User talk:Despayre/Archive 1

Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, Despayre, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• Tutorial
• How to edit a page
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Maelefique ^(talk) 22:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

budget

I don't answer general article question on my talk page, that's what the article talk pages are for. And if you start throwing around accusations, I'm not going to answer entirely. I added another source for the budget. I'm sorry that everything isn't a mouse click away, but sometimes you have to actually use print sources. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:05, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Star Trek Portal

I'm glad that you're expanding the portal, however, you should not add a section header to portal contents like this...
== Example ==
and you should only use images that are free from copyrights, use any image from the commons not the Wikipedia • S • C • A • R • C • E • 02:13, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Use any image that is located here • S • C • A • R • C • E • 02:17, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

See Portal:The Simpsons, it's considered to be one of the best portals on Wikipedia, also see Portal:A Nightmare on Elm Street, I created it entirely by myself without a single edit from another user. Also, you should probably continue discussion on the portal on the portal's talk page • S • C • A • R • C • E • 08:16, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Star Trek Portal

Hello, Despayre. You have new messages at Portal talk:Star Trek.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

• S • C • A • R • C • E • 12:41, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Whale shark weight

Hi Despayre

Thanks for your message. My reference is the South African publication, Two Oceans page 256, and the authors are pretty expert so I tend not to doubt what they say. However, I see that Leonard Compagno, who is THE world shark expert, doesn't give a max weight (you may have seen his book co-authored with Dando and Fowler, Sharks of the World), and it is possible that that may be indicative of some uncertainty as to the reliableness of the data. On the other hand, I do know that sharks get to a certain length and then start to seriously bulk up -- a 6m great white, for example, is a monstrous thing, which is to say, doing a straight line extrapolation on the weight of a smaller animal (as you have done with the whale sharks you saw off Mexico) will absolutely not work in practical terms.

I hope this information is of use to you.

regards

Seascapeza (talk) 07:58, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Copy edit review

Hi, Despayre, and thank you for your interest in copy editing. I am happy to help you out by reviewing these two articles and showing you additional improvements that I completed. The first article I looked at was Archives for UFO Research. On the first edit, I used some scripts to fix dashes and un-link common terms. I also used asterisks to create a bulleted list. People viewing the site with a screen reader will immediately realise that they are being presented with a list when you format it that way. On the second edit, I did some more clean-up and copy editing. The punctuation mark goes before the closing ref tag, not after it. The term "approximately" is not required because it is obvious that the number has been rounded off. Terms are linked only on the first occurrence. Use of "etc" is considered too informal for the encyclopedia. The website does not need to be listed as an external link as it already appears in the article several times. I cleaned up the grammar and punctuation. It is normal to have information in the lead that is repeated elsewhere in the article, as the lead is supposed to summarise the article.

I will look at the other article tomorrow. Hope this advice is helpful! --Dianna (talk) 04:40, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

The second article, Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, is already at Good Article status and is undergoing a peer review, which is a step on the way to Featured Article status. That's the reason why it's already in really good shape. Thanks again for your interest in helping out with copy edits. -- Dianna (talk) 02:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

GOCE March copy edit drive

Invitation from the Guild of Copy Editors The Guild of Copy Editors invites you to participate in their March 2012 Backlog elimination drive, a month-long effort to reduce the size of the copy edit backlog. The drive begins on March 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and ends on March 31 at 23:59 (UTC). Our goal for the drive will be to eliminate the remaining 2010 articles from the queue. Barnstars will be awarded to anyone who copy edits more than 4,000 words, and special awards will be given to the top 5 in the following categories: "Number of articles", "Number of words", and "Number of articles of over 5,000 words". We hope to see you there! – Your drive coordinators: Dank, Diannaa, Stfg, and Coordinator emeritus SMasters. 19:33, 20 February 2012 (UTC) >>> Sign up now <<< To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

Albion class landing platform dock

Hello Despayre. Thanks for joining in our copy editing efforts. I saw your note about Albion class landing platform dock on the requests page and took a look. You did a nice job on choice of wording, although you did overlook some rather strange commas and a non-sentence. I've done a quick tweak, and here's the diff. If you'd like to discuss any of it, please do (I'm watching this page), and of course, if I made any mistakes please correct them. Best regards, --Stfg (talk) 18:35, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I think you're talking about that sentence with the tractors, and yes, that was apparently where the coffee started wearing off! I re-read that this morning and thought "that doesn't make sense", but didn't have time to correct it before I left for work, but had made a note to fix it today. And good catch on the 8th ship being actually the 9th. The only change you made which I didn't think was needed was in the section at the bottom, with the sub-heading "HMS Bulwark". That section is only about that one ship, so I would have thought it's unnecessary to state the name of the ship again to start off that second paragraph. "The ship" seems shorter, and doesn't lose anything. But that's minor minor too, I think. You definitely improved it from where I was, and I'm just glad you didn't find 50 things! Thanks for the look-over. --^Despay_re (^tal_k) 21:12, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, the one with the tractors. The reason I changed "the ship's" to "the Bulwark's" there wasn't from any feeling that the subject was unclear, but to avoid repetition, since "the ship's" is used in the next sentence. You get this a lot in popular culture articles especially, with sentence after sentence of "the show this, the show that, the show whatever, ..." (and "the singer", "the song", "the film", etc). It gets very wearing. Possibly I've become over-sensitised to it, but I think on the whole it's best to refer to things by name or by pronoun, and only use oblique phrases when there's a reason. Best, --Stfg (talk) 23:25, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

That seems pretty reasonable to me. Also, I notice that I took 12 edits to get through all that. When you do your c/e-ing, do you try and keep it down to just a couple of edits, and do many different things at one time? I tried to go through in stages, looking at different things, rather than alter the article (which could be objectionable to involved editors) with a big brush all at once. I also find it's easier to disect that way, just wondering. --^Despay_re (^tal_k) 10:53, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

If I'd been doing the main copy edit, I'd have probably done about 12 as well. The reason I did this one in one was that I could see that what was needed of me would be quite minor, and could be done in one zip-through. Less waiting for the server to generate pages and display them :)

How you work is a very personal thing. For me, it depends on the size of the task. I don't like to have the edit window open for too long, so I usually go by sections, or even part-sections if it's complicated. I try to do everything for one tract of text in one edit if possible, rather than, say, editing for wording in one pass, then punctuation in another, things like that. Some exceptions are reference formatting and running the dashes script, where the whole article is operated on at once. But as I say, this is personal. If your method feels comfortable, it's probably efficient. Hope this helps. --Stfg (talk) 12:22, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey Despayre, I'm glad to see someone else interested in copyediting around here, the project really needs it. A couple thoughts on copyediting: editing per section is a very good idea if you are working on a relatively high-traffic article or you think others may be editing at the same time--it saves you from the dreaded edit conflicts. Also, if there are changes that you're unsure about, it's best to make them in their own edit so someone can revert them easily if need be. Some of the best copyeditors I've seen make a ton of small edits, and others try to do it in one or two passes, so I think it is a preference thing. One thing that I've found helpful personally is to look at experienced editors making changes at WP:FAC and note things that they point out. Then I try to look for them when I'm going over an article. Mark Arsten (talk) 06:07, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, that seems like good advice too. I am trying to not screw anything up too much right off the bat; I like to wait till I really know what I'm doing before I muck it all up. ;) Also, I was trying to stick to smaller articles and then stick that GOCEinuse template at the top. I was tempted to try the Adriatic one, but that seemed a little too daunting for me at this point. --^Despay_re (^tal_k) 06:58, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

That makes sense, wow, the Adriatic is quite large. Oh, and if you want to practice on a relatively small article, feel free to take a run through Elias Abraham Rosenberg. I think it's in Ok shape, but I've read through it so many times there's a chance I'm missing some obvious stuff. Mark Arsten (talk) 06:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

That one definitely looks more my size, I'll take a look and see what I see, thanks. --^Despay_re (^tal_k) 06:58, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Article copyedit

Hi Despayre, hope things are going well with you. I'm wondering if you would be willing to help with a copyedit of Ahalya? It was unsuccessful in its most recent FAC and has just undergone a significant peer review. The article's creator asked me to help out, so in addition to going over the article myself I thought I'd mention it to a couple skilled copyeditors I knew as well. It is a kind of long article, so if you don't have time/interest enough to go over the whole thing doing a section or too that would still be much appreciated. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:22, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Sure, I'll take a look over the weekend, I signed up for the copy edit backlog drive, so I'm trying to get through as many on that list as I can (and I'm wading my way through the big mess that is Megatron at the moment), but I'll stick my nose in over there too and see what I see (BTW, I think describing me as "skilled" might be over the top a little, but I won't complain!) :) --^Despay_re (^tal_k) 23:41, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll leave notes on that talk page just like that the last one I looked at, if that works for you. --^Despay_re (^tal_k) 23:44, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, any help is appreciated. I'm impressed that you're working on Megatron--that looks like quite a challenge. Well, even if you're not "skilled" yet, you'll be there soon if you keep practicing--my copyediting skill (or lack thereof) has really improved in the past six months or so. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:53, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Weekend turned out to be just a little overbooked, I will take a run through that article tonight. --^Despay_re (^tal_k) 21:18, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Oil Industry Safety Directorate

I suggest that possibilities other than deletion are options. See also Energy law. What do you think? Bearian (talk) 22:33, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Thomas Borgmann

Hi, Despayre. Thank you very much for your interest in helping out with copy edits during the GOCE March copy edit drive. As a routine part of the drive, a random copy edit of yours was checked for quality control. The article is in good shape, but here are a couple of further improvements I was able to complete. Those wacky Germans capitalise all their nouns, but we do not. I fixed several instances. You need to decide whether or not serial commas will be used in an article, and stick to that choice throughout. That's everything! Diff of Thomas Borgmann. I hope you find these suggestions useful. Thanks again for your participation! --Dianna (talk) 03:29, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

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William S. Sadler

Hi Despayre, I was wondering if you could take a look at this article that I've been working on, if you have time/are interested, of course. Any help would be welcomed though, feel free to make copyediting changes or leave suggestions on the peer review that I have open. You input was pretty helpful on Elias Abraham Rosenberg, I'm just about ready to try for featured status with it. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Interesting looking article! I haven't got to your last one yet (but ya, that one was a long one!) I probably won't get to this one before the end of the month either (at least with more than a cursory look-over) when the copyedit drive is over, I'm almost done an 11,000 word article, and it's painful :) It'll be more so if I don't get it done before the end of the month. I will definitely look at it as soon as the month is over. --^Despay_re (^tal_k) 03:33, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Sure, it could easily wait until then. Going over an 11k word article, wow. I just reviewed William McKinley at FAC (also 11k words) and it took me quite a while to get through it--and it was very well written. Going through a poorly written article that long would be herculean. Don't worry about the last one, I dragged a few other people into it, so it has turned out pretty well. I've realized that to get articles to top quality, I really need input from a number of editors. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:21, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Wow, 29 articles, good job--you had a busy month! Mark Arsten (talk) 16:08, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for all your help on the article, it's hard to find people who will go over articles in detail like that--I really appreciate it. Hopefully I'll be able to bring it up to featured status sooner or later. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:16, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

One-Shot Entanglement-Enhanced Classical Communication

I have removed the PROD tag from One-Shot Entanglement-Enhanced Classical Communication, it was kept as no consensus at a previous deletion discussion (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/One-Shot Entanglement-Enhanced Classical Communication, if there are copyright violation concerns, it may be eligible for deletion via {{db-copyvio}}, providing you can show where the source material comes from. If not, it will have to be nominated through the AfD process. Cheers. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 22:01, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

GOCE barnstars, March 2012 drive

	Copy Editor's Barnstar
	This barnstar is awarded to Despayre for copy editing 27 articles to a total of 49,707 words during the Guild of Copy Editors March 2012 Backlog Elimination Drive. Thank you for this fine contribution and for your care over matters of copyright. --Stfg (talk) 19:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

		Leaderboard Award – Number of words edited – 4th Place
		This Guild of Copy Editors Silver Award is awarded to Despayre for copy editing articles to a total of 49,707 words during the Guild of Copy Editors March 2012 GOCE drive. Congratulations on winning this prestigious award. Thank you for your efforts. --Stfg (talk) 19:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

		Leaderboard Award – Number of 5k articles edited – equal 4th Place
		This Guild of Copy Editors Silver Award is awarded to Despayre for copy editing 4 articles of 5000 words or more during the Guild of Copy Editors March 2012 GOCE drive. Congratulations on winning this prestigious award. Thank you for your efforts. --Stfg (talk) 19:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

		The 10k Copy Edit Barnstar
		This barnstar is awarded to Despayre for copy editing Shinji Takahashi (11,285 words) during the Guild of Copy Editors March 2012 backlog elimination drive. Thank you for taking on this major task. --Stfg (talk) 19:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

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GOCE March drive wrap-up

Guild of Copy Editors March 2012 backlog elimination drive GOCE March 2012 Backlog Elimination progress graph Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors March 2012 Backlog elimination drive! This is the most successful drive we have had for quite a while. Here is your end-of-drive wrap-up newsletter. Participation Of the 70 people who signed up for this drive, 40 copy-edited at least one article. Thanks to all who participated! Special acknowledgement goes out to Lfstevens, who did over 200 articles, most of them in the last third of the drive, and topped all three leaderboard categories. You're a superstar! Stfg and others have been pre-checking the articles for quality and conformance to Wikipedia guidelines; some have been nominated for deletion or had some preliminary clean-up done to help make the copy-edit process more fun and appealing. Thanks to all who helped get those nasty last few articles out of the target months. Progress report During this drive we were successful in eliminating our target months—October, November, and December 2010—from the queue, and have now eliminated all the 2010 articles from our list. We were able to complete 500 articles this month! End-of-drive results and barnstar information can be found here. When working on the backlog, please keep in mind that there are options other than copy-editing available; some articles may be candidates for deletion, or may not be suitable for copy-editing at this time for other reasons. The {{GOCEreviewed}} tag can be placed on any article you find to be totally uneditable, and you can nominate for deletion any that you discover to be copyright violations or completely unintelligible. If you need help deciding what to do, please contact any of the coordinators. Thank you for participating in the March 2012 drive! All contributions are appreciated. Our next copy-edit drive will be in May. Your drive coordinators – Dianna (Talk), Stfg (Talk), and Dank (talk) To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. EdwardsBot (talk) 21:58, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

test

tested -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 03:06, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

State of flux

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Speedy deletion nomination of State of flux

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Proposed deletion of State of flux

The article State of flux has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Dictionary entry WP:NOT#DICTIONARY. Already exists on [1].

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Thanks for tip

Sure, I get your point :) Wasn't sure if I should pipe up but the pointlessness of the issue's been annoying me all evening it's hard to stop myself now. Malick78 (talk) 22:32, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Jstor

Hi, Despayre. I see you have placed your name on the waiting list to get a Jstor subscription. Please let me know how this turns out. Thanks -- Dianna (talk) 01:17, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I will keep you posted, I also noted on the talkpage that you can get access if you have an address in Victoria State in Australia, I have friends with relatives there, so I might pursue that avenue as well. Also, have you seen the highbeam applications page? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 01:22, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

GOCE May copy edit drive

Invitation from the Guild of Copy Editors The Guild of Copy Editors invites you to participate in their May 2012 Backlog elimination drive, a month-long effort to reduce the size of the copy edit backlog. The drive begins on May 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and ends on May 31 at 23:59 (UTC). Our goal for the drive will be to eliminate January, February, and March 2011 from the queue. Barnstars will be awarded to anyone who copy edits more than 4,000 words, and special awards will be given to the top 5 in the following categories: "Number of articles", "Number of words", and "Number of articles of over 5,000 words". We hope to see you there! – Your drive coordinators: Dank, Diannaa, and Stfg. >>> Sign up now <<< To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. EdwardsBot (talk) 18:23, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

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Thanks, RS/N

Thanks for becoming involved in WP:RS/N! I've only recently noticed your participation, but it is valuable and helps the community. Thanks! Fifelfoo (talk) 22:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

"Secular Islam Summit" RFC

Hello. You're receiving this message because you commented in the RSN discussion of sourced criticism at Secular Islam Summit. There is now an RFC on the subject at the article's talk page. Please consider visiting the RFC to help build a consensus. Thank you. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Lies Agreed Upon

One Major Single Source & POV

Reference to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 120(Defence.lk), I have added the Tags "Single Source" and "POV" on Lies Agreed Upon.

Since you are involved on the above discussion, please discuss further on regarding the Tags added and the reliability of the content on Wikipedia based on the single major source.Sudar123 (talk) 20:43, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

NGO Monitor @ RS/N

Hi, I followed your suggestion at RS/N to simply use the two separate sources but this hasn't really helped. I'm now being criticised for SYNTH, so I was wondering if you might be able to weigh in at the dispute resolution noticeborard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#NGO_Monitor) with your reasoning for this not being SYNTH. Thanks. BothHandsBlack (talk) 09:24, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

My bad, thanks for letting me know. CartoonDiablo (talk) 23:54, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Proforma

You have been mentioned at WP:ANI#Incivility at Talk:Prequel. JJB 21:28, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Advice

I would appreciate it if you would advice me here. Its a bit urgent, hence the notice. Hope you're not too busy . Cheers! ~*~AnkitBhatt~*~ 13:56, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

GOCE May mid-drive newsletter

Guild of Copy Editors May 2012 backlog elimination drive mid-drive newsletter Participation: Out of 49 people signed up for this drive so far, 26 have copy-edited at least one article. It's a smaller group than last drive, but we're making good progress. If you've signed up but haven't yet copy-edited any articles, please consider doing so. Every bit helps! If you haven't signed up yet, it's not too late. Join us! Progress report: We're on track to meet our targets for the drive, largely due to the efforts of Lfstevens and the others on the leaderboard. Thanks to all. We have reduced our target group of articles—January, February, and March 2011—by over half, and it looks like we will achieve that goal. Good progress is being made on the overall backlog as well, with over 500 articles copy-edited during the drive so far. The total backlog currently sits at around 3200 articles. Hall of Fame: GOCE coordinator Diannaa was awarded a spot in the GOCE Hall of Fame this month! She has copy-edited over 1567 articles during these drives, and surpassed the 1,000,000-word mark on May 5. On to the second million! – Your drive coordinators: Dank, Diannaa and Stfg >>> Sign up now <<< To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 14:21, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

RSN

Hi, Despayre. I apologize for becoming a pain in your a** in RSN. I'm unfamiliar with the forum to know whether I'm now arguing with "uninvolved" regulars there or spillover from the other article. Thanks for your help! Location (talk) 20:38, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not a problem. We often see this kind of thing spill over from the article page to the RSN page. Comes with the territory I suppose. I just skimmed the talk page, and saw that with the exception of I think 3-4 editors, everyone else is involved. On principle, for your purposes, I would pretty much ignore their comments unless they bring up something new, that isn't supposition or opinion, they're only going to re-iterate what they already said on the talk page, they aren't looking to see what uninvolved editors think. That's been my observation after seeing this same drama at RSN many times before. You may also have noticed, that as soon as the "regulars" from an article start arguing, 3rd parties stop getting involved generally. Mostly they aren't interested in your article enough to argue. The short, simple, questions often recieve either obvious, or multiple, responses. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 20:44, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

What about this change?

Current text:

Please keep in mind that reliability depends on context (that is, on exactly how you are using the source). You will get a faster and more useful response if you include:

New text:

Before posting, please be sure to include the following information (if applicable):

A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:04, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

How about:

When posting, please be sure to include any of the the following information that is available:

? But between your 2 choices, I prefer B. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 22:13, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, we'll go with your wording. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:50, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

RSN activity

I noted that you were a little discouraged by the comments made against you on RSN. My advice: it will be forgotten in two weeks, so do not let it get to you. I have seen your edits on RSN and they have been objective (although you disagreed with me once, you were fair) and I see you as an asset for Wikipedia. I have seen too many good users retire over these types of issues, and I think you should not join them. Personal attacks etc. are not worthy of bother. You should just shrug your shoulders and forget them. In the long term, those making personal attacks usually get on the train to blockland, and it will be forgotten. You are making a positive impact, because WP:RS sourcing is a bedrock of Wikipedia. History2007 (talk) 20:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Editors can disagree with each other while using reason to interpret policy and documents. Editors can agree with each other while using different reasoning. Even worse, some editors may be correct about claims, but not about the reliability of the source they suggest supports the claim. Normally WP:RS/N only gets in trouble when fringe topics coincide with strongly held beliefs. Like History2007 says, it'll wash clear with 20 simple responses to people trying to use unedited blogs to prove that a celebrity has green hair or is Unitarian. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:36, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the words guys, I'm not so overly sensitive that I'm going to take it too personally, I just wanted to express my opinion. I think we get a lot more work done on RSN when we aren't hosting spill-over page disputes where editors argue the same thing they couldn't agree on in the first place. I don't have a problem with other editors disagreeing with my opinions at RSN (although, even though I have no idea about what opinion H7 and I disagreed on, I'm still sure I'm right . I do have a problem with editors that think we should change how the page functions because he's cranky that a 70 year old propaganda film should be the top of the RS chart for WWII, and then go on to berate me in various places throughout the page because of it. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 00:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, as long as you just shrug your shoulders and not let it bother you, that is great. History2007 (talk) 00:45, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

This is more a WT:RS/N issue, but ordinary editors can close threads on WP:RS/N and the normal "community of review" in the past has proved to be other editors who habitually edit WP:RS/N. I only try to close threads where:

• The result is WP:SNOW close, but editors are discussing the article subject. If it is SNOW but editors are having fruitful discussions of source reliability I let it run.
• The discussion is not in line with the purposes of RS/N due to discussion of the article subject
• The discussion has become stewed due to wall of text, or very long discussions by involved editors to the exclusion of 3rd party opinions
• The discussion has been complex, and involved parties and editors have made different conclusions using good reasoning, but the thread is going in circles (here I normally close, making a BOLD reliability decision, and only if I've not commented at all)
• Disruption, particularly due to collegiality issues.

I am reluctant to close if I've commented, and don't close with a summary of outcomes if I've commented unless it is clear SNOW. The 4th case is the most complex, particularly when civil editors in fringe areas with personal beliefs have been excellent and made excellent arguments. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Your perspective would be valued

There is a dispute about Sondra Locke's year of birth. Some sources say 1944 while others say 1947. Because of this dispute, both years are listed in the opening sentence of her Wikipedia page. None of the sources that say she was born in 1947 are reliable. However, there are many reliable sources that say she was born in 1944:

Sondra Locke's marriage license [2] to Gordon Leigh Anderson on September 25, 1967 (available publicly through the state archives or Ancestry.com) lists her birthdate as 5/28/44. MSN movies [3] and the Internet Movie Database [4] say that she was born in 1944. A 1989 People magazine article [5] gives Locke's age as 45, correlating to a 1944 birth year. The Middle Tennessee State University yearbook from 1963 has a photo of her [6] appearing in a university production of Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible. For Locke to have attended a university during the 1962-63 semester, she would have to have been born no later than 1944 unless she graduated high school early, which is unlikely given that she makes no mention of it in her autobiography. Locke does not mention her year of birth in her autobiography. On 28 May 2011, Sondra Locke turned 67 according to ABC News [7], Yahoo! News [8], the Associated Press [9], Leigh Valley News [10], and The Boston Globe [11]; this directly correlates to her being born on 28 May 1944.

Sondra Locke's Wikipedia page, in my opinion, should only list 1944 as her year of birth. There is no question that she was born in 1944. I am requesting that you make this correction to Sondra Locke's page, because every time another user has made this correction, their edits have been reverted without merit. 131.239.63.5 (talk) 03:41, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note but you should pose this question at WP:RSN. If the sources are found to be reliable, and the other sources are found *not* to be reliable, then you can proceed on that basis. If the edits are still reverted, then you should take the problem to DRN or ANI, as the problem isn't with content, but with user behaviour. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 03:56, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, this particular editor's problem is that he is indefinitely blocked, and his edits keep being reverted because of block evasion. WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Excuseme99 for details if you are interested.—Kww(talk) 02:43, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. It did seem a little odd that he would bring that issue directly to my userpage since I have no idea who he is, or anything about that article. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 07:15, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Adam Dunn controversy

What is the policy for statistic dates? I have been listing the previous day because my stats updates are based off of information that is updated through the previous day. Any new information from the current day would not be reflected. AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 17:47, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

If you're referring to my comment at DRN, I was using the comment from Z. at the article talk page, where he explains the reason that the date will actually appear to be 1 day in the future. I don't know of a specific WP policy if that's what you're asking, I just meant for stats in general. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 17:51, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I was just concerned that maybe it is a bit misleading to say the stats are correct through today when really they are only updated through yesterday. And what does S. O. P. stand for? AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 18:08, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

That was my thought too,but apparently that's the style used by other RS sources for stats. Although having spent a few minutes looking at the link provided by Z, I cannot find any dates on the stats listed, so I will strike that portion of my comments. Thanks. SOP=Standard Operating Procedure. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 18:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying the abbreviation. I'm pretty sure that Baseball-Reference stats are correct through the previous day. I shall inquire about what policy to use at the Teahouse. AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 18:24, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

He now claims that my stats update was not correct, while failing to provide any evidence to support his claim. He also did not specify what was incorrect. AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 16:13, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I saw your suggestion on the noticeboard. What does ANI stand for? AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 16:19, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I have already filed an incident report at WP:EWN regarding the issue. WP:ANI is for more time-sensitive urgent matters, I think the response time for this doesn't need to be quite as immediate. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 18:51, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for intervening. AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 21:28, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Despayre, thanks for helping at DRN (and welcome to the dispute resolution community). Would you please close the thread, when you think that it's time, using the {{DRN archive top}} & etc. closing templates and syntax listed at the top of the DRN page? Again, thanks, and best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 17:32, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

No problem, but the behaviour only stalled, not stopped, and has now resumed, I have filed a report at WP:EWN , so I'd rather not hat the issue just yet, but I will close it in the next 24 hours if nothing new develops, thanks for the note. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 18:51, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks very much for your recent answer on my post on the RSN [12]. It was really helpful and well thought out, and I especially appreciated that you didn’t just answered my query, but actually went to the trouble of finding a better source for the article! This resolved the issue, and I have used your source on the article. So, I guess what I am saying is: thanks for going above and beyond the “call of duty”.--Luke Warmwater101 (talk) 12:26, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, glad I could help. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 13:42, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

anna-news.info@RSN

I also appreciate your response, though not in that matter. I'm a bit perturbed at the s/n ratio of that discussion which might just repel some of the regulars from weighing in. Perhaps you could contact some of the regulars directly? That's just a suggestion/plea. __meco (talk) 20:26, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

what does s/n ratio mean? Sayerslle (talk) 21:10, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

@Meco, it's friday afternoon on the west coast, let's wait and see who weighs in after work, or tomorrow (the weekend), it's likely other RSN regulars will have something to say, although, generally when the squabbling starts amongst the involved editors we generally get less involved because we don't feel like arguing with people that have some kind of axe to grind, when we don't really care about the subject in the first place (like what I'm trying to avoid getting dragged into), and yes, the S/N ratio is getting pretty high on this one.

@Sayerslle: Signal-to-noise ratio.-- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 23:43, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

This is extremely unfortunate, because the situation is not quite as your statement "when the squabbling starts amongst the involved editors" would suggest. I have presented the issue initially when posting the request for an assessment but have ostensively refrained from partaking in the discussion. The other three editors that have carried over the "squabble" from the article's talk page, Sopher99, Sayerslle and EllsworthSK, are all adamantly opposed to having this source being approved as RS. I'm obviously not attributing this filibustering as a conscious ploy on their part, simply for the blatant absence of rhetorical acuity among them all, but they are nevertheless succeeding in their objective. __meco (talk) 07:35, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I've gotten that impression from them. Esp. regarding the red herring about the Libyan money, I've already said twice they were not RS for that statement, and I see that Ellsworth is still telling me it's not RS for that statement. *sigh*. We'll have to see if anyone else comments tomorrow. If not, I'll see if I can get an opinion either way about it from other regulars on the board. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 07:37, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar for May 2012 GOCE drive

		The Cleanup Barnstar
		This barnstar is awarded to Despayre for copy editing 4 articles and achieving a total of 14,748 words during the Guild of Copy Editors May 2012 Backlog Elimination Drive. Thank you for your contribution to the drive. --Stfg (talk) 08:31, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

He's at it again

Carthage44 reverted an update to Jose Quintana's page, claiming the stats were incorrect. I didn't find any errors and I asked him about it on his talk page. He then deleted my question. What recourse do we have to put an end to this? AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 03:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

At this point, I would say revert him, when he hits 3RR report him to WP:EWN. Support with diffs. I have been keeping half an eye out for this. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 07:13, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, I just don't want to get in trouble myself for edit warring. Besides, he may be too smart for that. AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 15:01, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Do not edit war. I want to be perfectly clear on that. Just for when I get hauled into the noticeboard too, again, DO NOT EDITWAR. ok, legal disclaimer done. Revert him, leave me a note. If he is reverting, he will get to 3RR before you will, we already tried to revert him without editwarring, we tried DRN, and we tried talk page, and we tried personal talk page, and I took it to EWN, and they said he hadn't done anything wrong yet. Admins can hardly turn around and with a straight face and claim we provoked this issue when we asked for help before already and they told us it wasn't an issue yet, on top of all the other steps we've tried. If he only does it once, there probably isn't much you can do about it other than revert him, try not to get annoyed that he's going to do it once every time you do it, and move on. Eventually you could try taking him to the Tendentious editing noticeboard that exists around here somewhere, but I've never been there (and couldn't find it just now when I looked). -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 15:16, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I'll let you know when he reverts my updates. AutomaticStrikeout (talk) 15:24, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

GOCE May drive wrap-up

Guild of Copy Editors May 2012 backlog elimination drive wrap-up Participation: Out of 54 people who signed up this drive, 32 copy-edited at least one article. Last drive's superstar, Lfstevens, again stood out, topping the leader board in all three categories and copy-editing over 700 articles. Thanks to all who participated! Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here. Progress report: We were once again successful in our primary goal—removing the oldest three months from the backlog—while removing 1166 articles from the queue, the second-most in our history. The total backlog currently sits at around 2600 articles, down from 8323 when we started out just over two years ago. Coodinator election: The six-month term for our third tranche of Guild coordinators will be expiring at the end of June. We will be accepting nominations for the fourth tranche of coordinators, who will also serve a six-month term. Nominations will open starting on June 5. For complete information, please have a look at the election page. – Your drive coordinators: Dank, Diannaa, and Stfg To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 15:24, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

RS/N post regarding The Zeitgeist Movement

Hi Despayre, this is regarding my RS/N post. Sorry about the wall of text. I generally try to be concise, but Goldberg's article is very long, and has many problems, and this is the only reason my post is long. Regards, IjonTichyIjonTichy (talk) 15:53, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Length of your article isn't a problem, it's your "analysis" that made it mostly too long to read. We don't need that at RSN since we evaluate it ourselves (for obvious reasons it's a bad idea generally to assume what ppl are supporting their arguments with is necessarily correct). All you really needed to put there was "here is the article (link), does this source (link source) provide an RS for this edit (link, diff, quote). Wait and see what happens. If you have further questions after you get some input, that would be the time to ask them. We look at a lot of sources there, and while everyone thinks their situation needs pages of explanation, really, from a policy point of view, it seldom does, for the purposes of RSN anyway. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 15:59, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Question

Out of curiosity, what is so significant or surprising about the quotes you linked to on your userpage? Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 22:25, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

It's the beginning of what I expect will be a very long list one day. With those 2 in particular, it's just surprising to me that someone can actually compare going to the pharmacy to getting nominated for one of the most prestigious awards on the planet, and actually use that as a defense of his position, as if that's a reasonable comparison and I should agree with it. If I ever get nominated, I sure as hell want people to know about it! If I win, I'm making it into a necklace I can never take off. -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 00:37, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

GOCE July 2012 Copy Edit Drive

Invitation from the Guild of Copy Editors The Guild of Copy Editors invites you to participate in their July 2012 Backlog elimination drive, a month-long effort to reduce the size of the copy edit backlog. The drive begins on July 1 at 00:00 (UTC) and ends on July 31 at 23:59 (UTC). Our goals are to eliminate the articles tagged in April, May and June 2011 from the queue and to complete all requests placed before the end of June. Barnstars will be awarded to anyone who copy edits more than 4,000 words, and special awards will be given to the top 6 in the following categories: "Number of articles", "Number of words", "Number of articles of over 5,000 words", "Number of articles tagged in April–June 2011", and "Longest article". We hope to see you there! – Your drive coordinators: Dank, Diannaa and Stfg. >>> Sign up now <<< To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list. Newsletter delivered by EdwardsBot (talk) 18:50, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Bad faith assumptions

Hello. Please explain your utterly bad-faith assumptions at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Howard W. Hunter. I think it's pretty clear that your comment there did not assume good faith, at the least. Thanks. →Bmusician 13:06, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

You're going to have to be more specific I think. You think it was a BFA that I assume he didn't read the instructions? Or did you think the lack of courtesy shown to me to begin with was a BFA on my part? People bring questions to RSN every day, we assume AGF, we don't assume they can't read, we assume they chose not to. Sometimes they get the template, (which fyi, I didn't put there, but would have if another editor hadn't already). As it clearly says, "Source reliability, or unreliability, can only be assessed in context." It then goes on to give examples for people that aren't clear on that concept. It's also listed at the top of the page, and on the edit page. I've now looked at his question more closely, and yes, it does fit into that format, if he'd like to ask it again instead of whining against his goverment, who I *also* don't work for, he might get a better response. Also, I see now from his latest reply that I am the reason that people leave Wikipedia...(and you're asking *me* about AGF??) to which I would suggest that not all departures are a loss to the project... I have no problems walking editors unfamiliar with the system through it, I do it every day, but when they are talking out of their ass, it's best to leave the attitude at home while they do it. We're not asking for anything more than grade 8 research skills here, if you don't have those, should you really be editing? And if you should, is giving other editors attitude at the same time the best idea? -- Despayre  ^{tête-à-tête} 15:06, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Sure: "... I refuse to help people that can't read 3 simple sentences in english", "We don't expect you to understand it all, which is why we have a template for people like you ...", "... sorry we're placing such a huge hardship on you" are clear bad-faith assumptions bordering on personal attacks. He was asking a question in good-faith - keep that in mind. →Bmusician 08:14, 26 June 2012 (UTC)