word search misses most of the allegations, many which used other terms such as "bias". It also misses the repeated direct allegations of "bigot" by JPL, which he recated[12] only after repeated requests.

Now, get off my talk, and don't come back until you can behave better. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:56, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't say she lacked the skill, I think she didn't consider it appropriate to do. And just because the word "bigotry" wasn't used per se doesn't mean that you and others tried to cast aspersions toward BHG, Neil and I hinting we might be bigots and/or intentionally suppressing information. I don't know if I banned you in 2011 or whatnot (man, you and Carrite really know how to hold a grudge!), but I unban you now. p b p 03:22, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks for the unban, that is unusual. That really does reduce tension. Please don't be surprised if I continue to remove your posts on my talk page, though. Unscintillating (talk) 06:02, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Since you think she had the skill; are you saying that she thought it "appropriate" to mis-match my previously matching font sizes, make my meaning obscure, dispense with attribution for the refactoring, and change the font size of two subsequent edits? Given the WP:OWN behavior, I think she's never before refactored text. Unscintillating (talk) 06:02, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why are you avoiding the taking of responsibility for your own use of charged language? I repeatedly drew attention to the unnecessary use of charged language by BHG. The purpose of a charged term is to inflame the discussion. One of the reasons for no relisting was the presence of "more heat than light". Unscintillating (talk) 06:02, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Guys, do you really think that this is still a productive discussion? Both the tone and the venue seem to me to be unhelpful. BHG might be fine with this continuing on here, but if I were her I would be getting a bit fed up with this unfolding on my talk page .... Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 06:06, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

we could all have a WP:TEA, i like a cup of Russian Caravan or Assam, or (this may be controversial:)) a Liquorice tea as a sweet pick-me-up

Coolabahapple (talk) 07:41, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Inconsistent category naming

Hello. Just wondering why the categories you're creating don't seem to have any consistent naming pattern. For example, some use the country name (e.g. Category:Parliamentary elections in Andorra and some the demonym (e.g. Category:Sammarinese general elections). If you're yet to decide on a format, I think the former is far better. Cheers, Number 5 7 17:15, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also Category:General elections in Cyprus (all the articles are "legislative election"). As I have every national election article with the exception of the UK/US/Australia/NZ on it, you've just killed my watchlist :( Number 5 7 17:20, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Number 57

Sorry for beating up your watchlist. Kinda unavoidable in a big set of changes like this :( ... but it will pass.

Anyway, there are several potential ways of naming these container categories, and I didn't see a consistent scheme that looked workable. The options include "foo general elections/general elections in foo", "foo parliamentary elections/Parliamentary elections in foo", "foo legislative elections/Legislative elections in foo", "assemblyname elections". The election articles themselves use wildly differing terminology, not just between sets, but within sets.

So I thought that the best approach was to start by identifying and creating the sets, so that we can then identify patterns and possible solutions, balancing the competing claims of consistency, ENGVAR, and national structures. This is a first step, not a long-term solution. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:46, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, cool. Personally I'd like to see them all given the same names in the long-run – I vaguely recall that we discussed this previously due to the conflicting meanings of the term "general election" and possibly concluded that "legislative election" has the widest possible but non-confusing meaning.

I believe that the conflicting naming in some countries is due to a change in political system – e.g. removal of a monarchy. Number 5 7 17:50, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Number 57: I saw several reasons for changes in naming, as well as some inexplicable changes. Some of the evident reasons were regime changes, such as removal of monarchy or the creation/abolition of a soviet-style regime, or a former sub-national parliament being upgraded on independence; others reflected shifts in terminology arising from moves between unicameral and bicameral legislatures; and some were scope shifts between articles which covered only one chamber of a bicameral system and articles combining coverage of both.

Categorising elections and members has been an interesting quick update on comparative political structures. The basic concept of a group of people elected to make laws and hold govt to account is implemented in many very different ways, often with complex histories which have brought their own terminologies. I am always keen to simplify categorisation by finding portable naming structures where possible, but I think that we need to accept that there will be some limits to that. For example, I would baulk at categorising the elections to Dáil Éireann as either "parliamentary elections" or "legislative elections", because the term consistently used is "general elections" ... which has a difft meaning in the USA. In Scotland, it has a difft meaning again: the start=of-term elections to the Scottish Parliament fit the westminster-style definitions of a "general election", but they are never called that ... because in Scotland the term "general election" is associated with elections the Commons in London. And increasingly, those Commons elections are being called "Westminster elections" for greater precision, as well as indicating a political trend to indicate distance from UK institutions.

So what I suggest is that instead of looking for a top-down solution, we start by lookibg for bottom-up fixes. First try to iron out the inconsistencies in each set, trying to figure out what is stylistic variation and what is relevant political change, while bearing in mind that many of the articles are crude translations from other languages, possibly by editors for whom English is a second language. In some cases that will involve a restructuring of categories, separating out the difft political eras under a common national umbrella, which offers scope for standardisation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:31, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion

Hi, BHG! Just with regard to this, I can fully understand why you're upset. I would be upset. Still, please could I suggest that you tone that down just a smidge?—S Marshall T/C 19:35, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi S Marshall

I hear what you are saying. But do you have any other suggestions for what to do about the way that some of the keepists in this debate are just running a barrage of smears and outright personal attacks? This has some of the characteristics of a systematic effort to defend to position through character assassination. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:23, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest you trust the DRV closer to see through it and reach the right conclusion. We do see a lot of casting aspersions at DRV ---- it's only natural; the most contentious deletion discussions on Wikipedia all go through it. Pretty much everyone who closes DRVs nowadays can be trusted. (I would bet a tenner that you'll get Sandstein as closer, since RoySmith has commented.)—S Marshall T/C 22:19, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What did I say?

It begins... --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:03, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh good God. Jgstokes and Iridescent are doing an end run around an actual discussion of establishing an SNG to de facto establish one without community consensus. Unscintillating's already commented at the RS noticeboard that the closure of the AfD means that Deseret News must be independent, even though the RS discussion is trending in the opposite direction. I've spoken at Good Olfactory's page in opposition to the restoration of the articles. p b p 04:19, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@NeilN: What happens now? Where do we go from here? p b p 16:22, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are several paths to be pursued, probably in parallel, but one of them is to DRV: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2016 July 20#Octaviano Tenorio. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:56, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) If the article has not been improved with additional sourcing in the next couple of months, I suggest re-nominating it for AfD. K.e.coffman (talk) 19:27, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to comment on that later today. At the very least, we need to make it clear in the DRV that, if OT is kept, that no consensus was formed to count Deseret News as an independent source, nor was consensus formed to create any SNGs. Coffman, if you want to nominate for deletion 3-4 months down the road, that's fine with me. p b p 19:31, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't mind, what is SNG? Is this "Special Notability Guidelines" such as WP:NMUSIC?

Yes, SNG = Special Notability Guideline. What I want to know is, What's "OT"? E Eng 04:54, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SNG. Octaviano Tenorio. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:56, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, of course. Octaviano Tenorio. I should have known. E Eng 05:07, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. It's strange that WP:SNG does not list WP:SOLDIER, which is where my interest is... Should it be listed there? K.e.coffman (talk) 05:00, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

K.e.coffman, no, as that is an essay. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:02, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Essay is not a guideline then? Interesting... As an aside, the OT article has not improved much while in AfD. If the trends continues, I do plan to re-nominate it in three months. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:00, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

K.e.coffman, essays are definitely not guidelines. Some are nearly universally accepted (e.g., WP:BRD), some are whackadoodle rants of one editor. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:09, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, how could WP:SOLDIER being an essay apply to the discussion I started at Notability (people) on Knight's Cross hoders? I perceive some similarities between LDS proponents and WWII Wehrmacht aficionados: anything less than 100% reverent attitude and iconography is dismissed as "diehard anti-Nazims", used pejoratively, or "victor's justice". K.e.coffman (talk) 05:22, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds just like JPL and other people at the Tenorio AfD who hinted around the edges that you either supported keeping the article or you were a bigot. p b p 17:31, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Purplebackpack89: Yes, exactly. The allusions to "victor's justice" and "the risk of creating a serious systemic bias against WWII German military biographies" are especially telling. (I did use the term "keepism" in the discussion, so thanks for that.)

"Systemic bias" my behind -- if anything there's systemic bias in having over 3000 articles on the German KC holders, much of which looks like memorials, complete with all the badges, promotions and mentions in OKW press releases they have ever received, rendered in an iconographic fashion. And then the MilHist coordinators come out and accuse me of "campaigning" and interrupting their supposedly important work of commemorating Nazi Germany's war heroes with my allegedly "hard line anti-Nazi" attitude. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:14, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking of opening a formal RFC on this topic. Questions:

Should Wikipedia create a notability guideline stating, "If a major religion considers a person notable there is a prima facie presumption of notability."?
If no, can reliable sources wholly owned by the religious organization be used as the primary evidence for notability?

Thoughts? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:14, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@NeilN: Drive by comment: the statement "major religion considers a person notable" is a bit vague and phylosophical -- how would one know if a religion "considers" someone notable? The second question is good -- perhaps just limit the RfC to that? Such as "Can reliable sources wholly owned by the religious organization be used as the primary evidence for notability?" K.e.coffman (talk) 20:18, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

K.e.coffman, the problem is that we have admins actually using the first statement as a hand-wave against having to actually meet WP:BIO. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:25, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@NeilN: I think that both questions need to be asked, tho ideally in separate discussions. The phrasing might use a little tweaking (and some subsidiary questions, such as whether and how to assess evidence of editorial control), but you have usefully identified the two core issues.

The problem I see is that at the moment, there seems to be a near free hand for the POV-pushers simply respond with a stream of ABF and outright personal attacks. I am beginning to wonder if any of this can be usefully addressed any further without some sort of conduct control to stop the discussion descending into yet another round of evidence and reasoning being drowned out in a stream allegations of bigotry (subtle and overt ).
Not sure about that, but I do wonder :( --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:38, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would welcome other editors' input on phrasing. Re: allegations of bigotry - don't forget my favorite - hidden. We don't know we're bigots when we try to apply policies and guidelines but others can tell. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:45, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's bad enough citing policies and guidelines. But AFAICs the clincher for the POV-pushers is when ppl start citing evidence from RSs. That seems to be taken as the first step of a pogrom. (My ancestors have been religiously persecuted out of more places than I care to count; some even had to travel to another country every Sunday to go to church. For some reason none of them recorded evidence of journalistic COIs as a decisive factor in fleeing).

Was just thinking of throwing out ideas on phrasing, and then I recalled Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Leaders_in_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_and_other_religious_organizations. I'm not sure what the procedural issues are around a formal RFC on a topic where there is still a live discussion. Should it be allowed to run? Or should an RFC open soon to ensure that the discussion takes place in a way that can be said to represent a community-wide consensus? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:04, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. I believe that the discussion should run its course. If it closes without a clear consensus, then an RfC along the same lines may be appropriate. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:12, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think the RFC should be opened soon. I've seen this done, triggered when a formal outcome and wider input for a discussion is desired from an informal discussion. Otherwise the current discussion runs the risk of being dismissed as "not properly advertised". --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:19, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You have persuaded me on the timing, NeilN.

What do you think of my idea of 2 separate discussions? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:50, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If the discussions are separated, there's less context. Questions could quite validly arise as to why there's an RFC on a religion org's sources when our main notability guideline says sources need to be independent. If separate questions are desired then perhaps a more general question needs to be asked. Something like, "Can reliable sources wholly owned by an organization be used as the primary evidence for notability for employees of that organization?" --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:59, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note I've changed "members" to "employees". This gets rid of the red herring objections about scholarly journals reporting on the activities of academics who might be members of that professional organization. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 22:05, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) @NeilN:: I like the the more general question. It helps to focus minds on the core principles at work here, and hopefully avoid (or lessen) the tendency for some editors to work backwards from their views on the inclusion of a particular topic. How about phrasing it in a less binary way, to allow from grey areas? I also suggesting avoiding the word "primary", which may cause confusion with the concept of primary sources.

How about: "In what circumstances (if any) can reliable sources wholly owned by an organization be used as the main evidence for notability for officers, employees or members of that organization?" --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:16, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good but I expect that'll get a lot of "academic society journals, duh" answers. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 22:19, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it good to have a bit of that? Because the key feature of academic journals is the existence of structures to ensure editorial independence, such as peer review. ("Yes, boss, I know that the chair of the Institute is a huge fan of non-parallel-hyperzormogrification, but the peer reviewers say the article is abysmal, so it's binned"). The absence of peer review is what gives proprietors a free hand, so the contrast is a helpful one to make.

For me, one of the most notable things about the recent discussions was the starkly binary approach followed by so many editors, in which so many editors seemed to see no space in between "good source" and "bad source". There was a reluctance to consider how a publication might be neutral in some ways but not in others. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:46, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're right. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:31, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The accusations of bias really do work for diverting attention away from the core issues. For example, Amway has greater than 200,000 sales reps and, going by their $9.5 billion in revenue, >10 million customers. Are we going to have articles on their top salespeople based on Amway publications? Yet if I compare Amway to the LDS Church, what are the odds I'm going to get accused of bigotry? Editors should realize that unless there's a guideline specifying otherwise, an organization is an organization is an organization. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:30, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We need to get a consensus that ours is the proper position. I've posted on the existing discussion you've mentioned above, but if there are future ones, let me know. p b p 01:39, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- Well... I know I have an opinion on the issue (as I've made clear) but if the community sees fit to create a new SNG, I'll accept that as well. Postings derived from feelings of "righteousness" tend to be overwrought and discounted. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:55, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gail Cobb

Dear Brown haired girl. I am not tech-savvy so I don't know how all this stuff works so if you could contact my G-mail I would like to discuss your recent editing of the GAIL COBB Wikipedia page 9 days ago. I'm looking for a collaborator on a possible movie project about the life of Gail Cobb. Thank you. Michaelewilliams615@gmail.com. 2600:1004:B156:D138:0:8:5B14:4001 (talk) 02:59, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but I am not interested.

My involvement with that article consists of revrting[13] one edit[14] made as part of a series by another editor.

I have not read the article, let alone made any significant contribution to it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:33, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A gift for you

Whack!

You've been whacked with a wet trout.

Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

For writing 'As seems to be the norm with nominations by WilliamJE, the merger as proposed would have removed the content from one of the crucial parent category trees. Please try to avoid this with future CFD nominations. I didn't make that nomination, another editor did.[15] Secondly if I forget to say merge into some other category, it is a good faith mistake. Not some attempt to screw up the categorizing system. Assume good faith....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 14:06, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@WilliamJE: sorry for misattributing that one. I will correct it.

I did not state or imply any bad faith ... but it really is a persistent problem with your nominations, not just just an occasional oversight. You aren't the only nom making this mistake, and I am now noting it with every close. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:10, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a category name for you

I have created two 'Clergy from' categories. One for Philadelphia and the other for St. Louis. Even though I haven't gone through every 'People from' categorized articles for those cities, each new category has at least 30 entries.

The thing is, is 'Clergy' the best name for these categories? There are other 'Clergy from Foo' categories. What I am pointing out, is some religious people like nuns don't qualify as clergy. Should the category be Religious people then? I see a drawback to that name. Some editor in good faith categorizing a notable person in that category because they have strong religious faith though that isn't why they are notable. Any thoughts? This would probably need broader discussion than you and I but I am not sure where to start it....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 14:33, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@WilliamJE: You should follow the names of the parent categories.

If there is hierarchy of categories which includes nuns and is diffused down to the city level, then use that. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:33, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

'Clergy from' categories existed (though there aren't many on the city level. New York City, Portland, Barcelona, and a few others). I swore I saw a religious people category or something similarly named but can't locate it at the moment. I'm working on Philadephia, and so far I have found 1 nun. Definitely not enough for its own category but I have close to 2,000 more people articles to rumage through. I've created Clergy, Military personnel, Diplomats, Physicians, Photographers, Television personalities, and Mathematicians from Philadelphia. These are not common (but not unique) occupation catgories, but at the moment all are filling up. With the fewest (Diplomats) having just nine articles in it and another with 81 (Military personnel). — Preceding unsigned comment added by WilliamJE (talk • contribs) 18:41, 26 July 2016‎

@WilliamJE: Please be aware of WP:OCLOCATION. Diplomats from a city is a classic irrelevant intersection; it would also be hard to justify the mathematicains. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:03, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Galaxies discovered in 2015

BrownHairedGirl Thank you for deleting my category, I will definitely use the {{db-creator}} in the future. D Eaketts (talk) 07:32, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

Cats

H BHG. I've pinged you in the anticipation that you will chime in here. I've done what I can at a request from a user, but I don't know enough about cats to get further involved. Cheers, --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:10, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kudpung

I have just posted[16] a lengthy reply at User talk:Earflaps#Categories. I hope it helps all involved. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:28, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for tat - it must have taken you some time. The problem is that where he demands utmost courtesy from everyone else, he doesn’t hesitate to be rude and to personalise his edit summaries. Under normal circumstances I would have taken the opportunity to point this out to him, but there’s no sense in poking the bear. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:04, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. Thanks, Kudpung.

I see that Earflaps replied to the comments[17], then proceeded to populate the categories further[18], before adding another reply[19] and then archiving the discussion.[20]

The nature of the two replies is not encouraging. The first reply[21] talks of modifying the categories to reflect the discussion, but the discussion has not been closed, so consensus (if any) has not been weighed. The comment that they will continue to add more country trees if I see the need, unless the community decides the tree needs to go is not encouraging: it amounts to "plough on until there is a consensus to stop me". That approach rarely ends well.

Let's see how the CFD closes, when it eventually closes. But since Earflaps attitude is to plough on until there is a consensus against, I don't see this ending well. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:34, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Me too. I'm trying to save him from ending up at ANI where he would be shown no mercy at all. I have drafted a reply to him, but I often draft messages that go no further than my hard disk. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:43, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As I noted on user talk, zie is driving through amber lights. That would not yet get them into much trouble at ANI, but it's an approach which piles up trouble for later. However, if it does hit a crunch point, then the unwillingness to seek consensus will turn this from a content issue into a conduct issue.

This a perennial problem. There are many editors who do not seem comfortable with consensus-forming processes, but most of them survive fine by backing off or changing course when issues arise. But there are usually a few who plough on until stopped. I just hope that Earflaps doesn't end up with a big crash, but I don't see any way of getting a dialogue going. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:57, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for July 30

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Don Halliday, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Scottish. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 11:06, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed[22]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:17, 30 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reference errors on 31 July

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

On the Tom Ansberry page, your edit caused a URL error (help). (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:25, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed[23]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:33, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi

Hello, I'm new to this wiki and I wanna get to pages that have grammar / spelling mistakes in them, but how do find them easily?

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darren4Turbo (talk • contribs) 21:01, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cat-a-lot

Hi. On articles like Tyler Mislawchuk, you've added the country/gender category, but left the main gender category on the article. Is there a reason for this? There's probably a few hundred articles like this now. Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 08:41, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Lugnuts, well-spotted. At this point, there may even be a few thousand like that. This is a transient issue, because I have found that it's the most efficient way to structure my workflow.

For example, if an article on a man is currently in Category:Norwegian sprinters, it may also have been in Category:Male sprinters and in Category:Norwegian male athletes/Category:Norwegian sportsmen. Moving it solely from Category:Norwegian sprinters to Category:Norwegian sprinters leaves it in those now superfluous categories.

My reason for doing it this way is that I have found that it is way fastest to use cat-a-lot to split a category, and then use AWB afterwards to tidy up the now redundant categories. (AWB can easily identify the redundancies, but it's a very clumsy way of deciding which gender attribute to apply).

I have done AWB-cleanup this for the Americans, and as I complete the other nationalities I will do it for them. I hope that later today, I can do those AWB runs for the Polish, Norwegian, British, English and German sets. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:02, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A kitten for you! - rugby cats

Hi BrownHairedGirl, while watching the rio olympic women's rugby 7s games (aren't we all:))), had a look at some of the team member wikipages. i see that women rugby union players (and women 7s players) are in female cats ie.Ellia Green , is this appropriate? ... just wondering.

Coolabahapple (talk) 14:58, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Coolabahapple , I took a peek at Ellia Green. Looks good to me. What did you think might be the problem? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:06, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

sorry about that, i'm not concerned about the article per se, just that i noticed that she and other women rugby players are categorised as female rugby players. Coolabahapple (talk) 16:13, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thanks for clarifying that, Coolabahapple.
Sadly "female" seems to be the convention in sports categs. I think it's wrong, because most of the sports use "women"; a few use "ladies", but AFAIK none use "female".
However, the corollary of "men fooers" seems to stick in some throats, so I reckon it will take an RFC to change it from male/female to men/women. Meantime, I have created hundreds of male/female sports categs :( --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:27, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ok, thanks for that. Coolabahapple (talk) 16:43, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mammals CFD closure

Hi BHG, please could you check the closure of Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2016_July_23#Category:Mammals_of_Algeria as one of the categories hasn't been deleted. DexDor^(talk) 05:14, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, DexDor, for spotting that and for notifying me.

I checked back on my edits at closing time, and I see that I clumsily omitted the last of 5 categories from my entry at CFD/W[24]. I how now listed the straggler (Category:Mammals of Western Sahara) at CFD/W[25]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:38, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict

Sorry about that. I didn't notice the conflict. Joe Roe (talk) 13:10, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's OK, Joe Roe.

All now fixed! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:16, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Help with info on irena szewinska

Hello I was looking at irena szewinskas wiki page and saw that you had edited the page. She is my great aunt and I've been trying to contact her for years, i know it's a long shot but I wanted to see if you had any information on her? Or a way that I can come in contact with her — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:7533:6600:444A:E132:3EFD:317A (talk) 05:47, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Barton

I am a nephew of Eleanor Barton. Are you aware of the book Feminism and the Politics of the Working woman by Gill Scott? I think that is the title and Jerome Caminada Twenty-five years etc the 1895 . Edition. Regards David Stockton sunlight2419@outlook.com. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.28.75.97 (talk) 22:16, 14 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bot Request for CfD

Hello BrownHairedGirl/Archive, a discussion regarding a new bot task related to WP:CFD is open at: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SSTbot 2. I thought you may have some insight that could help the discussion. If you are interested, please stop by and comment. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 23:52, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Walled garden

Please read my comment about the walled garden, an image I took literally, explaining that it has a bell to enter: an article's talk. Please cite "clique" or reword it, - to may observation there are many editors active around Bach's music who work independently. I see no need to place the whole set of articles (hundreds of them) under restrictions. Who would monitor that? If Francis would adhere to simple 1RR, as I'd expect from any editor, all would be fine. I could give you more examples of the past where that was missing but don't want to bloat ANI. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:24, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, Gerda Arendt, but I am not going to change my comment.

My experience of classical music articles in general is that they are zealously guarded by a set of cliques, i.e. groups of editors who resent incomers and try to squeeze out those who don't conform to their existing consensus. That's not how en.wp is supposed to work.

I did of course read your defence of the walled garden before commenting on it. The notion that an articles or set of articles has a bell to enter is wholly contrary to the general principle of en.wp as the encyclopedia which anyone can edit. The only point of such a bell at the gate in a wall is so that other editors can seek permission to enter, and that this permission can be refused. From whom are they seeking permission, other than a clique who claim WP:OWNership?

As to who would patrol 1RR, the answer is simply the community, as applies whenever 1RR is imposed on any topic. That's how it is monitored in all the contentious areas where arbcom has imposed 1RR on a topic.

If you would expect any editor to uphold 1RR, then why do you seek to apply it to only one editor in this case? If all the other editors uphold it anyway, then a 1RR rule would not restrict them in any way. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:46, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be interested where you met that very general clique behaviour, because I work in classical music since 2009 and have not met it. I know only one editor who moves a featured article without a move request and when reverted still doesn't seek the consensus of the community but creates 25k bytes of talk page discussion, which is not how I want to spend my volonteered time. - I am on voluntary 1RR myself, just for politeness. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:06, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So, if you are on voluntary 1RR, what would be the problem with compulsory 1RR? Why exactly do you oppose it? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:30, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

English is not my first language. I wonder why you understood my "comment" as an "oppose". If I oppose something it's thinking of editors of classical music as a clique, - maybe I don't understand that word either. In German, it has negative connotations which are not justified for the editors of classical music with whom I work well. Back to my question above which you didn't answer. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:14, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Trying harder. You say: "My experience of classical music articles in general is that they are zealously guarded by a set of cliques, i.e. groups of editors who resent incomers and try to squeeze out those who don't conform to their existing consensus." You speak of experience, please give one example, because I have no idea what makes you think so. - If you catch me resenting an "incomer", ever, please tell me and I will go and try to amend the situation. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:53, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My two reverts: the first delinking a link to a redirect to an article that was linked before. The second: restoring to bold a redirect (didn't even see the link was back). Call that bad behaviour if you have to. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:09, 4 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, c'mon Gerda Arendt. You have been editing long enough to know to use "show changes" to check the effect of an edit. If you are reverting, it's important to check what you are reverting.
In that case, you didn't spot all the effects of your edit, and I'm sure it was a good faith mistake ... but if you want other editors held to the 1RR standard, why not you too? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:31, 4 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am rather long on Wikipedia, and had only one 3RR edit war on my talk. I never said I don't want to be held to 1RR, although I prefer to do things voluntarily, - as I'd hope from others. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:17, 4 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, everyone would prefer to do 1RR voluntarily. All I am saying is that if it is going to be imposed, it should be imposed on everyone editing those articles. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:40, 4 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Would you kindly show me one instance of edit-warring where Francis is not involved? (And don't tell me removing a duplicate link, even twice, is edit warring, - it's just applying the MoS). - My new year's greeting was: The peace bell by Yunshui: let's make 2016 the year of the reader and of peace! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:02, 5 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "one instance of edit-warring where Francis is not involved" – sure: Gerda edit-warring with Dgljr5121973 (less than 30 minutes between the two reverts) 23:14, 23 April 2016 - 23:42, 23 April 2016

Context: Dgljr5121973 is the gardener of the "remote passions" walled garden I alluded to at ANI. This is what happens when two such gardeners meet on a piece of land they want to build their own wall around: edit war. IMVHO it is the walled garden concept that has to go from the Bach sacred music field, and all other solutions offered thus far will, as far as I can assess the situation, prove to be ineffective. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:02, 6 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

When I look at the Weimarer Passion history, I see me gardening, you (Francis) gardening, others gardening, without a wall. I think that is the best solution. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:56, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I hope BrownHairedGirl doesn't mind us trying to sort out some issues on her talk page, the dialogue may be refreshing.

Of the three "walled garden" gardeners (Gerda, Mathsci, Dgljr) Dgljr is the least problematic (Dgljr's cursory approach to WP:V is problematic, but that's not the topic here). Let's compare:

Moving (-8,560)‎ out of Dgljr's "remote passions" walled garden to another page → not problematic
Moving (-2,330)‎ out of Gerda's "church cantata" walled garden to another page → huge problem
Moving (-1,095)‎ out of Mathsci's "organ preludes" walled garden to another page → huge problem

Of these Gerda knew me best: not recognising me for what I do is not problematic for me as such, but it gave a sad spectacle at ANI. Gardening without walls (like I do) is imho better for the encyclopedia. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:09, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We seem to agree more than you may realize, - I said "without a wall" just above. Moving content from a cantata was no "huge problem" (when there's an explanation and/or link to the missing context), - moving the whole article without discussion was. I suggest to continue on articles' talk instead of here, as already begun. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:23, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I try to avoid talking about behavior on article talk pages. Gerda going defensive in her walled gardens is a behavioral issue. WP:OWN was mentioned above by BHG, before I entered the conversation. All of it was dismissed by Gerda, with statements that on closer inspection were a bit flawed. What I tried to say with my examples above: Gerda, please, stop building walls around gardens, with you deciding who may enter. Your edit war with Dgljr (diffs above) sprang from Dgljr forcing an entry into one of your walled gardens; my editing Weimarer Passion (-8,560, see above) was not problematic while it was not your walled garden to begin with. My moving the BWV 4 article to an article title more in line with applicable policy would never have been problematic if you hadn't gone to defensive with forumshopping/canvassing and whatnot. Gerda, are you prepared to behave on Bach's church cantata articles less as if they are a garden where you are responsible for the walls? I assume that is a yes, while you say that "without a wall" is what you prefer. If that's something learned through the ANI episode I'm more than fine. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:45, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Update on "My moving the BWV 4 article to an article title more in line with applicable policy would never have been problematic if you hadn't gone to defensive with forumshopping/canvassing and whatnot": the behaviour continues, " ... just stop arguing, better go outside ..." is the hardly veiled recommendation given on the user talk page of someone who had commented for the first time on the article's talk page a few hours earlier, disagreeing with Gerda on the article title. @Gerda Arendt: please remember what you said regarding "without a wall". Your behaviour shows otherwise.

Further, "...what we - the editors of classical music - then did was: follow the NBA..." sounds kind of arrogant in my ears: speak for yourself will you. Afaik Wikipedia article titles rather follow BWV than NBA. "we - the editors of classical music" is of course also all wrong from the walled garden perspective. --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:10, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaning up one of Gerda's walled gardens (see elaborate discussion here, especially near the end "I, however, created an article with a short name (Ferruccio Busoni works) ..." ... a thinly veiled attempt to defend "her" version of the redirect with an ownership logic): [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34] and [35]. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:23, 2 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A birthday today --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:06, 3 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

True, I still forgot to mention the kafkaesque walled garden. Defending a canvass operation by indicating you were canvassing to a friend ([36]) makes it only worse from the viewpoint of the WP:CANVASS guidance (later I learnt "friend" was probably rather used ironically in the context, [37], but that doesn't diminish the inopportune defense of the canvass operation). @Gerda Arendt: please familiarize yourself with the WP:CANVASS guidance, and live up to it. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:44, 3 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Francis (apologies to you, BrownHairedGirl, for abusing your talk), you quote a discussion but didn't quote what seems most important to me: If we would grant each other the presumption that we are acting in good faith ..., just imagine ..., right, Bgwhite? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:53, 3 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

? Are you accusing me of not assuming good faith in any way? Maybe look at it this way: I wouldn't take the time, extensively and repeatedly, to explain to you what goes wrong, rephrasing policy, providing links to it, etc... if I weren't assuming good faith. Whatever I write on talk pages, I always think: we'll collaborate again on this project, so take the time to explain things properly. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:40, 3 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The concept of a walled garden is not assuming good faith, - I introduced it with irony, sorry, my mistake. I accuse nobody (show me where I accused someone, and will think about it and probably apologize), - to think I'm accusing you is also not assuming good faith. Things go wrong, yes, I agree, but could we focus on the things that went wrong? Please explain why you'd think that the article Ferruccion Busoni works (as it was) was no service to readers and had to go, or be changed? Why would you ever want to link with a full lengthy title such as "List of compositions by Ferruccio Busoni", - all these many characters, many times? Those are the things I don't understand. What you wrote above about my assumed irony amused me. BrownHairedGirl, would you be willing to (informally) mediate? I don't feel understood, and I am sure, Francis, I might understand you better. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:41, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gerda Arendt I think you pinged the wrong person as the quote is from B's talk page. My mom has always called me just B, but most people use "BG" along with some choice swear words. Interestingly, my wife affectionally calls me her Spanish: puta. Bgwhite (talk) 06:43, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I pinged you because our friendship was a topic above, "later I learnt "friend" was probably rather used ironically in the context", - no it wasn't ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:28, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Busoni

For hopefully better understanding, I start by explaining my point of view, example Busoni. When I realized that Busoni's 150 anniversary of birth came up, I thought about how to celebrate it and discussed that with the main editor of the biography, Smerus. I gave Busoni a navbox, {{Ferruccio Busoni}}. I looked at the related lists, including compositions and adaptions. I moved them to standard titles and cleaned up after the moves. I found the lists long, loaded with details, full of duplicate links, other links missing. I thought that an interface of selected works (works with an article, or works mentioned in the biography) would be a good idea, discussed with Smerus again, and created it. - Nobody disagreed, only you, Francis. Please let me understand. - I think that even when improved in quality, the long lists are not good for the average reader. What do you (all) think? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:38, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

...which illustrates some behavioral issues...

The content issue (Busoni works pages and redirects) is still discussed elsewhere. That discussion is still open. It is not a good idea to set up a concurrent forum (on that same content issue) on a user talk page: it may be perceived as forumshopping, especially when, once again, it is a one-sided (and hence tendentious) summary of what is already being discussed elsewhere.
AFAICS the topic in this user talk page thread is a behavioral one: WP:OWNerish conduct w.r.t. walled gardens, for which I supplied more examples above. Please don't try to change the subject, it only further underlines what should rather be avoided (trying to win a content dispute by inviting selected "friends" on concurrent user talk page discussions - which should better be avoided per WP:CANVASS). --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:03, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Did you know nominations/Ferruccio Busoni is my last word here. Thanks for your patience, BrownHairedGirl! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:54, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

More:

Keeping the walls high: [38]
Refusal to familiarise themselves with WP:CANVASS: [39]

Both of these are stale diffs as I don't want to draw discussions here when they are still active elsewhere. On the whole I see little progress w.r.t. the walled garden issue. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:00, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ownership-related doublespeak

Diff:

"it's not "my" template" – seems to acknowledge the guidance at WP:OWN, however:
"I inherited it" – inheriting something is claiming current ownership
"leave it alone" – telling others to leave it alone is ownership (and walled garden) logic.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 12:10, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That diff is very much WP:OWNership speak. Gerda Arendt, we have a problem here. I do hope that you will revise your approach. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:15, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if my English is not good enough. When I put something in quotation marks, it means a degree of irony or distance. I had almost no time when I wrote that. I apologize if I expressed inadequately that I feel that a template that has been (more or less) constant for years, and is thus something the readers got used to, should not be changed without a good reason. I also believe it should not be changed without consultation with project classical music. To install a template instead of the traditional one, a new template which is at TfD, is no good reason, imho. I would not mind to have it in addition. Please note that I said "best leave it alone", not "leave it alone", meaning that at least I have more than enough to do without another problem zone created by undiscussed changes to a multitude of articles, or "if it ain't broken don't fix it". Francis: please restore {{Bach cantatas}} to the cantatas where you removed it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:24, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "install a template instead of the traditional one" (which is a diff of the article O holder Tag, erwünschte Zeit, BWV 210): we know you don't want to relinquish ownership of that article to the editing community. That was already discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music#Bach's secular cantatas: navbox and category (your words regarding the BWV 210 article "... one for which I feel responsible", which is just a nicer way of saying you claim ownership of the article, see my reply in that discussion)

So the question here is, regarding the diff that is experienced as problematic in the ownership speak area: slip of the tongue or inadvertently showing true colors? Since you didn't ammend nor remove that edit, the problem persists. My perception of the problem has changed through your response above. When you have time enough, you use the nicer phrases (articles "for which" you feel "responsible" and the like), when under time pressure (as you admit above), the true colors appear ("I inherited" the template, "... leave it alone ..."). Previously I thought the problem was difficulty with the English language (your "English" being "not good enough", and similar excuses for not grasping the essence of guidance such as WP:OWN). Above you admit you "expressed" yourself "inadequately" at the template talk page. Yet you don't update your wording there to more adequate expressions. Starts to look more and more like WP:GAMING to me: you know and understand what is wrong, yet you choose to refuse, deliberately, to "revise your approach". --Francis Schonken (talk) 02:55, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I love Bach's music, and I have a talk page. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:33, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

An other CfR discussion for US city categories

There's a new Categories for Renaming discussion going on about categories of US cities listed in the AP Stylebook. As you have participated in at least one of the more recent discussions in the subject, you may want to participate in the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 August 17#Seattle. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:33, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Implied single-sex categories not named as such

Are all potential members of Category:Senegalese hammer throwers going to be female? Similarly, are all potential members of Category:Nigerien middle-distance runners and Category:Cook Island middle-distance runners going to be male? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:30, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also, why were those three categories placed inside themselves? Do I need to check your other category creations? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:38, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Redrose64. Good catch.

I have fixed those three you listed above, for which I had mistakenly used my male-category templates in ungendered categories. As you may have noticed, I have created many hundreds of such categories over the last two weeks, and I can't guarantee that it is all error-free -- tho I am annoyed with myself that as many as three errors had gone undetected. I have done quite a lot of self-checking, but another eye to look ever it all would be very welcome. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:51, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Change to WP:DATERANGE

Hi; I just thought you might be interested in the outcome of this discussion, where it was decided to change WP:DATERANGE to ####–#### as the default, rather than the old ####–##. I thought you might be interested because I remember we had discussed this before, I think in relations to the UK MP by parliament (year range) categories and other parliamentarian by date range categories. I suppose they could be justifiably changed back now. But whew!—what a lot of work for small changes. Talk about housekeeping!

Or, we could decide to keep the ####–## format as is as an extension of the exception in DATERANGE where it suggests that the ####–## style can be used "in infoboxes and tables where space is at a premium." I'm not sure if we would say that space is at a premium in categories—I could see both sides of that debate—but maybe we should have category-focussed discussion on how to go forward with this issue? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:16, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the headsup, Good Ol’factory ... but oh, lordy.

Do you know the old Scottish prayer:

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

To that list, I would add ping-ponging style guides. I wasn't very keen on the change to ####–##, but accepted the consensus and ran with it ... and now, when it has been widely implemented, it is deprecated. I agree with most of the arguments for the change, but, as you rightly say, what a lot of work for small changes.

Personally, I wouldn't mind much either way whether categories are changed to fit the new convention. But you are probably right that the UK MP by parliament categs are a critical test-case, and we need a categ-focused discussion. I suggest an early RFC, to achieve the broadest consensus before categories start being nominated piecemeal. What do you think?--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:15, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, probably a good idea to have some sort of RFC from a category perspective to see where we want to come down. Either way, there will be work to do, because truth be told, there are a bunch of categories that still use the ####–#### format and were never changed over – I'm thinking of the aircraft by decade ones. (I can see the benefit of having condensed names in categories, but I would probably be in favour of just following the general guideline rather than instituting categories as an exception. Otherwise we will get into all sorts of situations where an article title uses the "full" date range and a corresponding category with the same name could use the "condensed" date range. Anyway, I always find more satisfaction in implementing a guideline than in deciding what it should be, so I'm very open to what others think on the matter.) Unfortunately, I'm not going to have much WP time in the next few days, starting tomorrow, otherwise I might get this ball rolling. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:33, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, howsabout I start the RFC? I'm happy to wait for you to do it if you prefer, but I think there's a case for a quick start.

I think it's fairly simple question. Basically 3 options: require/forbid/permit, and any possible exceptions. How does that sound?

I agree with your point about the merits of following article-space logic. I'm not sure how often that the situation would arise of YYYY-YYYY category having an eponymous article, but it is bound to arise sometimes, and a clash of naming policies would be a real energy-sink for everyone involved. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

It's OK with me if you start the RFC; those options sound good. I'll have time to pop in and comment at some stage. I noticed a category with a date span having an eponymous article at WP:CFDS: Category:War in Afghanistan (2001–14) vs. War in Afghanistan (2001–2014). It was this nomination that got me thinking about the issue. There are also a few "history of" categories that I know of with the same issue, and also a few categories for defunct states/territories. Thanks! Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 05:05, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation link notification for August 20

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Dharambir Singh, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Sprinter. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 10:09, 20 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Peerage of the United Kingdom has been nominated for discussion

Category:Peerage of the United Kingdom, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides 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. Alekksandr (talk) 19:33, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Olympic alpine skiers of Colombia has been nominated for discussion

Category:Olympic alpine skiers of Colombia, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides 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. Regards, James (^talk/_contribs) 14:05, 28 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]