User talk:BrownHairedGirl/Archive/Archive 037

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Broken WikiProject templates

Where do you get the names of WikiProject templates from? Do you have a list that is out of date, or do you just guess? I ask because I fixed up ten redlinks today, all of which had been added by you, and which could have been avoided. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:25, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Redrose64

I don't really like the tone of your comment and edit summaries, and hope that you will reconsider it.

I had created a batch of about 190 sub-cats of Category:Runners by nationality, and could have left it at that. But I thought that when I had created a large set it would be nice to add WikiProject banners ... and that since they were a) all similar and b) all currently blank, then I could so using an AWB job. I assumed that all the countries had WikiProject banners of the std form "WikiProject Countryname", and created a custom AWB module to create the set of banners.

The project banners are an add-on, not a critical item, so I only reviewed a few test cases, then I just saved without preview and moved on to the next item. For a non-content item like project banners, I was not prepared to triple the the time the job took by previewing them, and if preview is to be regarded as compulsory for a non-critical non-content job like that, then I simply would not have done the job at all. It would have been much much easier for me to just leave all 190 talk pages with no banners than to get snippy comments about ten glitches out of 190, i.e. a 5% failure rate.

Thank you for taking the time to identify and fix the redlinks. However, the solution you adopted was sub-optimal. Rather than fixing each individual case, it would have been much more useful for you to create redirects, so that in future anyone adding a "WikiProject Countryname" banner to those small nations and territories could do so without having to burrow around trying to find out what the relevant banner was in each case.

I have just created Template:WikiProject Saint Lucia as one such shortcut, and will now create the rest ... so that other editors who are kind enough to take the time to add WikiProject banners to pages they have created can do so without risking a caustic commentary and edit summaries. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:03, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, it's done. Here's a load of new template redirects and pass-throughs for the missing WikiProject banners.

Next time you find a bunch of redlinked project banners, then for those which are nor typos it will probably be more productive for you to create the redirects, or in most cases pass-throughs such as I have done with {{WikiProject Pitcairn Islands}} and {{WikiProject East Germany}}. That way any future uses of such banners won't need manual intervention. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:18, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I hope neither of you will mind me commenting here (about banners on article talk pages, not category talk pages), as I frequently come across biography articles that lack {{WikiProject Biography}}. There used to be regular bot runs to catch those articles, but I don't think that gets done any more. There is a Wikipedia:Database reports for untagged BLPs, but not sure if that is working any more either. Would either of you be interested in helping with that. Ideally, I should learn how to run the required query myself - it can't be that hard, can it? Carcharoth (talk) 08:29, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That list is easy enough to generate in AWB; install the NoLimits plugin (to allow it to handle large categories); import the list of all biographies (or whichever subsection you're interested in) using "Category (recursive)"; select "convert to talk pages"; select "skip if page contains" and the name of the template; check the "pre-parse mode" option; leave it running overnight. In the morning you'll have a list of every entry in the category whose talkpage doesn't contain the template in question. It's not the most elegant or server-efficient way to run the query, but it has the advantage that it's understandable to non-coders, and you can watch it doing the checks in real-time so can spot if it's doing something wrong. ‑ Iridescent 08:50, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to both of you for your comments.

Yes, Carcharoth is right: far too many pages lack the relevant project tags. And Iridescent is right that there is a fairly straightforward technique for doing this in AWB. However, that AWB approach still requires some poor human to sit there whacking the save button, and having tried a bit of that I find that it's probably worse than using an unattended bot, because my eyes start to glaze over after more a few hundred pages, so in practice I cease to spot any needed fixes.

This sort of job is really best done by a bot.

However, these days I have some doubts about the importance of the project banners. AFAICS, most WikiProjects are dusty halls of tumbleweed, where apart from notifications there are only a few posts per year. The exceptions such as WP:MILHIST are a rare islands of activity in the sea of abandonment. I have largely given up even notifying WikiProjects of CFD discussions, because in most cases the response rate is near-zero ... and while the banners do allow the bots to generate the automated alerts, those are largely ignored too. The whole WikiProject edifice was built for an editing community which existed in 2007, but is now much reduced in size and much less inclined to use the WikiProjects.

Which is why I was a bit cheesed off to find that having given up an hour of my time to add these marginally-useful banners, I got rebuked for the fact that some links which should have been blue turned out to be red. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:11, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I must confess that I only really add WPBiography tags to ensure that the numbers listed at the statistics page of that WikiProject give a vague approximation of the number of biographical articles (currently approaching 1.4 million - I know there are other ways of getting a rough idea). Wikidata may actually help give a better idea of that now, as well as finally answering the question of how many articles are about women and how many about men. The next thing would be to track accurately how the article count changed over time. I must also confess that I've never got round to working out how to use AWB (I suspect I would get sucked into doing lots of things I shouldn't really have time for). It is either that, or hurry up and use Mix 'n Match before there is nothing left to help out with... Carcharoth (talk) 09:35, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The trouble is, it's often not something that can be left to a bot. AnomieBOT will tag all the articles in given categories with a given WikiProject banner if asked, but you still manually need to go through everything it tags and clean up a shedload of false-positives; as a concrete example, as far as Wikipedia is concerned Pat Butcher is categorised under Continental philosophy.* I did it for the London articles a few years ago to get an idea of the size of the three London projects, and was losing the will to live by the end (you can still see the huge spike in talk-page contributions in my edit history when I was doing it). ‑ Iridescent 17:15, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
*Fictional prostitutes‎ → Fictional sex workers → Fictional service occupations‎ → Media portrayals of the working class‎ → Working class culture‎ → Working class‎ → Marxism → Continental philosophy, if you want the category tree; you can get an equally goofy result with virtually any article you choose at random.

Surely that is not a problem in a well-defined case? Here, you would only need to examine Category:Deaths by year (and all the subcats presuming the structure hasn't been messed up, possibly omitting the seven non-date subcats) and then add the total in Category:Living people (currently 784,281). And find out which are missing the tags. Anyway, I just had a thought: is the number of articles on living people slowly increasing or not? Remember what I said about tracking changes over time (looking at the article creation dates is one way, but you have to retrospectively include those who died during the period under study, and maybe deleted BLPs as well). I think it is slowly increasing, but maybe not. Any ideas on whether the number of BLPs is plateauing, and what the 'stable' number would be? Some complicated formula involving the world's living population with a variable called 'notability'! Sweepstake on when the number of BLPs will hit one million? Carcharoth (talk) 17:36, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't as simple as that unfortunately, since people with long careers have their biographies split into multiple stand-alone articles covering various aspects of their lives, all of which qualify as biographies. Check out how many articles we have with titles beginning Early life of…, Personal life of…, Political positions of…—for a heavy-duty bio like Michael Jackson or Adolf Hitler, the biography can easily constitute 10 or more separate articles. Plus, Category:Deaths by year is a bit mixed up, since it includes things like Category:Paul Williams (architect) and Category:Death of Osama bin Laden.

Where the number of BLPs will plateau is more of a who-blinks-first (or more accurately, who gets bored and gives up first) contest between the new page patrollers versus the "every grain of sand on the beach" types who think "death was mentioned in my local paper" automatically confers notability. (BHG will be well aware of exactly who I have in mind there.) One of the less edifying sights of recent weeks has been one arbcom member mass-creating stub biographies, while another member of the committee tags them for a lack of notability as they come in. ‑ Iridescent 19:19, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. Only one AfD? I'm disappointed. I do think the pendulum has swung too far towards promoting articles on women, rather than being objective. But it is difficult to know where to start. I commented on it here and here (did that all happen back in February and March, it was that long ago?). I still shake my head when looking at the article on Anita Kurmann. I guess we should take this somewhere else, as BHG might want her talk page back? :-) (PS. I am unlikely to use AWB as that involves downloading stuff - are there other options out there?) Carcharoth (talk) 20:04, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I refer you to your post of 20:51, 17 August 2016 (UTC) where you said "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."[reply]

There is a report, Wikipedia:Database reports/Broken WikiProject templates, updated weekly on Tuesday evenings (UTC), which I always work through within a few hours, fixing up the reported problems. Often these are typos - notice that in this week's report, there are two different incorrect spellings for both Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan. I always check the most recent edits to the talk page, in case of vandalism; but this is rare. Typos and vandalism apart, on the edits where the problem banners were added, the same names seem to come up frequently (five or six names in all), so it was a surprise to me to find the name BrownHairedGirl appearing this week - not once, but ten times, which indicated a potential problem, perhaps with a script. For the "regular" group of people, the two most common causes of these redlinks are (i) that the editor used a script that has an outdated list of WikiProject banner templates; or (ii) that they simply guessed. This is why I asked which of those two it was. Using AWB is not an excuse: WP:AWB#Rules of use no. 1 is "You are responsible for every edit made. Do not sacrifice quality for speed and make sure you understand the changes." When I add a WikiProject banner to a talk page, I make sure that it exists and that it recognises the parameters that I want to add with it. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:59, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64: I think you are seriously missing the point here. 3 of the redlinks were typos; many thanks for fixing those.

The rest were templates which should have existed, and which it was quite reasonable of me to assume would exist. Per WP:REDLINK, creating a redlink is not a problem if it is a page which should exist, as those ones should.

I make no apology for using AWB as I did. In other cases I would check more thoroughly (which is why I was annoyed with myself about the 3 errors in the hundreds of categories I created), but this particular task of adding the project banners was a non-critical bonus which I did not want to put too much time into. if I was required to preview every edit on that job, I simply would not have done the job, and I remain of the view that it was much better to do the job the way I did it than not to do it at all. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:38, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just had a peek at James Boyton. Looks good as a well-rounded, stub-start. I did a few tweaks[1], which I hope are OK. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:53, 28 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just on random perambulations, managed to find three pages without WikiProject tags: Edward Thomas John, Jocelyn Salter and Leionne Salter. There must be tons more out there... Carcharoth (talk) 22:28, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maurice Orbach

FYI, I have greatly expanded the Wikipedia entry for Maurice Orbach twice after you, the second time today. Do you have any family connections with him? (I do.) --Aboudaqn (talk) 16:53, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Aboudaqn

That's great work, expanding that article. I have no connection at all with Orbach, but I do find him interesting as part of that once-huge socialist-zionist tradition in the UK Labour Party. It's a tradition which is now almost extinct, and its only visible remnant is Gerald Kaufman ... but he was always more someone who came from that tradition, than someone who was of it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:13, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you; you are most kind. I was surprised to find only one newspaper obituary for him online (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), and none from major UK newspapers. I'm in the US, home of McCarthyism, but I thought a legal communist party in the UK, etc., would mean less censorship from the UK establishment... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aboudaqn (talk • contribs) 18:12, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge

Hi there. I've started a new initiative, the Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge. It's a long term goal to bring about 10,000 article improvements to the UK and Ireland. Through two contests involving just six or seven weeks of editing so far we've produced over 1500 improvements. Long term if we have more people chipping it and adding articles they've edited independently as well from all areas of the UK then reaching that target is all possible. I think it would be an amazing achievement to see 10,000 article improvements by editors chipping in. If you support this and think you might want to contribute towards this long term please sign up in the Contributors section. No obligations, just post work on anything you feel like whenever you want, though try to avoid basic stubs if possible as we're trying to reduce the overall stub count and improve general comprehension and quality. Thanks.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:49, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicated parameters?

Are you sure these parameters in WP Africa are needed?. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:12, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Magioladitis

I presume that rather than WP Africa you mean {{WikiProject Sri Lanka | sport=yes | sports=yes | sport-work-group=yes | sports-work-group=yes}}?

I have about 2500 category talk pages lined up for this AWB run (Category:Summer Olympics competitors by country and its subcats. I have been developed a custom AWB module to generate full set of WikiProject banners for the Olympics competitors categories, and started with this set. Then I will go on to the winter sports, and to that by-year categories.

In trying to figure out the variants, I found about a dozen WikiProject FooCountry}} templates which have some sort of "sport" parameter, but with several different formats; and I have no reason to belive that my set is exhaustive. So I considered spending a few hours trying to identify which country templates had a sport workgroup, and then building a table of precisely which parameter is used by which project. But then I realised that alternative was imply to throw all the parameters at each such template, knowing that they would be used if supported and otherwise ignored. Since that has no adverse effect on the display, it seemed like the best way to proceed.

The alternative is to not use any param for the sport workgroups, even if they exist. What do you think? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:49, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

{{WikiProject Sri Lanka}} does not recognise any of those four parameters. I wrote the documentation myself: and I carefully re-checked the template again today to be sure that it had not since been amended to add those params, or anything similar. As I stated at 19:59, 26 August 2016 (UTC), when I add a WikiProject banner to a talk page, I "make sure ... that it recognises the parameters that I want to add with it". --Redrose64 (talk) 22:22, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Redrose64 did you actually read what I wrote above? Because your comment shows no sign of having done so. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:13, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I did: and it reads as if you were guessing (yes, that word again) at what parameters a template might recognise. Throwing a few in, and hoping that one might stick, is not the best practice. It sets a bad example: others may copy you, and then we've got hundreds of talk pages with WikiProject banners having invalid parameters. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:50, 30 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64: No, I am not "guessing". Please read again.

When you do read it, what is your answer to the question I asked of Magioladitis?

Should I a) supply the set of params, in the hope that some cases will turn out to be valid and knowing that the others will cause no display or categorisation errors; or b) add all the by-country WikiProject banners without any sport parameter, even if one is available?

(And in case you suggest it, no I absolutely will not check all 220 by-country project banners to see which ones support this parameter, and nor will I preview all the edits). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:01, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

By refusing to check your own work, you will be in breach of WP:AWB#Rules of use, no. 1 "You are responsible for every edit made." By knowingly adding parameters that have no effect on the page - either its appearance or its categorisation - that also puts you in breach of no. 4 "Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits." So, the correct action would be to not add those parameters. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:42, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Redrose64: I really strongly urge you to read before posting and to check the edits you are discussing before commenting on them.

a) As you are well aware, there is no failure to check my own work, nor any attempt to shirk responsibility. I review each edit to ensure that it is syntactically correct.

b) Those parameters are added as part of a wider set of changes to complete the set of project banners for each page. They are not made on their own, so rule 4 does not apply.

Above all, I urge you reconsider your approach. I am doing a huge series of edits to add missing project banners to a set of over 5,000 categories, which is a significant improvement. I am very happy to discuss with other editors how to ensure that this is done without adverse effect, but that discussion requires some recognition of the fact that this sort of task needs to be done as a pattern-based process, both to ensure accuracy and to avoid adding the massive time overhead in previewing each page.

Sadly, this is the now the second recent occasion in which your response has to been to find fault, rather than to find solutions. In the previous discussion, my use of {{WikiProject FooCountry}} banners threw up half-a-dozen cases where such banners did not exist. In each case they were easily creatable as redirects or pass-throughs, but when you found a few exceptions your response was neither to create the missing redirects nor to draw my attention to the need to create them, but to start berating me for "errors".

And in this case, you are doing the same thing. I have been very open in my willingness to try to discuss the options which allows a pattern-based process of banner-adding to proceed, but you focus has persistently been on fault-finding rather than on solution-finding, and on demanding that I abandon the pattern-based approach which is needed for such a big job.

Your approach to me has come across as being like one of those authoritarian traffic cops whose incident videos becomes a youtube sensation as their rules-compliance officiousness escalates a minor matter into an opportunity to find as many faults as possible and to create a big drama. In both cases, you have given the strong appearance of being interested only in finding fault, rather than in finding an effective solution which allows a big set of improvements to to proceed. I assume that this decontextualised officiousness is not how you intend to come across, but its effect is entirely unconstructive.

As far as I can recall, my previous interactions with you have been positive, so have been as surprised by this approach as I have been disappointed. You have added nothing productive to this discussion which was helpfully started by Magioladitis. So, please stay off my talk page until you feel able to approach issues with a focus on finding workable solutions. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:41, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl, I suggest that you don't add these parameters blindly. I can help in standarisation if you provide me the ones you found. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:06, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, Magioladitis. The ones I can recall are {{WikiProject Australia|sports=yes}}, {{WikiProject Canada|sport=yes}}, {{WikiProject Japan|sport=yes}}, {{WikiProject Russia|sports=yes}}, {{WikiProject United Arab Emirates|sport=yes}}. I just had a bit of inspiration and did a template search for sport= prefix:Template:WikiProject (and a few variants thereof), which threw up {{WikiProject Brazil|sports=yes}}, {{WikiProject Greece}}, {{WikiProject Hungary|sports=yes}} and {{WikiProject Uruguay}}. So I will hardcode those cases into my AWB module, and add no parameters for the others.
It looks like this is a case where some standardisation of paramaters would be v helpful, and in the meantime I am pretty sure that my searches have missed some cases. But since there is clearly no support for my scattergun approach of throwing out a wide set of parameters in the hope that some of them work, I will desist from that.

Thanks again for your help. I think that in terms of minimising impact on watchlists/changelogs etc, it's better to do this in one pass, so I will pass on your kind offer to do some standardisation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:33, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am dismayed to find that there might be "hundreds of talk pages with WikiProject banners having invalid parameters". This has put me off food and sleep entirely. At least it has put my concerns about diacritics into proportion. Oculi (talk) 19:15, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Poor Oculi. I'm sorry for having caused you such distress.

As a cure, may I suggest a lengthy perusal of ANI? The dramas there usually sap the will-to-live quite severely. I know that this sounds like an extreme remedy, but the gruelling ordeal will distract you from the diacritical traumas and invalid-parameter insomnia. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:58, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I shall review the edits of Born2cycle; this usually works. The great yoghurt/yogurt debacle is a good example. ("sport=yes | sports=yes | sport-work-group=yes | sports-work-group=yes" deserves reverent applause rather than brickbats. In one creative edit you have added 4 wikiprojects and picked up potential relevant subprojects. Take this as support for the scattergun approach.) Oculi (talk) 20:52, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do be careful, Oculi. Exposure to B2C's attrition strategy on renaming can tip even the hardiest soul over from loss of will-to-live into active desire to self-terminate. Please at least divest yourself of sharp objects and toxic substances before going in there.

Thanks for your support on the scattergun approach. However, with views here still 2:1 against, I have dropped that from my AWB module ... which has now bloated to nearly 400 lines of code. Eeek! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:48, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've been through every single WikiProject banner that uses {{WPBannerMeta}} (that means that I've excluded projects with unusual banners such as Mathematics and Military history), and I've found that there are just eleven country-specific WikiProject templates that have an appropriate parameter:

{{WikiProject Argentina|topic=sport}}
{{WikiProject Australia|sports=yes}}
{{WikiProject Brazil|sports=yes}}
{{WikiProject Canada|sport=yes}}
{{WikiProject Greece|topic=sport}}
{{WikiProject Hungary|sports=yes}}
{{WikiProject Japan|sport=yes}}
{{WikiProject Paraguay|topic=sport}}
{{WikiProject Russia|sports=yes}}
{{WikiProject United Arab Emirates|sport=yes}}
{{WikiProject Uruguay|topic=sport}}

notice the peculiar form for Greece and some of the South American ones. Considering non-country WikiProjects, but ignoring those dedicated to one (e.g. {{WikiProject Snooker}}) or more (e.g. {{WikiProject Cue sports}}) sports, there are just eight more:

{{WikiProject Aviation|Air-sports=yes}}
{{WikiProject Biography|sports-work-group=yes}}
{{WikiProject Dallas-Fort Worth|subproject=sports}}
{{WikiProject Event Venues|sports=yes}}
{{WikiProject Georgia Tech|sport=yes}}
{{WikiProject St. Louis|wg=Sports}}
{{WikiProject Stanford University|sport=yes}}
{{WikiProject Video games|eSports=yes}}

Not all of these are documented. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:55, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Many, many thanks for that, Redrose64. That's really useful, and it must have been a big job.

I had found 9 of the 11 country projects in your list, but missed both {{WikiProject Paraguay|topic=sport}} and {{WikiProject Argentina|topic=sport}}. Having just looked, I see that they are undocumented. Maybe a case for some centralised approach to updating the documentation? If it's OK with you, I'll draw this to the attention of WT:COUNCIL, where there are some interesting stirrings about new technologies which may allow new approaches to recording the relationship between projects and pages.

Anyway, I have added the Paraguay and Argentina cases to my AWB module, and will ensure that they all get tagged. Thanks too for finding {{WikiProject Aviation|Air-sports=yes}}. That will be handy for Category:Olympic glider pilots. --21:21, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

There is a form of standardised documentation for wikiproject banners, it is the {{WPBannerDoc}} template and its subtemplates. It's useful for common constructions within WikiProjects (like |class= and |importance=) but doesn't handle the weird situations like the |topic= param of Greece and those South American ones. Where the doc is partially or wholly absent I can fill it in, perhaps base Argentina and Paraguay on the doc for Greece, part of which I wrote myself eighteen months ago. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:46, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

JPL

Were you still planning on filing action against Johnpacklambert? Because, in recent days, he's taken to mass-nominating beauty pageant winners and low-level football players, seemingly out of a personal belief that they don't belong rather than actually looking to see if they fail GNG or not. p b p 15:58, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi pbp

I wasn't going to follow through on that. JPL's conduct at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Octaviano Tenorio and at the subsequent deletion review was utterly disgraceful. He made plentiful personal attacks, and insisted that any criticism of the independence of his sources was an "attack" both on him personally and on the institutions.

In my view, that despicable conduct deserved some serious sanctions, but sadly, a significant proportion of contributors at both the AFD and the delrev decided to endorse (or at least condone) JPL's WP:BATTLEGROUND approach.

Since the community seems disinclined to even criticise JPL's highly abusive POV-pushing, I see no point in wasting any of my energy on further action. Sorry. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:29, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sad that the community is endorsing JPL's version of things :-( p b p 19:34, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Purplebackpack tagged you and I found my way here. I'm sorry to see it's been happening with other topics too. This guy is very difficult to deal with and prefers to delete discussion rather than engage in it which is disappointing. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 03:17, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, PageantUpdater has indeed taken JPL to ANI over his mass deletions. p b p 16:54, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW x2, this. JPL's ally Jgstokes (the one who said there'd be an uprising if any more LDS articles get deleted) is starting to fulfill his promise to get all mid-level LDS officials undeleted. SMH. p b p 00:09, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Peers and MPs who died in World War I

Hi BHG. Are you still active on peerages and MPs? If so, could I get your advice on a plan I have to create a list of MPs and Peers who died in World War I. The topic is covered to some extent at Parliamentary War Memorial (which covers both World Wars). The existing lists of people who died in WWI (and sometimes in WWII) I gathered at Category:Lists of people killed in World War I. Some lists cover all those who died on military service. Other lists do both World Wars, others split the lists between the World Wars. WWII has more civilian deaths, so sometimes there is justification for treating that differently. A draft is here (in my userspace, jumbled among other things best ignored) for WWI only (and not including the others on the memorial - they should be included, but I was concentrating on those with articles first - all the MPs have articles, though four of the peers seem to have died too young to warrant an article, though maybe stubs on their military service might be possible, and Vernon and Conyngham were relatively old). What approach do you think is best? I also found a number of photos that would be suitable. Would like to get a photo of the heraldic memorial shields in the Commons chamber, but that might be difficult. Carcharoth (talk) 17:42, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carcharoth

Long time no talk. Hope you are well.

I still do a bit on MPs, now mostly the 18th- and 19th-century ones.

I am a big fan of sortable lists. They seem to me to be much more than the sum of their parts, allowing readers to arrange the data in whatever way interests them. In this case, columns such as name, age/dob/dod, party, constituency, length of parliamentary service, military service (regiment/ship/etc), military rank, would make a very interesting set, esp if photos bring it all to life. The only downside with that is that the peers would be an odd fit ... but maybe the peers would be better as a separate list, possibly with a longer timespan?

Anyway, that's just my idea, and it may not be the path that works for you. Hope it helps somehow, even if only as ideas to discard!

Best wishes, --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:02, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am well thanks, hope you are well too. The thing that I sometimes struggle with is what to do with lists where you can put a lot of things in. How do you avoid having too many columns? I would add the memorials and cemeteries where they are commemorated/buried to that list, partly because I have an interest in that, and partly because it ties in with common connection (that they all died in World War I). The pdf lists provided by www.parliament.uk give place of death, but I'm not sure about that. I might put some things in a 'notes' column, or use footnotes. What do you think about articles for some of those peers? I'll do a WWII list tonight, and maybe some of the others (sons of MPs, sons of peers, and officers of the house and sons of officers of the house, though the latter two categories are unlikely to yield much). Carcharoth (talk) 20:19, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I managed to get side-tracked by listing the bereaved MPs and peers from WWI. I assume this is only those who were actually MPs or former-MPs-and-now-peers at the time of their bereavement. The list of sons of peers is on another memorial (in the House of Lords). This, incidentally, explains why some of the post-war debates about commemoration were so charged and emotional - many of the MPs had a personal stake in it themselves. The bereaved MPs is a list of 90+ that is surprisingly hard to connect up to articles. There is at least one mistake in the source I am using. That says Rowland Noel Barran was the eldest son of Sir John Barran, Bart., MP for Leeds North 1902-1918, but John Barran was MP somewhere else and the CWGC record for Rowland Barran says he was the son of Rowland Barran who was indeed MP for Leeds North. A surprising number of the MP articles fail to mention their bereavement in the war. I can understand that for a stub like Charles Carew, but James Campbell, 1st Baron Glenavy was Lord Chancellor of Ireland, you would have thought that the death of his son in the war would have been mentioned somewhere? The CWGC record of the person that the Parliamentary Memorial source says his is son is here (P. S. Campbell, Philip Sidney according to the parliamentary source). Maybe the Irish connection made it impolitic? Was also surprised to find that there are still MPs with no articles... James Boyton is not yet written. John Bethell could redirect to either John Bethell, 1st Baron Bethell or John P. Bethell, but what links here gives two other (article-less) John Bethells who want to claim the link as well. If I remember my disambiguation lessons correctly, a disambiguation page would be OK here. Carcharoth (talk) 21:53, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

An update on this (the bereaved MPs are here - the list of bereaved peers will be much longer). There are some puzzles that you might be able to help with (or could you suggest a good place to ask?):

The article for Robert Hermon-Hodge, 1st Baron Wyfold states (with no source I can see) that "He had seven sons, three of whom died in the First World War, and one daughter." The CWGC records show two of his sons ([2], [3]) and a Hermon-Hodge from WWII ([4], maybe a grandson). What would be the best way to check this?
The article for John Hinds (politician) states "He married Lizzie Powell in 1893, and the couple had one daughter." No mention of a son at all. The ODNB confirms that: "in February 1916 his son, Lieutenant William Pugh Hinds, was killed at the age of eighteen while on active service in France with the London Welsh battalion.". It is interesting that Hinds has an ODNB article, but Robert Hermon-Hodge doesn't.
The article on Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart simply states "With his first wife he had a daughter Katharine and a son and heir, Hugh." - this is sourced to thepeerage.com (which gets lots of things wrong). No mention that Hugh had an elder brother (Gordon Morley Hewart) killed in WWI who fell at Gallipoli.

Those last two were more examples of how some of the MP articles are silent on the sons that fell in the war. Some articles (such as D. D. Sheehan) give prominent mention to relatives killed in the war, some don't mention it at all. Either because the sources don't mention it, or because the articles are still a bit stubby. Anyway, that's more than enough. I am going to carry on working on this. May I come back for advice when things are a bit further along? Carcharoth (talk) 23:14, 26 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again

I make extensive use of The Times archive for this sort of stuff. (I get access through a library). For the 1st half of the 20th century, it's pretty good on MPs/Peers generally, tho best if they are Tories.

I used to use the BNA a lot, but sadly my account has expired (see WT:BNA) and it seems that the BNA is no longer renewing them :( --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:14, 27 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Will see what The Times has to say. Carcharoth (talk) 06:59, 27 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Two quick questions: (1) Does James Boyton (which I've now started) look OK? (2) Am wondering how many baronets with articles on Wikipedia died in WWI? The House of Lords parliamentary memorial does not cover them, as they are not part of the peerage. This is presumably why Horace Hood is commemorated in the House of Lords as the (4th) son of the 4th Viscount Hood but Sir Robert Arbuthnot, 4th Baronet is not commemorated there. Would that be right, do you think? Carcharoth (talk) 15:32, 28 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Carcharoth. Second things first: yes, baronets are not peers, and have never had any entitlement to sit in the House of Lords (unless they also get a peerage). They are effectively hereditary knights, with a slightly higher ranking than a knight, but still below a peer.

I will now take a look at Boyton. BTW, did you get my email? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:37, 28 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I did get your emails, thanks. I have access to the archives of The Times, but it can be difficult to track things down sometimes. I will use those sources when I get to those articles. Carcharoth (talk) 15:51, 28 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again. Would you be able to help at all with a couple of puzzles? The list of sons and daughter of MPs who died in WWII is only found in the Book of Remembrance and the parliament.uk website does not state the identity of the MPs who were the parents of those named (they do for the other memorials). The names are here, with the book of remembrance itself online here. I prepared a list here. In most cases, cross-referencing with the CWGC records confirms the identity of the MP in question, but for three of them it is a bit of a mystery:

Sergeant Dennis Charles Alfred Denville, Royal Air Force. [5] Son of Charles Denville and grandson of Alfred Denville Death notice on p.4 of The Stage (17 September 1942), stating that Dennis was "a grandson of Alfred Denville, M.P.".
Captain John St. George Gunston, Irish Guards. [6] No family details provided by the CWGC. Son of Derrick Gunston. Death reported in The Times (London, England), Saturday, Nov 10, 1945; pg. 1; Issue 50296.
Flying Officer Cecil Walter Alvin Manning, Royal Air Force. [7] No family details provided by the CWGC. Could be son of Cecil Manning, though another MP with the surname Manning also exists: Leah Manning.

As you can see, I was able to confirm the parentage of Gunston by finding his death notice in the The Times (actually pointed to it by another website that quoted its sources). But I am drawing a blank on Denville and Manning. I have also now ascertained that Denville is on the memorial as the grandson of an MP, rather than the son of an MP; the details of the death are here; the gravestone can be seen here. Cecil Walter Alvin Manning is a complete mystery. The obituaries of the two MPs named Manning have not helped. I suspect the parent is Cecil Manning, but am not sure where to go next on this. I suspect I will have to write to the Parliamentary Archives and see if they can help, but wanted to ask you first in case you know of likely sources. Carcharoth (talk) 15:05, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

MPs in WWI

Hi again. I have now (finally) got back to actually getting a list article that is almost ready. Would you be able to advise on aspects of it (I wasn't sure how to do length of parliamentary service)? Lots of notes at the moment, most of them can be ignored as it is mainly the table I am looking for advice on: see here. What I am wondering at the moment is whether to stick with that single table/listing, or go the route of having three separate tables/listings? The topic divides quite logically into three areas, as can be seen from the notes. Some of the political questions I had relate to the political parties - is it easy to identify what party to link for each MP? Also, was Arthur O'Neill an Ulster Unionist or an Irish Unionist? Also, the Hansard contribs links work for all of them except Neil Primrose - I think that is a problem at their end, would you know the best way to report that or should I just follow the advice on the website error message? Carcharoth (talk) 09:09, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 July 20#Category:Academics from Tacoma, Washington

Was going through old CFDs checking for anything I may have missed when I came across this, particularly your rationale as well as that of Johnpacklambert. As it stands, we have an entire tree for lawyers by state intended for people who have practiced law in that state, while underneath we have numerous categories for lawyers by city intended for people who were born in that city but became lawyers just about everywhere else in the world. I attempted to point this out to the folks responsible for creating that mess and was essentially met with a "my way or the highway" type attitude. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 08:23, 27 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yet again, my watchlist reveals yet another example of this. Even though that article is minimal, one can at least gather that Sharrock was not a politician in Ypsilanti. The factory he oversaw there experienced six or seven strikes in a single calendar year and he went looking for somewhere else to live that was perhaps "more peaceful". He wound up in Alaska and became a politician there roughly a decade and two later. I can only assume that these people make edits for the sake of making edits because they're in some sort of competition, because this is only leading content further in the direction of meaningless bullshit. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 05:17, 6 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

category deletions leave a hole in wiki-history

When a category is deleted a lot of wiki-history (and volunteer work) disappears. Take for example Category:Full-block structures in New York City which has been deleted on 6 September 2016 according to Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2016_August_10#Category:Full-block_structures_in_New_York_City.

Some articles such as List of full-block structures in New York City are now category-orphaned with no ties at all to New York City. Wouldn’t it be much better to at least replace the deleted category with its parents on all category-orphaned articles? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:04, 7 September 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Years in Ireland

Hi BHG - long time no see! Could you add your opinion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/1250_in_Ireland - this list survived for 8 years until I added a template in order to expand it. Sarah777 (talk) 18:55, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to rename category

Please see my proposal to speedily rename Category:Spain military-related lists to Category:Spanish military-related lists per C2C Hugo999 (talk) 12:51, 10 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Mauritian long male jumpers has been nominated for discussion

Category:Mauritian long male jumpers, 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. Yellow Dingo (talk) 03:30, 10 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I rather like 'long male jumpers'. I am hoping for 'short female jumpers' and 'sleeveless jumpers'. Oculi (talk) 23:07, 10 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Extended confirmed protection

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In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

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Your archives

Hi BrownHairedGirl, your list of archives is missing links to archive nos. 35 and 36, i could try to add them but dont want to stuff it up. thanks, Coolabahapple (talk) 00:07, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Contact

Hi, I was wondering who you are in relation to Myra, as I am her granddaughter and am very interested 😊 I am assuming you are also related in some way???? Regards Rachel — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.97.51.241 (talk) 20:00, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Contact

Hi, I just wanted to know your relationship to Myra Juliet Welsh Farrell as she is my grandmother. Kind regards Rachel — Preceding unsigned comment added by AIDF65 (talk • contribs) 20:12, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mary Rothes Margaret Cecil, Baroness Amherst of Hackney

I asked Dr. Blofeld if he had any input on the article I created for Lady Cecil. He suggested I ask you for help. I'm in Mexico, which often means I have access to different sources than on the other side of the pond, but also means that I don't have access to some significant sources. I think she might be a GA candidate with a bit more work. But, we need photos, and I'd like to flesh out a bit more about her finds. (I found mention on tourist sites of other tombs, but nothing I'd call a RS.) It is also puzzling to me that the German WP article states she died of breast cancer. I was able to access the Guardian archives, but cannot access the Times or other papers which might have given more detail of her work. If you would be interested in participating in a GA that would be great. If not, no worries. SusunW (talk) 15:01, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

HELP

Signage on the commercial thoroughfare installed by MINC^[3], the Mid City Neighborhood Council. Note that MINC did not install Victoria Park signs on the commecial thoroughfare.

Dear Brownhairedgirl:

I am contacting you because I saw that you issued a warning to a user called BeenAroundAWhile. I am not sure how to proceed with this user and am asking for your advice.

In May 2013, BeenAroundAwhile nominated the Victoria Park, Los Angeles, California page to be deleted. When that request was denied, he made a number of biased and inaccurate changes to the page. He deleted cited references to walking tours through the neighborhood. He deleted references to the fact the neighborhood is gated on 3 out of 4 vehicular entrances.

He insists that Victoria Park is NOT a neighborhood but that "Victoria Park is a mostly residential subdivision in the Mid-City neighborhood of Central Los Angeles, California." Which is false. The commercial thoroughfare has never been considered part of the neighborhood. And is is designated a neighborhood by the City of Los Angeles, with signage installed by the Department of Transportation pictured to the right. ^[4]

What does he achieve by saying this is NOT a neighborhood but a subdivision that includes the commercial thoroughfare? Well, he then added a large section on the Victoria Park page about "The Sugar Shack", a property on the commercial thoroughfare that had a dispute with the neighborhood. He writes that it "sits in the commercially zoned Pico Boulevard strip of Victoria Park". Yet even the indented quotation he copies from the Los Angeles Times article says..."Victoria Park, a jewel-like hamlet a block south..."

I had reversed some of his changes recently, only to have him reverse them back. Rather than get into a battle, I thought I would see who this person is, and then when I saw your warning on his page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:BeenAroundAWhile#Edit-warring_on_articles_about_districts_of_Los_Angeles), I realized I might need advice here. I don’t want to have an edit war with this person. But I sense he is feels passionately about his views on Victoria Park because he even included an "additional reading" section about a different neighborhood dispute about historic preservation zones and gentrification. Please advise how to move forward. Yours, Phatblackmama (talk) 01:09, 25 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:32, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi BrownHairedGirl/Archive.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Indian women by occupation

On 26 March 2007 you created Category:Indian women by occupation which is not designated as wp:non diffusing. Is the intention to completely separate the sexes in India in contrast to to the way wikipedia treats other countries? I would normally prefer to discuss such matters in public, but I don’t know where one is supposed to discuss wiki-category issues. I would appreciate a response on my talkpageOttawahitech (talk) 15:25, 28 October 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Hi BrownHairedGirl/Archive/Archive 037, just to remind you I am still awaiting a response, Ottawahitech (talk) 19:57, 12 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Hi Ottawahitech, and sorry for the slow reply. I haven't had much time available for en.wp for a while.

Category:Indian women by occupation is one of over 200 1st-level subcats of Category:Women by nationality and occupation. All of them )at least think all!) are explicitly labelled in the header text as container categories ... i.e. they exist only to group existing categories of women by occupation. AFAICS, the Indian category is no different from the other countries.

As you probably know, WP:CATGENDER places strict limits on the creation of gendered categories, so it would be wholly inappropriate to completely separate the sexes in India or elsewhere. Again, this is set out explicitly at Category:Indian women by occupation, and I am surprised that you didn't notice it.

Hope this helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:59, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi BrownHairedGirl/Archive/Archive 037 thanks for replying. Am I correct in understanding that all subcats of Category:Indian women by occupation should be wp:non-diffusing? If so, why was my edit on Category:Indian women engineers reverted with the edit summary: removed Non-diffusing subcategory|Indian engineers|engineers as separated by women and men by user:Roland zh , who by the way has done a great job creating and categorizing many pages in India? Ottawahitech (talk) 22:48, 17 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

Hi Ottawahitech, most of the subcats will be non-diffusing, but not all of them will be. For example, e.g. Category:Indian actresses is fully diffusing, because acting is a gendered occupation, as are most sports. (This is all covered in WP:CATGENDER. Please do read it!)

However, Category:Indian women engineers should be non-diffusing, because engineering is not segregated by gender. Roland zh reversion of your edit was mistaken, so I have restored[8] the tag.

Hope this helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:16, 17 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

PS: @Ottawahitech and Roland zh: please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 November 18#Category:Indian_male_engineers, which arises out of this discussion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:41, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, BrownHairedGirl. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

List of people from Massachusetts

Hello, BrownHairedGirl. Please excuse me for writing to you at random, but I've chosen your name from the administrators list, recognizing your name from many edit histories. I would like to bring your attention to the following problem: User talk:24.29.175.101 has been gutting the List of people from Massachusetts page with over 20 large scale edits in the last week, removing dozens of names with no explanation or reason. I've checked a number of the deletions and all have Wikipedia pages and all have been born or worked in Massachusetts. I think the entire group of edits should probably be reverted, though judging by their extent, I think that an administrator would be best suited to look into this. If I should be addressing this issue in another way, please let me know. Thank you! - Xenxax (talk) 19:05, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Xenxax: FYI I have reverted all edits made by 24.29.175.101 on 18 November 2016 on this page. If you notice any other such edits, it is probably best to bring it to the attention of the WikiProjects specified on the wp:talkpage. Hope this helps,Ottawahitech (talk) 20:20, 18 November 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

@Ottawahitech: Thank you! - Xenxax (talk) 20:35, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Xenxax and Ottawahitech: I don't know whether these removals were vandalism or whether they had some plausible rationale, because they were all unexplained. So it was right to revert them, but before going to the projects, I strongly recommend talking to directly to the reverted editor. So I suggest opening a discussion at Talk:List of people from Massachusetts, explaining why the revert was done, and dropping a note at User talk:24.29.175.101 inviting them to comment. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:16, 18 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you BrownHairedGirl, for the reply and the recommendation. The editor in question seems to have moved on from the Massachusetts list, so will leave all be for now. Thanks again.-Xenxax (talk) 00:46, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Administrator Page move

Please move State Opera (Prague) to Prague State Opera as all the State Operas. thanks --ThecentreCZ (talk) 19:59, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@ThecentreCZ: I suggest you open a WP:RM request. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WP:USERNOCAT and User:Indubitably/Bathrobe Cabal

Hi,

Am I interpreting WP:USERNOCAT incorrectly? I had disabled the category in the above referenced user page but it was reverted.

Thanks! Gjs238 (talk) 00:56, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gjs238

Yes, you are interpreting it correctly, but ...

WP:NOTBURO. That page User:Indubitably/Bathrobe Cabal is very clearly a joke. Category:Rouge admins was also a kindofa joke, based on Wikipedia:Rouge admin. A redlinked category on a userpage is also a kindofa joke.

Back in the days before Noah took up boating, when user categories proliferated, I satirised them by adding myself to two non-existent categories: Category:Wikipedians who do not feel the need to use the category namespace to convey their feelings of pleasure, annoyance or boredom about the state of the world or about Wikipedia's processes, and who wonder if anyone pays any attention to such things anyway and Category:Carnivorous, one-eyed, troglodyte celtic wikipedians born before JFK was shot, who reject polyandry on the grounds that one is way more than enough, and who cannot recall having been anywhere near the Texas book depository. That was a few millennia ago (in wiki terms), and no great harm has arisen from having those nonsense non-categories.

Category:Rouge admins was deleted at Wikipedia:User categories for discussion/Archive/February 2008#Category:Rouge_admins. That would tend me (weakly) towards not allowing it to be redlinked. However, this category was reinstated by User:Iridescent, who is a very experienced and highly-respected admin (with a sense of humour) ... and if Iridescent doesn't see a prob with keeping the redlinked category, then I wouldn't worry about it.

Sometimes it's a good idea not take these non-content sides of wikipedia too seriously. At least none of us is likely to suffer the fate of Samuel Bristowe.

Hope this helps! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:29, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Further to that, it's the fact of being red that provides the comedy value in Category:Rouge admins. The "no mainspace categories in userspace" rule exists for a sensible reason, in that it prevents inappropriate material appearing in places where readers expect to find serious content, but no reader is ever going to navigate to that category expecting to find an article, any more than they're being misled by not finding articles in Category:Wikipedians with red-linked categories on their user talk page. ‑ Iridescent 20:28, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bizarrely, after the deletion of the relinked users it was re-created twice. Some editors don't seem to grasp the paradox that if Category:Wikipedians with red-linked categories on their user talk page existed, then it would have to be empty. -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:51, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

May I be a member of Category:Wikipedians with no red-linked categories on their user talkpage? If so, may I link the category on my user talkpage? Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:48, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Brad, if I was being mean I'd suggest that anyone who asks for permission to use such a category has automatically disqualified themselves from using it. But I'm not mean :) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:57, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'll create Category:Wikipedians whom BrownHairedGirl isn't mean to. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously, that category could only ever contain a very few pages. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:01, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All the best for 2017!

Hello BrownHairedGirl/Archive,
Enjoy the Winter Solstice and the Christmas and holiday season.
Thank you for all your good work during 2016 in maintaining, improving and expanding Wikipedia.
All the best for 2017! Cheers, — Gareth Griffith-Jones | The Welsh | Buzzard | 16:31, 19 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Merry Merry

Season's Greetings, BrownHairedGirl/Archive!
At this wonderful time of year, I would like to give season’s greetings to all the fellow Wikipedians I have interacted with in the past! May you have a wonderful holiday season! MarnetteD|Talk 16:25, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cat-a-lot / watchlist

Greetings. Is there any way of hiding Cat-a-lot edits from my watchlist? A huge amount of them appeared today, and it's a bit distracting. ;-) Mac Dreamstate (talk) 20:24, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, there isn't any way to hide them. Most of his recategorising is done use AWB where I can mark edits as minor, but some are much easier with Catalot. The good news is that they all whoosh by in one quick blast. Sorry! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:42, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No worries! It's just a bit of extra skim-reading to make sure I don't dismiss non-automated edits amongst them, heh. Best wishes. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 23:25, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

	The Civility Barnstar
	“Nollaig Shona agus Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Duit.” Quis separabit? 05:59, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

chrissy greetings

*Hi BrownHairedGirl, Mwiaowy xmas* Coolabahapple (talk) 15:21, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Merry, merry!

From the icy Canajian north; to you and yours! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:55, 26 December 2016 (UTC) [reply]

FYI

Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion#Fate of CFDS. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 09:14, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Boggle. Thanks for the notification, Armbrust.

I thought the silly season was in August? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:27, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Happy 2017!

Wishing good health and happiness as we start the new year! --Rosiestep (talk) 18:59, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Handball templates

Hey, why do you add "Men's/Women's handball" to it? It's clear from the article of the athlet what sport we are talking about and all is linked within the template. Seems useless to me (and blow up the template) and all those changes were made without a discussion (or?). I reverted a few before i saw you made a mass change... Juse seems odd to me. Kante4 (talk) 14:46, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kante4

Please can you link to the pages you are talking about?

Or at least some of them?

I really don't know what you are referring to.

Thanks --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:57, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again Kante4

I just checked your contribs, and find these 41 edits by you, in which you somehow reverted the changes I had made to those templates. (It's odd that you somehow did so in a way which gave me no automatic notification, since I would have been automatic notified if you had used rollback or undo).

Anyway, to the substance:

Those changes did not "blow up" any template. They added two words to them, which did not disrupt their format or integrity.
The reason I added those words was because it seemed bizarre to me that the templates did not indicate what sport or gender was involved, and I could see no reason for omitting that info -- there was no space constraint.
Unfortunately, it is often not clear what sport is involved, because a significant minority of sportspeople play more than one sport. Even if it was only one article which fitted that description, it would be worth havi g the info just for that one article -- because it imposes no cost on the other articles.
The factor which prompted me to make the changes was that I was categorising the articles by gender. AS with most ball games, men and women compete separately in handball, so gender is a defining attribute of the player. However, a huge swathe of articles on handball players did not explicitly state the gender of the player -- not in the body text, not in any infobox, nor category, nor template. I then spotted that the gender must be indicated by the navbox, but I was astonished to see that the navbox did not display this info. I could see no reason to limit it, so per WP:BOLD I added it.

So now, I ask you -- in what way has any of these templates been improved by your removal of this information? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

PS An example, here are two navboxes:

They refer to separate competitions. The first is the women's competition, and the second is the men's -- yet bizarrely, both describe the competition in the same way. And neither even indicates which sport is involved. (The first one is Template:France squad 2012 European Women's Handball Championship, where you reverted by change. The second is Template:France squad 2012 European Men's Handball Championship, where I self-reverted back to your version for demonstration purposes.

Now, by way of contrast, here is a navbox as changed by me:

Note that the event is clearly identifiable from the heading. Why would you want to remove such clarity? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:45, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The gender is given in the article, infobox, lead (both link to current national/club team) and category (male/female handball player) (and if not, i add them when i go around after big tournaments). So there is no need for having it on the template(s), which is the same in more sports aswell. Never was someone doubting it or anything, you are the first. With your version, there is just more text at the template title, which do "blow" it up, imo. Even the template links to the male/female team. It's just not needed... Or, maybe just add "France women's/men's squad" if you need it. Like i said, no one was ever questioning it. Kante4 (talk) 16:47, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to take a look at other sports aswell, and not a problem for anyone again. Just my two cents. Kante4 (talk) 16:55, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Kante4, did you realy read what I wrote?

As I wrote at length above, dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- of the articles do not indicate gender in text or infobox. They do so by category only because I added it, but no article should carry specific info only in a category.

What you mean that this will "blow up" a template? In English, that phrase means "explode" or break. Nothing you say gives any indication that these templates are exploded or broken. The addition of two words does not significantly expand the text.

The fact that the template links to the gender and sport is no substitute for the failure to display either the gender or sport. The reader should not have to follow a link to identify its content.

Again, I ask you -- how exactly is the reader helped by omitting these two words? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:59, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

When i visit an article about a player, i know if it is male or female, so a male will not play for the female team. Logical to me and never heard negative from anyone, so not a problem. But ok... Kante4 (talk) 17:05, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Kante4, this is a very odd discussion, because you appear to be simply ignoring the points I make. For example, many of the articles do not identify the gender of the player. They should, but many of them do not.

So gain, I ask you -- how exactly is the reader helped by omitting the two words which identify both gender and sport? How exactly do your reverts help the reader? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:13, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Kante4, I have indeed looked at other sports. Here are a few examples:

A hurling navbox, which like all other hurling navboxes identifies the sport:

A basketball template, which identifies both the gender and the sport (by the initialism "FIBA"): {{Europe Under-20 Championship for Women}}

So why exactly do you object to including this info for handball? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:08, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So, including EHF/IHF should be good or? Any by the same logic, FIBA should not be enought eh? I know, cherry picking or whatever but i'm out. Kante4 (talk) 17:10, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Kante4, if you are simply going to stop discussion, then I will restore the changes.

If you feel that we are unlikely to each agreement, then I am happy to take this to an RFC ... but an end of bilateral discussion is not the end of the issue. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:18, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nahh, you can undo it if you want. I get your point somehow, tbh. I just don't like "it" looks. Maybe we can work that out somehow? Kante4 (talk) 17:27, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe something like "France men's squad"? The sport is described in the article, i would say. Kante4 (talk) 17:44, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But why omit the name of the sport? How exactly does that help the reader?

The sport should indeed be described the article. But many sportspeople play more than one sport, and for those players, the scope of the navbox cannot be inferred from the article. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:48, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In every article about handball players, the sport is mentioned in the article and no one plays another sport. (Those articles i came across, and that were many). Kante4 (talk) 17:50, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You should be very careful before making assertions such as In every article about handball players [snip] no one plays another sport. You do qualify that assertion by restrictin the scope to thge articles you came across -- but do you really think that you have personally checked this on every single en.wp article on a handball player? Really?

I will use a few tools to give you some lists. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:02, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe earlier there were some. Those templates are created from 2011 WC on i think (Maybe 2008 OG). And there is no one i believe. Kante4 (talk) 18:08, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Kante4 , there are currently 4278 en.wp articles on handball players (including some lists). You cannot possibly be sure that none of hem played any other sport. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:14, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sure there are some. As said above, the templates are from 2011 on or so. And there are only a few, if any... So, i see no need for the sport included. Kante4 (talk) 18:26, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find the tools which would generate the lists easily, so I am using AWB to scan the pages. It's slow, but put of the first few hundred players, there are dozens playing other sports. I will post the full list when it is complete.

In the meantime, please clarify again:

a) exactly what harm is done by including the word "handball". It takes only 9 extra characters (including the space)

b) even if the number of handballers playing only one sport is small, why label the templates in such a way as to be misleading on some pages, when there is a very simple way of making it clear on all pages?

Note too that a huge proportion of the handball articles are currently one-line stubs, many with a single source to a handball database (often apparently create to fill out the links on the navboxes). By their very nature, those articles will not reveal whether the person played any other sport ... but if and when these articles are expanded, that info will be added where relevant. It is very unwise to base assumptions about the involvement of players in other sports when the sources used do not reveal such info. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:39, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Like i said, i find it useless but can understand your view. I said everythig above of how small the number of players (since 2011 when those templates started) will be (i believe). Kante4 (talk) 19:34, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Or, if the sport is really needed (not for me but is not a dealbreaker), how about "France men's handball squad"? Kante4 (talk) 06:26, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Piped links in categories

Hello, I'm currently trying to sort out some of the categories and subcats relating to organized crime (a big mess of repetitive and redundant categories), and ran across this edit, which makes no sense to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category%3AFilms_about_the_Irish_Mob&type=revision&diff=757813580&oldid=729023135 What is the purpose of putting piped links in categories like that? I've already removed a couple of those categories as being too broad, and at least one should be deleted altogether (Irish Mob and Irish-American organized crime are two ways of saying the same thing, so the question is, should the more common term be kept, or the more encyclopedic?). I don't often work on categories for precisely these reasons; sometimes, you just wander into a thicket. With "gangster"-related categories and articles, in particular, it seems, you run into a lot of fanboys who are obsessed with the topic but not necessarily great editors. At any rate, can you answer the question about piped links, as I don't recall seeing that before. Thanks! ---The Old Jacobite_{The '45} 14:53, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

They control the category sort order. It's commonly done when category names are prefixed by the name of the parent. Eponymous categories also have their lead article categorized with a space, to sort them to the head. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:06, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Clear as mud. This is another reason I rarely wander into the thicket of categorization: I find the rules often impenetrable. But, I feel this is also part of the reason I often find redundant and useless categories: they are being created by editors who also do not understand the rules of categorization and how some categories are useful and many others are not. So, back into the thicket I go, to try to make some sense of it... ---The Old Jacobite_{The '45} 15:34, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Hi TheOldJacobite, and Happy New Year. I hope you are recovering well from '15 and '45. <grin>

First, the "piped links" are not actually piped links. They are sort keys, which determine how the articles are sorted in category listings. So, for example [[Category:Gangster films|Aaaaaa]] would make the article appear under the letter "A" at the top of the listing for Category:Gangster films ... whereas [[Category:Gangster films|]] makes it appear under "Z".

Sometimes, an article uses the same sort key for all or most categories, in which case the magic word {{DEFAULTSORT}} makes everyting easier and cleaner. So for example, in the diff you linked above, {{DEFAULTSORT:Irish mob}} would have save the need to put an identical sort key on 4 categories.

You're right, categories can be a bit of a thicket. Especially in topic areas, where, as you rightly note, the topic tends to attract those with more enthusiasm than editing experience. That's one of the joys of Wikipedia <wry grin>.

FWIW, my own approach is to try get a broad feel for categorisation of any particular topic are before dipping in. Some the category trees can be quite complex, esp when there are multiple attributes at play. Your strategy of focusing on organised crime sounds to me like aq good way to unravel things.

That article linked above does appear to have some overcategorisation. For example, Category:Films about organized crime is redundant when the article is already in in the sub-category Category:Films about organized crime in the United States.

Good luck with cleaning it up! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:49, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, both for your response and your encouragement. And, yes, overcategorization is one of the banes of my existence. I mostly deal with it in regard to film articles – which is how I started looking at the organized crime articles, since many film articles related to organized crime are overpopulated with redundant categories. Into the thicket we go, machete in hand, and 6 months later we have to do it again. But, we enjoy this, right? Happy New Year! ---The Old Jacobite_{The '45} 16:56, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wwikix

got blocked for his efforts - as well as earflaps btw - the legacy both left is something no one has gone in to do a forensic analysis of the weirdnesses in their understanding of categories - suppose no one ever will :( JarrahTree 14:38, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@JarrahTree:. Thanks. Hadn't realised it was created by a blocked editor, just that it was something which needed fixing.
Over the years, we have had a steady trickle of editors who do weird categorisations (the first I recall was User:Pastorwayne, nearly 10 years ago) ... and sometimes there is an ad-hoc taskforce which mounts a prompt cleanup exercise, and sometimes it's a bit more ad hoc. Seems that this is one of the latter. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:44, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

...or if someone did - it would be of benefit to someone who might want to do a potential case analysis study of idiosyncratic loners wandering through wikipedias categories unchecked and unflinching in creating the world in their mind which runs contrary to consensually created basic principals of how wikipedia works... wwwkix and earflaps really left a legacy of a mess no one seems interested in... If I was really nuts I would try to go in - but hmmm ... JarrahTree 14:51, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding your close of Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2017_January_4#Category:Former_US_President_Wikipedians

I thought your close was a fine, if not great, idea. However, it begs the question of what to do with the remainder of categories in Category:Idiosyncratic Wikipedians. I got the impression you didn't want me to nominate any more at CfD. Were you thinking of speeding the rest per IAR, or did you want this RfC to occur and conclude first? The RfC wouldn't be for discussing whether the categories should exist, but merely if the users should be removed from the redlinked categories, so I don't think there should be a bunch of categories in limbo here based on an RfC nobody may ever get around to requesting. Alternatively the third option would be for me to nominate them and you speedy close them as you did this one, but I feel a speedy deletion per IAR would likely be more prudent than that. Thoughts? VegaDark (talk) 07:02, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi VegaDark, and thanks for your msg.

This series of IAR closures (here's a list of 8 of them) has solely been to remove from CFD a series of repetitive discussions about category pages created by one editor solely to fill redlinks on the user pages of editors who appear happy to have retained them as redlinks.

I have not taken a view in the substantive merits of these categories.

CFDs on other categories, which were not created to fill jokey redlinks, I will leave to run their course and be closed in the usual way. So continue to nominate as you see fit -- I will apply this early close logic only those which I find to be part of this fill-the-redlinks-regardless-of-utlity exercise. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:14, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Literally everything in Category:Idiosyncratic Wikipedians is exactly such a category - a category that was redlinked that was recently created just to make it no longer a redlink. 100% of everything in there I believe your early close rationale could be applied to, which is why I mentioned just speedying them without the need of a nomination. However, if that's what you would prefer, I can do that. VegaDark (talk) 07:19, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've openend an RfC per your suggestion, should you wish to participate. VegaDark (talk) 22:51, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Celtic nationalities

I presume from your classification of Tommy Farr that you believe WP does not allow Welsh, Scottish, etc, as a nationality or nominal cultural heritage. As a matter of interest, do we also call all natives of northern Ireland British? We Welsh have no problem, because we were Britons long before the Romans, Danes and English arrived! Bjenks (talk) 15:11, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Bjenks: I think you have misread the diff. He remains categorised as Welsh. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:13, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, indeed—sorry, it was the lede that prompted my interest. Bjenks (talk) 15:19, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No prob, Bjenks. Easily mistaken and no harm done.

And I am glad to see that you fixed the lede. If you are interested and energetic, Category:Welsh male boxers contains a lot of other articles which might benefit from a similar fix. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:05, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirection of speculative fiction novels and series

Hello BrownHairedGirl I ask you to express opinion about the latest redirections of User:SnowFire. I ask you to assess the expediency I of merging articles by him, including the elimination of articles about award-winning speculative fiction novels, for example The Apocalypse Codex & The Hidden Family. Because I'm not sure of the correctness of such actions.--Yasnodark (talk) 13:36, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Yasnodark

Please can you post some diffs of the edits which you find problematic? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:42, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi BrownHairedGirl

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Apocalypse_Codex&redirect=no 06:54, 6 January 2017‎

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Hidden_Family&redirect=no 07:51, 3 January 2017‎

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Nightmare_Stacks&redirect=no 06:52, 6 January 2017‎

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_Trade 07:55, 3 January 2017‎

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Annihilation_Score&redirect=no

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Rhesus_Chart&redirect=no

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Delirium_Brief&redirect=no

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Atrocity_Archives&redirect=no

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Clan_Corporate&redirect=no

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Revolution_Business&redirect=no

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_Princes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laundry_Files#The_Rhesus_Chart

--Yasnodark (talk) 13:36, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again, Yasnodark

Those are not actually diffs. See WP:DIFF for how to link to a diff. It really makes life a lot easier if diffs of contested edits are included in a discussion.

Anyway, I followed the links and found the diffs. The first 3 items on your list are unexplained redirections where the edit summary gives no reason for redirecting a page with substantive content. The 4th one[9] does give a reason, so I have not reverted that.

Feel free to revert the 4th one yourself if you want to. Since there is clearly a disagreement between you and User:SnowFire about whether to merge, this needs a WP:MERGE discussion. SnowFire made some WP:BOLD edits, which you are entitled to revert if you disagree ... but then both of you please follow WP:BRD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:59, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Yasnodark: I'm not sure why you asked BrownHairedGirl rather than me, and having this conversation here. I would have been happy to explain my edits. Since BHG has apparently joined in and reverted me as well, I suppose we'll have this discussion here, although I'm puzzled as to why - my edits were absolutely explained (and also mentioned on Talk:Charles Stross in advance).

I'm not 100% sure, but you DID look at the resulting series pages, correct? There was no removal of content. None. Even bad content about irrelevant stuff. It was solely a merger. Before, someone going to The Apocalypse Codex or whatever would see the content on that page, and with my change they see the exact same content on the series page at The_Laundry_Files#The_Apocalypse_Codex. And furthermore, this could be a temporary merger at that, if you're committed enough to expand some of these articles - there would be no problem with re-creating and re-spinning off these articles once there's any content to be had there; see for example Singularity Sky. Of course, it's actually been me who has been doing that expansion and improving the content (see [10] or [11] or [12] ).

I'm somewhat insulted because merging these articles is saving them from a potential AFD or redirect-and-no-merge, like what happened to various articles on The Merchant Princes, not by me. Additionally, many reviews and awards have been for the series-as-a-whole, e.g. The Merchant Princes, so they count as coverage and notability for all the books.

I plan on re-redirecting, but will hold off a bit in case there's strenuous objection - although I would argue that the only good grounds for objection are "I'm going to expand all of these articles so much that they can all stand on their own right now." And even then, you can do the expansion on the series page first, then spin it off once it's large enough. SnowFire (talk) 16:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, specifically for BrownHairedGirl. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I was under the impression that the automatic edit summary for redirects was preferred. "Back in the day" I would say "merging content" or whatever, but the automatic edit summary on a redirect is very clear and obvious. And now apparently I'm being punished for using it. Is there some standard that goes against that edit summary that I don't know about? Serious question, since you apparently considered it a problem above. (I will admit that in retrospect I missed adding {{R from merge}} on some of those redirects, but that shouldn't be that bad...?! That's minor housekeeping...) SnowFire (talk) 16:42, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@SnowFire: you have not in any way been "punished". All that has happened is that you have been reverted, which is simply the first stage of the WP:BRD cycle.

The three edits which I did revert [13], [14], [15] offered no explanation in the edit summary of why the page had been redirected. Neither the edit summaries nor the substance of the edits conform to WP:MERGETEXT. And no, I didn't burrow around your contribs looking for an explanation somewhere else -- I assume that there is a discussion or written explanation of the merge, that the editsummary will link to it.

And as you will have seen above, the 4th edit I reviewed did explain itself, so I didn't revert it.

Yes, it would have been better if Yasnodark had approached SnowFire directly. And maybe I should have declined to do anything other than advise Yasnodeak to do that.

So maybe we have all screwed up a bit, but this is all no big deal. I have no interest in the substantive merits of these merges. I was just helping out an editor concerned at some unexplained actions, and I hope that you two can both sort this out between you.

You can continue to use this talk page if you want to, but it would be better to move the discussion to an article talkpage, or to a project page, so that the discussion can be seen by any other editors interested in the topic. Good luck resolving it, and best wishes to both of you --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:01, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, happy to move this discussion elsewhere - where it should have been to start.

"Punish" was perhaps the wrong word, sure, but we got dragged into spending time on this discussion that is immensely frustrating and the kind of thing that causes editor burnout - it feels like being punished for improving (not deleting!) and adding content. Thank you for the link to MERGETEXT though, I was under the impression that the AES was preferred for merges, as it doesn't cover up what happened. That said, this was ultimately a minor error in form, and I would recommend not reverting such redirects in the future unless you actually do want to dig into the merits of them, even if it is just to look at the target page to verify a merge happened rather than deletion - this shouldn't happen solely because someone forgot or didn't use a merge summary. (And for my part, I'll definitely stick to the letter of WP:MERGETEXT myself so that digging won't be required.) SnowFire (talk) 18:14, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)Sorry, SnowFire, but a major edit like that without explanation is the sort of thing that I would usually revert on sight, with my own edit summary along the lines of a more verbose "rv unexplanined". Then discuss later. Big changes need explanation, and a merge is a big change. Edit summaries take only a few seconds to type, and they are the best way of ensuring that other editors can readily understand what you have done and why.

Anyway, good luck reaching a consensus on what to do here. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:25, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ANI

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Jbh ^Talk 01:51, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was planning to leave this note in a single message along with a notice that an arbitration case has been requested because of your use of admin tools to engage in edit-warring to overturn an XFD case. Please see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case for the latter. Nyttend (talk) 02:01, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Nyttend: You really are not used to having your admin actions challenged, are you? Have a read of WP:ADMINACCT. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:10, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just a head's up: The AN/I thread has been re-opened, as the arbitration case is very likely to be declined. See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#BrownHairedGirl_and_categories. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:54, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Indents

Hi BHG. Nice to be interacting with you again, though sorry that I am talking and alternative position. Anyway, on indenting. You "fixed" my indenting. [16]

However, I have over the years been told, sometimes strongly, that :::* indenting is wrong, bad, awful, atrocious etc. See the most recent discussion at User_talk:Redrose64#List_markup. Apparently, I gather, the nice visual markup we see does not work for screenreaders. Does it make sense to you? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:04, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi SmokeyJoe, nice to talk to you again. Hope you be keeping well.

And no prob about disagreeing. That's how it goes :)

As to the indents, I try to stick to the multiple **** format ... but the problem is that once someone has used :::* indenting, attempts to use the *** format in subsequent comments breaks the display. Since that thread had already gone over to :::*, your use of **** produced ugly effects. That's why I changed it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:17, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Quick note

Hey it occurs to me that you're using the word "aggressive" frequently and you just disclosed how this word is related to your personal life, which is very regrettable to begin with. Please note however that your writing style in general may be taken as aggressive too, by certain editors, in the sense that your mere writing style may strengthen them to disagree with you even while they know they're actually wrong. A more moderate tone of voice may at times be more productive. (Fair enough with me if you immediately remove this note from your talk page.) Marcocapelle (talk) 19:02, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that observation, Marcocapelle. It was well-intended, so I certainly won't remove it. And I will think about it.
Would any of my friendly talkpage stalkers like to comment on Marco's observation? I'd be genuinely intersted in feedback.--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:11, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, BrownHairedGirl/Archive. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.— GoldenRing (talk) 11:23, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I don't see your writing style as aggressive, and I do agree with you that Nyttend's seems to be. Especially, threats of actions to be taken (and especially when stated by an admin) would be difficult not to take as aggressive. I have interacted with Nyttend before, though not for some time now, and it has nearly always been rather unpleasant. Omnedon (talk) 13:35, 10 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Swimmers

Just a quick heads-up. Your use of Cat-a-lot to move Category:Male swimmers to Category:Ghanaian male swimmers resulted in Category:Sammarinese male swimmers, Category:Haitian male swimmers & Category:Guam male swimmers being categorised as Ghanaian. Oops! All fixed now. Cabayi (talk) 13:04, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Damn!

That was really clumsy of me. Thanks v much, Cabayi, for spotting it, for fixing it, and for being so nice about it.

I'll take more care in future. Thanks again, and best wishes --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:53, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Kuwaiti female bobsledders

A tag has been placed on Category:Kuwaiti female bobsledders requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and it is not presently under discussion at Categories for discussion, or at disambiguation categories.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. —swpb^T 16:23, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl and categories arbitration case request declined

Hi BrownHairedGirl. The Arbitration Committee has declined the BrownHairedGirl and categories arbitration case request, which you were listed as a party to. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 07:58, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Cedric Manhoef

Hello BrownHairedGirl, can you put back this article please for me? It was already created some years ago, but it didn't meet the rules, criterias of Wikipedia regarding kickboxing. Since then, this guy is top 10 in the world at lightweight. #6 actually, highly ranked. http://liverkick.com/index.php/rankings Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Franco s (talk • contribs) 16:51, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Franco s

The article was deleted through the AFD process, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cedric Manhoef. So I cannot simply undelete it.

However, there may be other things I can do to help, so first a question for you. Are you sure that you now have enough sources to demonstrate that the problems identified there have been resolved, and that you can create an article which does meet the notability guidelines at Wikipedia:Notability (sports) and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Martial arts/Kickboxing_task_force#Notability? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:03, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

People[edit source]

A kickboxing athlete is presumed notable if they've: fought for a world title of a major organization or promotion (K-1, WMC, ISKA, WAKO-Pro, Glory, It's Showtime, WKN, WBC Muaythai, PKA (through 1986), WKA (through 2000)), been ranked in the world top 10 by a major, preferably two, independent publication that meets the definition of a reliable source, or been a Lumpinee or Rajadamnern champion.

Of course, he is ranked world top 10 by LiverKick.com publication. #6 lightweight actually. Please check and undelete. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Franco s (talk • contribs) 17:05, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Franco s, as I noted above, I will not simply undelete the article.

Now, to the evidence you supplied:

Do you have a link for the actual page with supports your claim?
The guideline prefers more than 1 publication to list him in the top ten. Is there another one in this case?

... and finally, please sign your posts. Instructions are at WP:SIG. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:14, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Kickboxing only has this site. He beat many top 10 fighters and is also ranked top 10 now. http://liverkick.com/index.php/rankings — Preceding unsigned comment added by Franco s (talk • contribs) 17:18, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Women's wheelchair basketball players

I have a problem with the moving of Category:xxxx female wheelchair basketball players to Category:xxxx women's wheelchair basketball players. Obviously, the two are not the same thing. Since the women notable enough to have articles invariably play in mixed competitions as well, you have to add them all to Category:xxxx wheelchair basketball players. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:09, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Hawkeye7

AFAIK, I moved only those categories which I had just created, per WP:C2E. Since the parent categs are named "FooCountry women's basketball players", I see no need to depart from that naming convention.

There is no need to place the articles also in the ungendered parent category. The fact that a woman plays is eligible to play in women's basketball obviously does not preclude her from playing in mixed competitions, just as men and women tennis players can play together in mixed doubles, but are categorised by gender. Please also note that I have cross-linked between two sets of gendered categories. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:37, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No, the two are not the same thing. One refers to men who play wheelchair basketball, the other to people who play men's wheelchair basketball. Except at the international level, there are only mixed (eg NWBL) and women's (eg WNWBL) competitions. There is no men's competition except at the international level. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:42, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Hawkeye7, Please stop mass-changing my work. I will restore the categories as I crated them, then we can discuss. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:44, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Hawkeye7, OK, I have restored the categories. Please let them stand while we discuss. (Sorry for he slight delay while I finished another task).

I really think you are making far too big an issue of the linguistic distinction. I take your point about the predominance of mixed competitions, but it is those who play at international level who are most likely to be notable per WP:GNG and WP:SPORTSBIO. The majority (probably the overwhelming majority) of the articles in the categories are of international-level players.

And in any case, I think that it is a semantic distinction with little practical difference. Whichever label we put on it, it's exactly the same set of people .. so why not just stick with the existing naming convention? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:23, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That would be the case if notability could only be garnered from wheelchair basketball. Take, for example, Eric Boulter. His notability is as a swimmer. So he has only played NWBL, ie only mixed basketball. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:06, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, @Hawkeye7, and he's probably not the only one like that. But so what? He's a wheelchair basketball player, eligible to play in men-only games ... but plays in men+women's games. You are reading into the title an exclusivity of meaning which isn't there. The title is "men's wheelchair basketball players", not "men-only wheelchair basketball players". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:19, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. He's eligible to play octopush too but... We can define the categories to mean whatever we want; it's just that they lose usefulness if we don't understand them. But I'll leave it up to you. You're the one with the brown hair. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:58, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Trump

Hi BrownHairedGirl. Not sure if you are aware of this, but another move discussion has been opened at Talk:Trump over whether Trump should redirect to Donald Trump. Considering the rather thorough move discussion that was closed just months ago, a moratorium should be put in place.--Nevé –selbert 01:25, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

CFD question

Hi, this diff you removed Category:Northern Ireland MLAs 2016– but you didn't seem to add it to WP:CFD/W. I'm not entirely familiar with the CFD process, but I'm just wondering if the category will be moved? st 170e 14:11, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi St170e

Sorry! That was simply an error on my part. Now fixed[17], and the bot should get to work soon.

Many thanks for pointing this out to me. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:15, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thank you! st 170e 14:19, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

All done now. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:32, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Murdeshwar

Respected Madam, I saw on Wikipedia Murudeshwara page that you had earlier participated in a discussion about my hometown Murdeshwar. I request you to revisit the page and provide your expert comments about my new posting on the talk page of Murdeshwar. I am new to Wikipedia and do not know how to contact members for getting help. It is my earnest request to all experienced members of Wikipedia to help me in getting back the correct spelling of my home town. In my humble opinion, a mistake made by the first author should not be allowed to carry forward. Please take some time out of your busy schedule and help us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Murudeshwara — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.218.204.92 (talk) 23:24, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comment on Talk:Atrocities in the Congo Free State

Hi, I know it probably falls out of your area of interests on Wikipedia but I wondered if I could possibly ask you to take a look at the discussion at Talk:Atrocities in the Congo Free State and give your comments as an admin? It's a little-edited topic and, considering the lack of third-party feedback in the article, I'm worried that the confrontation could escalate. Seasons greetings, —Brigade Piron (talk) 18:02, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Brigade Piron, and Happy New Year.

I have taken a look at the dispute there, and have formed some preliminary views. There is clearly quite a large divide between the two sides, and the issues are big, so I am going to sleep on this and have another look tomorrow. Then I will respond properly.

Best wishes, --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi BrownHairedGirl. I'm sorry to bring this up again - I had hoped that this dispute was over but the user has returned to the article. He/she is continuing to ignore my comments (as well as those of two other users) and is getting increasingly belligerent and incoherent. (I suspect that part of the problem results from the user's grasp of English language.) I have never come across a situation like this before on Wikipedia and wondered what options there are to proceed further? Given the user's apparent inability to engage in reasonable and productive discussion - and the fact that his/her arguments keep shifting - I am pessimistic about the likelihood of a good outcome. —Brigade Piron (talk) 22:22, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have raised this at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Dispute with Lx 121 on Talk:Atrocities in the Congo Free State but have had little response from actual Admins. Could you provide a comment? —Brigade Piron (talk) 21:36, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Brigade Piron

I am very sorry that having promised you a few weeks ago that I would contribute, I have not done so. This has not been an easy time offline, so I have been avoiding difficult stuff on en.wp where possible ... but I should have kept my promise. Sorry.

On my way to ANI now. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:47, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My ANI comment is here[18]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:20, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi

Need to contact you re leane family information pls — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.194.62 (talk) 00:43, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Merger discussion for Ivan Boteju

An article that you have been involved in editing—Ivan Boteju—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Dan arndt (talk) 03:38, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thomas Thornley

Hello BrownHairedGirl, I just saw this ticket at OTRS. The customer claiming to be a relative of Thomas Thornley believes that the spelling of the surname should be Thornely not Thornley so can you please investigate a little bit. Cheers – GSS (talk|c|em) 12:50, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi GSS, and thanks for the headsup.

I can't view the ticket. Please can you give me a link to the page concerned, just so that we can be sure we are talking about the same article?

Thanks! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:56, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I'm talking about Thomas Thornley sorry forget to link in my comment above. GSS (talk|c|em) 13:06, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No prob. I guess you knew that the link was in the OTRS ticket, and were unaware that I lacked access to that.

Anyway, thanks for the link. I am checking it now. Will reply substantively when I have checked. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:19, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sure take your time and I think this image published by National Portrait Gallery, London help you a bit. GSS (talk|c|em) 13:52, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, GSS.

I have had to divert a non-WP issue, but my initial checks reveal that your correspondent is right: Thornely was consistently used by multiple reports in The Times newspaper, and in Hansard. Together, I think that those two give a definitive answer.
The name used is an error in an unreliable source, viz. Rayment, and when I created the article I should have gone with the spelling used in the scholarly FWS Craig source I cited.
I will try later today to collect the refs and fix the article. In the meantime, please would you be kind enough to thank the relative for pointing out the error, and to pass on my apologies for the mistake? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:22, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah! I also notice diffrent sources show diffrent spellings but the image published by NPG cleared my confusion. Sure I will thank the relative for pointing out the error, and will pass your apologies also if you are busy do you want me to move the article without leaving a redirect and fix the pages which link to Thomas Thornley? Cheers – GSS (talk|c|em) 15:37, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the offer, GSS, but the pedant in me would prefer to have the article updated with the refs in place to support the move. I will do it some time today or tomorrow. Is that OK? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:40, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, take your time

. GSS (talk|c|em) 15:45, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Have you managed to collect those sources to move the article? GSS (talk|c|em) 06:19, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl any updates reagrding the changes? Thank you – GSS (talk|c|em) 08:50, 31 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

narrow-gauge stuff

This discussion relates to the closure of Talk:Narrow gauge railways in Saxony#Requested_move_16_January_2017 (permalink)

Thanks for being the one admin brave enough to close this mess. But as noted, I'm disappointed. Unhappy even. And thinking of filing a move review. I've started to draft it at my user subpage User:Dicklyon/mrv (which will need a subst: obviously). If you have constructive comments, or, unlikely I know, decide to let it influence you to modify your close, I'll be interested to see. I haven't really decided yet whether to go this route, versus straight to an RFC, which I can see the logic of as well. Just thought I'd give you a head's up on my thinking re your close. Dicklyon (talk) 07:42, 31 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Dicklyon, and thanks for your message.

You are of course quite entitled to open a move review if you want to.
But I have a question for you: why a move review rather than an RFC?
Whichever option you choose will take similar amount of work for you and other editors. The difference is that an MR may settle the issue for one article, but an RFC will likely settle it for the whole set of articles. Why chose the less productive path?
I did read your draft MR. My own view, which you are of course quire entitled to reject, is that much of it comes across as rather obsessive and point-scoring against other RM participants, and very short on AGF. As such, it does not seem to me to cast you in a favourable light. As I say, that's just my reading of it; YMMV.
So I would suggest three things:

Ask yourself what you want to achieve here: a win of a single article, or a broad consensus? And which is those two paths is more compatible with Wikipedia's principles of collegial working?
Take a day or two to mull this over. When I have been annoyed by a closure, I found that at least one night's sleep before further action lets the annoyance pass and helps me focus on what I really want out of the situation.
If you still want to proceed with a review, have a re-read of WP:MR. It seems to me that you might have missed some of it.

Just my suggestions. It's your decision, and whatever you decide: good luck.

Brest wishes, --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:30, 31 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I will certainly take my time and think about it. The trouble with an RFC for me right now is that it should really be drafted by someone more neutral, and I'm unsure where to do it. Suggestions? Dicklyon (talk) 15:17, 31 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Dicklyon I suggest drafting an RFC jointly with someone who takes the the opposite view to you. That way, if you are both happy that it is fair and neutral, it probably is.

There are some suggestions at Wikipedia:Writing requests for comment. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:25, 31 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

BAGBot: Your bot request BHGbot 3

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Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67

Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.

Technical news

When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.

Obituaries

JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

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