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Problematic redirect

Hi Doug. As you know, I've been scratching around at Heliopolitan Triad. I don't quite know what to do about this redirect. It was created in 28 September 2009. Per the user's history (and this old ANI discussion), is it possible that an article on "Triadic deities" was deleted to make way for the redirect? If so, could it be retrieved or reinstated? Or should I ask this elsewhere? Thanks, Haploidavey (talk) 14:51, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

@Haploidavey: I don't think so. We've got Triple deity which says "A triple deity (sometimes referred to as threefold, tripled, triplicate, tripartite, triune or triadic." Anyway, no sign of a deleted article. Doug Weller talk 16:44, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
OK, thanks for looking. I know the Triple deity claims to cover all, but they're actually quite different. Perhaps the difference isn't significant (per common name); but if so, I might address the issue in the Triple deity article. Haploidavey (talk) 16:53, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Govindaharihari

The only thing that works with such individuals is WP:DENY. Responding critically just rewards them with the confrontation and negativity upon which they thrive. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:29, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi Shock Brigade Harvester Boris. I take your point. I have expressed sympathy for them before when they had a family crisis, so they might pay attention. And if they don't, well, I gave them good advice and the more an editor ignores it.... 16:14, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
Hi Doug. Firstly, it is wrong that I had to stumble on this section with my username as a title witout any notificataion at all - I did very much appreciate your supporting caring comments previousely. Boris Shock Brigade Harvester Boris linking my contributions to a troll are what they are and I reject them. User:Coffee's actions are for all to see - I don't support administrators that violate wp:policy and guidelines - on a block for violation of wikipedia guidelines I expect them all to reapply for their advanced privileges, we can all disagree on that but I am a worthwhile contributor for years and I am not a troll, thanks Govindaharihari (talk) 13:15, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
@Govindaharihari: I thought you should know that you did not WP:PING Shock Brigade Harvester Boris into your reply. You merely linked to them as you did when you created a comment, signed it and saved it. If you later return to edit your comment and use {{u}}, it will not provide them a notification. The template plus the signature inside a single saved edit is what triggers the notification. Mkdw talk 04:44, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Vindicating Subjective Terminology

Mr. Weller,

You found it necessary to revert my recent edit of the use of the word "myth" to "account" on the Exodus page. You explain that my edit causes other links and references to not make sense. I am not in a position to argue that point presently. However, the use of the word "myth" in reference to the Israelitish Exodus from Egypt is entirely subjective and prejudicial. By definition it is an "account" recorded in the Bible. Its degrees of historicity are a matter of scientific inquiry, such as the work of the notably Egyptologist David Rohl. If it is a fact that an objective characterization of this historical account places an entire page or portion of a page in conflict, then it is the page that is illegitimate. As I read everywhere that it is Wikipedia's express intention to summarize objectively, leaving the use of the term 'myth' in place is a clear violation of that intention. Jesrbryant (talk) 23:11, 16 April 2017 (UTC)jesrbryant

@Jesrbryant: It is a classical creation myth and described as such by Jewish and Christian writers, but this discussion belongs on the talk page, not here. Doug Weller talk 17:52, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Price Chopper (supermarket): Second pair of eyes...

Happy Monday! Could you, or one of your TPSes, kindly take a look at this article, and the new SPA contributor who seems to believe I am "trolling" for reverting his addition of a list of locations of a grocery store? Now that I have been personally attacked I am staying away from this contributor and article. Thanks! - Julietdeltalima (talk) 17:05, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

@Julietdeltalima: editor warned, thanks. Doug Weller talk 17:53, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Your patience is ledgendary!
You didn't even fork me while I was performing quality assurance. I hear you are on a diet anyway...

Thank you for all of your hard work and patience. Did I mention patience and hard work? Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 21:33, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

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208.184.157.60

208.184.157.60 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

Hi,

How come you only blocked this IP for 72 hours, when the previous block was for 3 months? Regards. 111.221.44.13 (talk) 20:10, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Good question. I'm not sure, possibly because the Rickles edit wasn't vandalism so far as I could see. However, given the edit summaries it's the same person who was vandalising last year, so I've made it 6. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 20:30, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Of COI

Hello. Although I was around a long time before creating an account, I was also mostly oblivious to the WP procedures at registration time, which is quite recently. I have used the Teahouse when I had similar questions before to avoid being considered to canvas administrators, although this time I'm not sure if it would be adequate because of its very public nature. You're an admin editor I've often seen around over the years and who I respect, so I hope you don't mind if I ask this question here.

WP:COIN has a warning about outing, and I'm not sure exactly what the outing threshold is (which is also why I prefer to not ask directly at COIN or the Teahouse). When doing some citation cleanup work I came across the Al-Mulla Group article, then tagged it for primary sources and COI, and also added to the talk page the Connected Contributor template including editors from the history who seemed to be single purpose accounts and/or had a company related user name. I never have used that template previously.

Hence my questions: 1) I had no edit conflict there, as my only editing was to merge a redundant citation (other than adding the tags). I also see no evidence of fighting at the talk page. So theoretically, I don't have to report the case at COIN, I think? 2) If I indeed don't have to report this, were the tags I added still appropriate, or could they be considered inappropriate outing? 3) Or, should I leave both tags and still report at COIN?

Thank you very much for your time, —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 04:07, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi PaleoNeonate. I don't think this is outing. I'd say leave the tags and report at COIN, but let's ask a colleague of mine, DGG, who does a lot of work in the area of paid editing. Doug Weller talk 16:11, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. Pinging @DGG:, as the above had square rather than curly brackets. —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 14:28, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Paleoneonate,looking at that article, it seems quite sufficient just to add the template, exactly as you did--and to call it to the attention of an experienced contributor--as you also did. . The COI is quite obvious, and anyone looking at it will draw the same conclusion you did.Outing normally refers to private information, and I see no need of it; I do not think that naming of individuals would be helpful. (I'm not clear if you meant to imply that you too had some connection with the group, but even if you had, a change such as you made is innocuous.). As for the user, there is an obvious username violation, and I placed the appropriate notice and block. Anything similar you come across can best be reported at WP:UAA-- usernames for administrator attention. As for the article, it's about as straightforward as they come, but it still needs some adjustment, and I'll deal with that also..
If it should happen in the future that you do have confidential information about abusive editing that you wish to report, the way to do it is not by posting on wiki, where everything is public and permanent, but by sending an email to Doug or me (or any other arbitrator, checkuser, or oversighter) through the email function of our user pages. This keeps confidential qhat needs to be confidential. DGG ( talk ) 08:26, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
@PaleoNeonate:. Doug Weller talk 11:27, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
Thank you both. I will keep the conversation here to avoid fragmentation, unless requested otherwise. @DGG: this answer was very helpful. I am wondering: is there a reason why Almullagroup and Almulla123 can remain (I have also listed those on the talk page template)? For the connection question, I have none and happened to notice this article when doing routine citation cleanup editing. When you said: "I do not think that naming of individuals would be helpful" do you mean that perhaps I should not have included PCbahl as part of the list (which may be a shorthand for a real name)? Or is it only related to your last sentence about more private information that should only be reported more privately if needed (i.e. if I was involved)? Thanks for the offer to accept mail about such future issues. So other than tagging COI-obvious corporate usernames, I'll report them to UAA in the future. Thanks again, —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 17:58, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
  • (talk page stalker) Just pinging in here. COIN is a board for resolving behavioral disputes and disruption that arise when an editor has a declared COI or an WP:APPARENTCOI and is not following the COI guideline or PAID policy. These disputes generally arise when people disagree about content, and one (and sometimes both!) get a sense that there is some undeclared external interest driving things. A good resolution at COIN is one where the person or people who have COI understand that they need to disclose it and stop editing directly, and this ultimately allows the content dispute to be resolved. But if there is no dispute there is no need to go to COIN. If you have cleaned up content that was created by someone with a declared or apparent COI and you are concerned that they might come back and restore their bad content, just watchlist it. If it becomes a dispute then you can bring it to COIN for help. Does that make sense? Jytdog (talk) 18:33, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
@Jytdog: Thanks for confirming. COIN reporting would indeed be inappropriate in this case at this time. —░]PaleoNeonate█ ⏎ ?ERROR░ 19:22, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Please help me with the dark matter

"Dark matter is an unidentified type of matter distinct from dark energy, baryonic matter (ordinary matter), and neutrinos whose existence would explain a number of otherwise puzzling astronomical observations.[1] "

Could you please distinguish what is meant by the first sentence? It is ambiguous. For instance, with the addition of em dashes the phrase, "Dark matter is an unidentified type of matter -- distinct from dark energy, baryonic matter (ordinary matter), and neutrinos -- whose existence would explain a number of otherwise puzzling astronomical observations," would clearly mean that the dark matter's existence would explain a number of otherwise puzzling astronomical observations. As the statement is written, the neutrinos' existence could be explaining the puzzling astronomical observations. 

Emerimerie (talk) 01:40, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
Hi Emerimerie - that's really a question for the talk page of the article, where you might get editors with more knowledge than I have. I share your confusion. Doug Weller talk 10:27, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
I have revised according to my understanding. Dudley Miles (talk) 12:21, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

IP hopping shivamj

Hi Doug. What do we do about this guy? Their IP keeps changing and he/she seems to be on an indic script mission of some sort. [1] --regentspark (comment) 17:29, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Damn, @RegentsPark: meant to reply. I really have no idea other than ani. Doug Weller talk 19:33, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)

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11 years of editing, today.

Hey, Doug Weller. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee!
Have a great day! Chris Troutman (talk) 22:20, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #257

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Changing Special:NewProperty to not have a datatype selected by default (phab:T138295)
    • Restoration of deleted items broken on Wikidata (phab:T163144)
    • Making notifications when page is being connected to Wikidata ready to deploy (phab:T110604)
    • Writing basic documentation for WikibaseMediaInfo extension (phab:T159710)
    • Hiding header image gadget when sitelinks are floated below the statement section (phab:T160530)
    • Making the "add" button display the "add Form" form (phab:T162342)
    • Getting the datatype to link to tabular data sets on Commons ready to deploy (phab:T160048)
    • Showing supported data formats in Special:EntityData (phab:T162870)
    • Setting meta name="description" on article placeholders (phab:T157466)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.


Whisperback

You have new message/s Hello. You have a new message at Kudpung's talk page. 22:11, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

References on BI#Jacob’s Birthright - Ephraim and Manasseh

Both the books just added as refs on British Israelism#Jacob’s Birthright - Ephraim and Manasseh ([[British Israelism#References Allen[26]& Codjoe[27] at the moment) are published by publish-on-demand i.e. self-published. I just added the ISBN for both. That would' seem to be somewhat questionable? Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 21:48, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

@Jim1138: Yes, definitely. WP:SPS. Both of these new editors seem to think it's fine to use selfpublished sources, or almost any non-critical sources. They are editing from the POV of two opposing sects. I'm guessing one of the reasons WB removed the details about the BIWF, once extremely important in BI, might be be because of its racist and antisemitic elements. Esp. The Australian branch and I think the Canadian. You can't get away from the fact the movementioned, not just Christian Identity, has it's racist elements.The other editor of course supports the BIWF and is a true believer. WB stonewalled on the issue at his talk page but has been studying it since 1983. The zBIWF article is completely sanitised and edited by an official of the organisation but I'll be posting some sources on its talk page. Reuben Sawyer who helped found it was a big kkk guy and has a German article. If you look at my contributions I'm trying to create an English one.
WB quotes WO :undue but uses Codjoe who isn't just sps but not significant. I think we have a problem with these two editors. It was always a poor article and there's reMs of good sources virtually unused.. Wish I had more time.Doug Weller talk 05:55, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
You know Doug, I'm just trying to get the main British-Israel POV out there. I'm leaving the criticism to others, as I've always found their arguments to be weak and personal. If you're not happy with codjoe, remove it. You need more, I'll find them. If you do a book search on 'Anglo-Israel' there's over 19,000 results.
Let me just add. I'm fixing up the references in question right now. But that point made about the blessings on the three tribes is such basic BI.. so fundamental, so well known and understood in the literature, that it's like saying 'Babe Ruth was a baseball player' (citation needed). Wilfred Brown (talk) 23:24, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
As for the 'fringe examples' edit. What I found interesting was it was added to the page by an anonymous editor using only their IP, based in St. Louis. That's rather odd isn't it? There's only one single other entry with that IP. But somehow this random individual feels they can do that with zero conversation. Don't you find that disturbing? I know I do. Wilfred Brown (talk) 22:54, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
I removed the details about BIWF? Show me. Wilfred Brown (talk) 23:13, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
@Wilfred Brown:. Here.[2] Yes, we've had too much IUP editing but that's allowed and I doubt it will ever be forbidden here. It's up to other editors to catch it and often even those who have a page on their watchlist miss edits. Google book searches need to be treated very carefully. They often turn up books with no mention of what you're searching for, something I don't understand. That search term also shows unrelated stuff such as the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society or Margaret Thatcher's memoirs, so it's hard to see how much is about this subject. And the 19,000 figure is weird also as it's clearly wrong. [https://www.google.co.uk/search?client=opera&q=Anglo-Israel&sourceid=opera&num=%i&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=ssl#q=%22Anglo-Israel%22&safe=off&tbm=bks&start=210 Here's the end of the search, 22 pages of about 10 entries each. A search on "Anglo-Israelism" is much more useful. The problem is always separating the wheat from the chaff. The article as it stands needs a lot of work. Obviously it needs to detail the core tenets, and I still say they are only a handful, less. And the main beliefs, which vary between different groups/sects/factions as I'm sure you know. It doesn't really deal with different factions and it needs to. I suspect you aren't terribly sympathetic to the BIWF or at least to the racist elements in it. I've had arguments with Yair Davidiy and he doesn't like me, but if I'm reading it all correctly at least he's aware of those problems. Do you know anything more? All these different groups are one reason why we need independent sources with an overview as well as sources from the movement. I'll also say here that there's no problem with believing in their tenets and saying you do so long as it doesn't affect your editing. We have Creationists who follow our guidelines and policies with few problems. And other Creationists who come here trying to revere our articles on evolution - they don't usually last long for obvious reasons. But Christians should be able to edit articles on Christianity, Jews on Judaism, etc. It's when the editor is an official of an organisation that conflict of interest comes in. And we expect editors who are officials to declare that. Scynthian has. Another editor might be but hasn't stated it and rules forbid us from WP:OUTING. The BWIF article is terrible. Bare bone but it was at one time a major force. Which leads me to another question. One problem is not knowing things such as is Brit-Am bigger than the BWIF. Again, I doubt we can find reliable sources, but it's an issue. Brit-Am no longer has an article partially because of a lack of reliable independent sources about it. It failed WP:ORG.
I removed that entry because the exact same point had already been made earlier, AND this was put under Herbert W. Armstrong. Wilfred Brown (talk) 18:42, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
As for the rest, I don't know. I only know what the fundamental beliefs of BI are, and how they came to those conclusions. When I stumbled up this article, it was a gross violation of NPOV. The BI stuff was nearly non-existant, and the references were poor. It's getting better, but I spend more of my time having to justify what the BI adherents believe, than actually adding them to the article in the first place. Wilfred Brown (talk) 18:51, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Cancel redirect for Book of Wisdom?

Doug, the article on Wisdom of Solomon, an obscure book of the Apocrypha, has been redirected to Book of Wisdom. So far as I know this title is never used. In my opinion the redirect should be cancelled. PiCo (talk) 12:02, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

@PiCo: I meant to click on books but clicked on GNews instead, and lo and behold there it was.[3] It's also in some encyclopedias, etc. So I'm not sure. Doug Weller talk 12:42, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Ok, Seems to be a Catholic usage.PiCo (talk) 13:47, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
And while we're about it, let's rename Darius the Mede as Darius the Median Strip. See if anyone notices.PiCo (talk) 00:24, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
Lol. Doug Weller talk 19:14, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Jansenism

A new editor has changed the wording to state that Jansenism was a heresy.[4] Is this not POV wording? A check of Hussites, Waldensians, and Catharism, shows that none of these groups are labeled as heresy in the lead paragraph. Thoughts? --Kansas Bear (talk) 18:24, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Minor edits

Hi Doug, I wonder if you could have a look at the editing history here: Special:Contributions/AlEmory. The recent edits are almost all marked as minor, while not at all being minor. The area seems to be right-leaning politics which I am not that familiar with. If you could review, that would be helpful. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:48, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

to let you know

hi. Just to let you know, a post on your page here that you responded to here - I have considered it as a wp:npa and have requested the user retract it, here. thanks Govindaharihari (talk) 06:20, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/MOS:GENDERID for genderqueer people

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/MOS:GENDERID for genderqueer people. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

British Israelism

I wanted to share this background on Christian Identity from the ADL, which I used when adding Christian Identity to the Terrorism article. The section is here, I'm not sure I was clear enough about the transition period, as right now it is summarized as Christian Identity's origins can be traced back to Anglo-Israelism. Anglo-Israelism held the view that Jews were descendants of ancient Israelites who had never been lost. By the 1930s, the movement had been infected with anti-Semitism, and eventually Christian Identity theology diverged from traditional Anglo-Israelism, and developed what is known as the "two seed" theory which may weasel around events during the transition period - I don't know much about that period, and it wouldn't hurt to have another knowledgeable editor look it over to see if anything significant should be added. As for some of the discussion on the British Israelism talk - it's widely accepted that dual seedline "theology" is antisemitic - but Barkun conflicts with the ADL source about dual seedline theology, which the ADL attributes to Swift. Also reword the seeds of anti-semitism have lurked beneath the surface, such as in Wilson's denial of the racial purity of modern Jews, the dismissal of them as 'un-Semitic impostors' - I can only access page 210, but it says nothing about denying racial purity being a seed of anti-semitism, and the term racial purity should never be used without quotation marks. Seraphim System (talk) 10:51, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict);@Seraphim System: Barkun's book which I now have says the two seed theory was first began to full appear in CI during 58-59. But I need to read more. I hope to find time to work on this more. Doug Weller talk 10:58, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Swift: Barkun says Adamites (whites) were created as the direct offspring of God before the Solar System and then sent to earth and given human formsa . The pre-Adamites, (blacks} were Lucifer's allies and came to earth from elsewhere in the Galaxy on spaceships. Jews are Lucifer's/Satan/s children via his union with Even resulting in their son Cain. Swift's ideas about this varied a bit as he wrote, eg Jews as descendants of Lucifer and fallen Angels. Jews were shape changers, all the colors other than white, Hittes, etc. Doug Weller talk 11:08, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
That sounds right - Eve and Lucifer or sometimes called "serpent seed theory" - same thing. So the part about "Edomite-Khazars" in the article may be confusing CI with British Israelism - British Israelism did not deny Jewish biblical genealogy at first, but by the 1930s had developed a quasi genetic theory about descent from the Khazars (again, this is based on the ADL source) - my understanding is these two theories are considered distinct, as the Khazar theory is still considered part of late British Israelism, but the article right now says the Khazar theory is part of CI (which according to ADL starts with Swift and the dual seedline "theology" that you described above). Seraphim System (talk) 11:32, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
And yes I have heard the same things about Swift, that only whites are descended from Adam and the other races are not descended from Adam, therefore they are not human thus have no souls so can not be saved - which under "normal" Christian theology salvation is extended to all. Seraphim System (talk) 11:35, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
For what it's worth, the relevant portion of p. 207 (continuing to p. 208) in Kidd: "Nevertheless, traces of an odd kind of anti-Seitism lurked in Wilson's Saxonist Hebraisism, for he did not acknowledge modern contemporary Jews in terms which they saw themselves. Rather, he went out of his way to deny the racial purity of their descent from the Israelites, and in particular the integrity of their genealogy in the line of Shem. Wilson noted that 'many of the modern Jews' were very dark complexioned, the result of 'having become so intimately blended with the Childern of Ham'. Pointedly, he reminded his readers that 'much is said of the fairness of ancient Israel'. . . . Thus, at best, British Israelism excluded modern Jews from the promises made to northern tribes of Israel, or worse, treated modern Jews as sham Israelites, certainly by contrast with the supposedly authentic claims of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant peoples to the status occupied in the sacred providential history by their supposed Old Testament ancestors." I have rephrased the summary on the BI page to stay a little closer. Agricolae (talk) 17:30, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
Ok I just got the chapter from the resource exchange also, I don't know who originally put that language in but I wanted to check that all the significant language was actually verifiable to the source. I would still put "racial purity" in quotes per WP:QUOTE Controversial ideas must never appear to be "from Wikipedia".Seraphim System (talk) 01:19, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
@Seraphim System: Any chance you could email me a copy? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 11:07, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
Sure, email me. Seraphim System (talk) 16:10, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Delete

Doug, can this silly article please be deleted? Descendants of Adam and Eve PiCo (talk) 10:33, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #258

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Working on Lexeme support - specifically grammatical features of Forms of a Lexeme and statements on Forms
    • Finishing touches on a new notification type for Echo. This will notify the creator of an article when it has been connected to an item on Wikidata.
    • The new d:Special:AvailableBadges list all badges that can be used for sitelinks.
    • Discussed implementation plan for Multi Content Revisions which are a building block for structured data on Commons (phabricator:T107595)
    • Worked on feedback for the constraints API and user script
    • Worked on database and access improvements to take load off a much-used database table

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.


Administrators' newsletter – May 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2017).

Administrator changes

added Karanacs • Berean Hunter • GoldenRing • Dlohcierekim
removed Gdr • Tyrenius • JYolkowski • Longhair • Master Thief Garrett • Aaron Brenneman • Laser brain • JzG • Dragons flight

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Miscellaneous

  • Following an RfC, the editing restrictions page is now split into a list of active restrictions and an archive of those that are old or on inactive accounts. Make sure to check both pages if searching for a restriction.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:19, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

talk:BI

Should I add {{ArbComPseudoscience}} to the top of talk:british Israelism? I noticed it was added to Talk:Institute for Creation Research and seems like a good fit for BI. Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 00:45, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

@Jim1138: I'd say no. Creationism is clearly a pseudoscience, BI is pseudo history. Doug Weller talk 07:13, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Can you have a look at this please

Hi. Does this fall under Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm? Please have a look at it, thanks. Bennv3771 (talk) 12:52, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

@Bennv3771: No, I see it as being like IJUSTWANNABEAGOODEDITOR or something like that. Not "want help" but "want to help". Doug Weller talk 13:02, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and emailed emergency and oversight. Jytdog (talk) 13:06, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Hi, thanks to both of you. To clarify, I didn't mean his username, I meant what he wrote in that link. Bennv3771 (talk) 13:16, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Damn. @Jytdog: thanks. Huge screen, small print, too focussed on the username. Many apologies, User:Bennv3771 you were spot on. Doug Weller talk 13:20, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
I reckoned that was what happened. Jytdog (talk) 13:35, 4 May 2017 (UTC)


American Gods (TV Series)

I'm concerned I overstepped a little here and am probably being too literal? I see now that you're attempting to diffuse the situation, which I do appreciate! The Red Queen (talk) 01:05, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

@Redqueenar: No, I think you're ok. However I hadn't seen the comment about the credits, and they can be used, they aren't speculation . Doug Weller talk 07:18, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
@DougWeller: Understood. Things got very heated and confused, I think. Anyone familiar with Norse myths would recognize "Low-Key Liesmith" and the novel isn't shy about it. The "spoiler" issue was that someone added info on the page's Cast List for Mr. World (played by Crispin Glover), identifying his real identity as the Norse God Loki. I redacted that myself. That Shadow's old cellmate, Low Key Liesmith/Loki and the "new god" villain Mr. World turn out to be the same person is the novel's twist ending. The audio-play version of the novel has the same voice actor playing both roles, but the TV series has notably hired a different actor for each role, Jonathan Tucker and Crispin Glover so I don't think the TV Series' intentions are as clear. The Red Queen (talk) 18:07, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of Descendants of Adam and Eve for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Descendants of Adam and Eve is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Descendants of Adam and Eve (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.PaleoNeonate (talk) 19:11, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

False memory syndrome

Greetings, Doug! The phenomena of False Memory Syndrome itself is not fringe science, it's an area of psychology and psychiatry and, interestingly enough, an aspect of magic and organized David Hume-class skepticism, complete with clinical as well as field studies which employ scientific methodology to observe as well as to implant-and-observe false memories.

I was heavily involved in the McMartin Preschool "child abuse" fiasco which involved false memory implantation in numerous children of very young ages as well as false memory problems among some of the adults who expressed strong religious delusions, to the point where eventually some of the more affected adults started to accuse law enforcement officers, District Attorneys, you-name-them of sexually raping their children as part of "Satanic rituals," among other false memories.

Because of the strong religious beliefs harbored by some of the adults, investigators, and because of the belief by Janet Reno (who involved herself and her office in the cases) in "Satanic Ritual Abuse" (SRA) wherein upwards of 300,000 children are ritually abducted, raped, murdered, and eaten by "Satanists" in the country every year. (Reno was not alone in that belief, it was a very common belief among Christian Republican extremists and still has a fairly large following.)

So the extant article covering False Memory Syndrome is accurate, it itself is not pseudo-science, there are academic research papers covering the phenomena and, of course, false memory implantation is part of the science behind why people believe they have been abducted by aliens. (One of the reasons. Michael Shermer, the Professor of History, was abducted by aliens while performing a long distance bicycle race however after re-hydrating and cooling off, no long-term memories of being abducted remained and of course cognitively he was aware of why he hallucinated. Other people harbor long-term false memories resulting from such transient brain issues, ergo False Memory Syndrome.)

So I don't think that the article warrants update or removal, it's certainly a science-based phenomena. The article itself need far more references and citations to the extant academic research. EDIT: Signing. Damotclese (talk) 16:40, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

@Damotclese: We all have false memories. So the issue is whether it's a syndrome, from what I've read it definitely isn't. No one has a disease of false memory. It's the claim that there is a syndrome that is pseudoscience. See these links. [5] [6] [7]

Please help me with this unruly sock editor

Hello, A known and extremely troublesome person who operates the account "Panrussia" is being vandalising the articles related to the Civil Services of India namely, Civil Services of India and Central Civil Services. He is vandalising the articles himself and calling others vandals. He's extremely rude to EVERYONE, yes to everyone! Not only that he's sock of "Vrghs Jacob", one of the most infamous socks on Wiki. Currently he's operating Motbag12, "Wikicab" and "Uncletomwood" and several other accounts which I'm not aware of in addition to the above mentioned account (Panrussia). I feel that a checkuser should be performed in this regard. Also, here's the reference and the updated list (as of 3rd April 2017) of the Central Civil Services of India (Group A) for your ready reference. http://document.ccis.nic.in/WriteReadData/CircularPortal/D2/D02adm/OMUpdationoflistdated03.04.2017.pdf It is an official circular of the Govt. of India and the file is hosted on Govt. of India's servers (National Informatics Center (NIC)) of India. The is the most recent list of services and the subject is to Update the list of services which has undergone several changes over the past few years. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.247.13.242 (talk) 10:47, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Don't ask several admins for the same thing, please, IP. Doug, I'm looking into it. Bishonen | talk 15:14, 6 May 2017 (UTC).

Thanks for the welcome

Hi, thanks for the welcome message. I know it wasn't automated since I joined a few days maybe a week ago. I was wondering what is the Wikipedia policy regarding attempting to intimidate other editors off of Wikipedia. I've been on Wikia for about a year and a half now and on there, there is an option when blocking a user to select "intimidating behavior or harassment" from a list of stock reasons to block. I ask because some users were leaving me talk messages threatening that i could be banned when I commented on an article talk page that raw footage of an incident should be considered a valid source. This behavior, if this user is doing this ongoing, is in my opinion, problematic for a site that already has a reputation of being unreliable. I guess I was wondering if you could speak to that issue? VanillaDazzle (talk) 15:39, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

@VanillaDazzle: I'm sure that it has a reputation in some political circles for being unreliable, but you should read Reliability of Wikipedia. I've only seen one message on your talk page about being blocked or banned, and that's a standard warning about violations of our WP:BLP policy. We take BLP violations extremely seriously but also believe that editors need to be notified about this policy and the implications of ignoring it if they violate it. Any editor can leave such messages on another editor's talk page. Editors have a right where it's practical to be informed about such policies and the consequences of violating them, although editors are likely to be blocked if they start from the getgo with violations. The best thing for you to do is to listen to experienced editors and try to work with them, and assume that it's possible that they know policy and guidelines better than you do. Or to ask if certain policies/guidelines apply, rather than assert that they do. There's a steep learning curve sometimes here, depending upon the areas in which you edit. It's unfortunate that you have started with a huge misunderstanding of Wikipedia. Oh, there's a bit about my roles and responsibilities on my user page if you want to see some of my Wikipedia background. Doug Weller talk 16:48, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
@Doug Weller: So how is it that sources which are acceptable when writing a publishable research paper can get a user banned on here? You do know that even sourced papers (sources but lower standards than research papers) in college are not allowed to use Wikipedia. Wikipedia states that they want to be taken seriously. Accepting biased sources and banning people for sources that are normally considered the gold standard is not the way to do that. Raw footage of an event is not allowed, but biased lies reported by biased media sources are acceptable? Clearly Wikipedia doesn't care about their reputation, after all. I had hope for you guys, but having everyone lash out at me like this is huge turn off.
@VanillaDazzle: Wikipedia itself should never be used as a source. It's a tertiary source like the Britannica, and although studies have suggested it's more reliable than the Britannica it's not 'reliably published' (and even the Britannica is becoming user sourced). Unlike the Britannica though we build our articles on reliable sources (mainly secondary, not tertiary as you suggest) that we explicitly identify, so our articles can be very useful in both finding sources and showing different viewpoints on a subject (something most encyclopedias don't do as well if at all. Do tell me who was banned for using 'gold standard sources'. 17:56, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
The claim that Wikipedia is more reliable than the Britannica would be treated as risible by most academic scholars. Even a casual scan of Wikipedia indicates the opposite. The problems seem to be built into the basic editorial policies, notwithstanding the sincere efforts of the founding administrators to control these policies and make them fairer, providing for adjudication of contentious issues, use of reliable sources, and so on. Unfortunately, examples of extraordinary imbalance and non-neutral editing abound, reflecting the dominance of numbers of editors on one or another side of controversial subjects rather than truth. Those on religion and politics, as one would expect from this method of editing articles, provide the most blatant instances. Some examples from my own casual reading of Wikipedia over past years might be given. 1. I noted several years back, when I last consulted the articles on the Muslim Brotherhood and its founder Hasan al-Banna, that an earlier whole section that had given details about, and extensive footnote references for, al-Banna's close relations with Nazi Germany during the 30s and WWII, including his eager adoption of Nazi antisemitic views and literature such as the Protocols, was removed from the article altogether. The references included books by highly respected historians drawing on Nazi, British, American and other governmental archives from those years, as well of course as from literature publicly and openly available at the time. Despite edit wars on the Talk Page the majority of editors clearly were of one mind on this and therefore naturally prevailed. When I read the article itself, there was only glowing praise of Hassan al-Banna for his wisdom, piety, great authority and influence in the Muslim world. Clearly, editors reflected the fact that there were more pro-Muslim Brotherhood Muslims in the world than determined secular or at least non-Muslim Brotherhood critics. 2. An article on "Dying-and-rising gods," I noticed several years back, simply rejected references to research that indicated that these cults were common in the Graeco-Roman world, and stressed instead as the consensus that they did not actually exist at all back then, because the editors evidently were concerned that this might be seen as undermining Christian claims about Christ. 3. The article on the Russian invasion of Georgia, in the years immediately following that invasion, provided a full explanation of the Russian view that this invasion was justified and even requested by eastern Georgians, but suppressed attempts by other editors to put the mainstream and Georgian government view of the invasion, so it became clear that Russian editors were controlling the webpage and outnumbered the Georgian editors. 4. The article on "Israel and the Apartheid Analogy" when I last looked at it years ago was a primer on Palestinian propaganda, giving short shrift to pro-Israel voices, and with a Talk Page that was a nightmare of editors ganging up on pro-Israel would-be editors, blocking and expelling them. It is possible that these articles have changed now; I have not checked. But the basic flaw has not changed. What was a common element in all these instances, and many others that could be given, is that the subjects were ones in which there was a very large majority of editors belonging to specific groups having strong ideological, politicised and derogatory views of a minority of commentators whose views were suppressed. Wikipedia is therefore by its very nature as reliable as is, let us say, an opinion poll. Or, to take another instance of the same thing, the United Nations Human Rights Council. In such a system, numbers must determine "truth," and minorities tend to get very short shrift. The Britannica has certainly not been without prejudice too, at times, since scholars remain human beings and the prevailing climate of opinion can often be very discriminatory, but in general it has maintained a far more scholarly, unpolemical, judicious and balanced scholarly standard.110.22.140.136 (talk) 09:56, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Possibly, I assume you have read Reliability of Wikipedia. But I don't want to argue this in any case, and I made it clear that how I find Wikipedia most useful - for sources and to see a variety of points of view. Obviously people try to highjack our articles, and many have changed over time, some for the worse, same for the better. Wikipedia is of course often more up to date and good articles have sources that you can check. The Britannica article on Beta Israel (the article is called 'Falasha', not Beta Israel) has no sources, for instance, and it seems to have no article on British Israelism, and its article on Christian Identity is a small paragraph showing nothing about its history, in fact very little about it at all. And no sources. Doug Weller talk 11:20, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Question on which advisory website I should appeal to regarding the Pagani et al. source reference at "Beta Israel" article

Mr. Weller, you have suggested that I ask RSN to advise concerning the applicability of the Pagani et al. research report to the "Beta Israel" article. But when I go to that webpage, it seems to me that "reliability" is not really the problem. Please consult my comment and request on the "Beta Israel" Talk Page (section #4 entitled "paper "North African Jewish and non-Jewish populations form distinctive, orthogonal clusters,"). Could you clarify which advisory board would be the best for this case? And please also re-insert the reference to Campbell et al. back into the Beta Israel article, as also requested there. Thanks.110.22.140.136 (talk) 08:30, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi Doug,

I edited a page on Christianity under the topic Social Justice and most of the edit included quotations from the Bible. I included references to the parts of the Bible that were quoted but the edit was removed. Is the Bible not counted as a reference? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jole66 (talk • contribs) 11:40, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Non-free content

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Wikidata weekly summary #259

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Worked more on support for lexicographical data (specifically support for lexicographic category and statements on forms)
    • Dealt with issues after the deployment of automatic interwiki links for Wiktionary
    • Worked on constraint violation user script based on your feedback (improving messages to make it more understandable, layout, etc)
    • Add support for the following new language codes for monolingual text properties: brx, chn, cop, gez, quc, kjh, nr (will become available in a few days)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

There is a discussion at the Dispute Resolution noticeboard that may interest you

This message is being sent to let you know that there is a discussion at the Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding the article Oath Keepers. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Talk:Oath Keepers. You are receiving this notice because you have previously commented at that talk page. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. MelanieN (talk) 17:47, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Gmirkin?

Hello Mr. Weller,

Have you ever encountered the work of Russell E. Gmirkin? While perusing some books in Cain and Abel department (the good old "BS" section in the Library of Congress system), I noticed a book of his titled Plato and the Creation of Hebrew Bible (2017)—arguing that the Pentateuch was compiled at the Library of Alexandria circa 270 BC. (This book is published by Routledge and labeled "Copenhagen International Seminar". In the introduction Gmirkin says it's a sequel to Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus. Hellenistic history and the Date of the Pentateuch, 2006.)

If you have run across Gmirkin, what's your opinion of him? I see that he's cited in 19 Wikipedia articles but not much discussed in the text.

Do you know if there's presently a Wikipedia article which discusses Hellenistic influence on the Torah?

I'm asking you because you seem to have a lot of expertise in articles related to religion and mythology.

Cheers, groupuscule (talk) 22:50, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

He seems ok even if not everyone agrees with him @Groupuscule:, I was looking for pages where we interacted, which we have in the past, and found this amusing post mentioning both of us.[8] But a m not an expert on him and it was a long time ago when we were on the same lists. As for your other question, searching within Wikipedia results in this. Doug Weller talk 06:28, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
OK, thank you, I may try to use some of his work somewhere on a page about bible authorship. Now that I know you and he are one and the same I know I can expect your help and guidance in this matter :-) groupuscule (talk) 12:51, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
@Groupuscule: The really funny thing about that nonsense is that Jeffrey Gibson is some sort of relation of mine. Doug Weller talk 19:10, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film

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Reverts

It is a pointless piece of advice to tell me to cite better sources when I have cited among the best. As the reverter ought to recognize. I shall no longer waste my time and expertise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smommss (talk • contribs) 21:51, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Tabriz

Population for Tabriz is wrong right now (after you undid the edition). The 1.7 million population mentioned in the box is for the Tabriz county as it is mentioned in the reference file. It looks to me you haven't looked into the reference. The 1.8 million inside the text (in introduction section) is for the metro. Again please notice the reference before reversing undoing the edits.--F4fluids (talk) 19:58, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

@F4fluids: the source is [9]. Where does it say it is the 2016 survey? Do you mean "metropolitan" when you say metro? Doug Weller talk 20:18, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
I cannot find an official 2016 census report. Doug Weller talk 20:28, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
See [10]. Doug Weller talk 20:58, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
See [11]--F4fluids (talk) 21:38, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
@F4fluids: That's the source I linked. Where does it say it's the official 2016 census results? Doug Weller talk 07:03, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
@Doug Weller: No, as it is mentioned at the bottom of the page you cited it is only up to 2011. The other link that I shared belongs to the statistics center of Iran the same center that conducts census and shows the results for 2016 [12]--F4fluids (talk) 17:05, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
More detailed information can be obtained from [13]. Unfortunately the link is only in Farsi language (the official language of the country).--F4fluids (talk) 17:11, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Precious four years!

Precious
Four years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:28, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

This one! Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ethnic_groups/Archive_15 Jytdog (talk) 21:59, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Policy

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Wikidata weekly summary #260

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.


Hispanic–Latino naming dispute source

Hi Doug, on my user page you indicated I had made an edit which was in quotations. Could you please let me know the source of the information that is within the quotes. I did not find any sources to the information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tierraman (talk • contribs) 04:17, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tierraman: Looking at the revert in question, I see that the source of the quote was immediately after the quote, that the citation included the quote, and that the citation also included a link to the Google books copy of the source. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:34, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi Doug. Thanks very much for the quick reply. I was referring to the quote that states as follows: Some authorities of American English maintain a distinction between the terms "Hispanic" and "Latino": Though often used interchangeably in American English, Hispanic and Latino are not identical terms, and in certain contexts the choice between them can be significant. Hispanic, from the Latin word for "Spain," ... potentially encompass[es] all Spanish-speaking peoples in both hemispheres and emphasiz[es] the common denominator of language among communities that sometimes have little else in common. Latino—which in Spanish means "Latin" but which as an English word is probably a shortening of the Spanish word latinoamericano—refers ... to persons or communities of Latin American origin. Of the two, only Hispanic can be used in referring to Spain and its history and culture; a native of Spain residing in the United States is an Hispanic, not a Latino, and one cannot substitute Latino in the phrase the Hispanic influence on native Mexican cultures without garbling the meaning. In practice, however, this distinction is of little significance when referring to residents of the United States, most of whom are of Latin American origin and can theoretically be called by either word— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tierraman (talk • contribs)

@Tierraman: I'm not Doug. I see that in this edit, a user trying to clean up the references accidentally removed the citation, which was an inappropriate link to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. I've restored the citation with The American Heritage Dictionary as the source. Ian.thomson (talk) 07:41, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

If this is a quote, it is quoted incorrectly. The link provided does not have the quote at all and the American Heritage dictionary's comment on usage, which I believe Wikipedia is referring to is not the same as quoted in Wikipedia's article. Please advise on how to correct. Thank you...Tierraman (talk) 08:38, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I see that the usage section was updated. I've copied the new quote accordingly. Ian.thomson (talk) 08:57, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
@Ian.thomson: Thanks very much for helping with this. I've been on my exercise bike, at gym, breakfast, etc up to now. I left a note in my edit summary about this quote but this morning while on the bike I was able to fetch this link using Wikiblame, found on the article history page by clicking revision history search. @Tierraman:, I still don't understand why you changed the first quote. Doug Weller talk 09:19, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
@Ian.thomson: Yes thank you for helping me with the incorrect quotation that was being used in this article. @Doug Weller: I was working on a series of statements in this article with inconsistencies and the link provided did not lead to the source used in the Wikipedia article. I attempted to clarify the information in the entries at which time you pointed out to me that these were quotations from an external source. I researched further and found the source. I found that some of the issues I was attempting to clarify was indeed already changed in the sources "usage note". I then returned to your page and asked how I would go about updating the quote (not wanting to step all over someone's work)and ian.thomson changed the quote himself on Wikipedia to reflect the updated information on the sources website. I hope this clarifies any questions you may have, if not feel please let me know. Tierraman (talk) 20:43, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Ferakp

User Ferakp constantly make pov edits on various articles. See this one:[14]. The same user was previously reported but nothing has changed[15]. 5.61.40.61 (talk) 20:49, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

What exactly is POV edit? Did you read the source? Weird, every single time I am trying to revert POV edits, I get reported by anonymous users.. Ferakp (talk) 03:31, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
Yeah i read the sources very well and i hope the admin will also read them too. Because some of your "additions" are not mentioned in those sources. 5.61.40.61 (talk) 05:31, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
(talk page gnome): If Doug Weller is too busy to be able to help, and discussion on the talk page, WP:3O or WP:RfC still failed, consider reporting at WP:ANI instead. Thanks, — PaleoNeonate — 04:22, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
This user was reported many times on ANI and related pages. Clearly it doesnt work. I hope Doug Weller will take an eye on him. 5.61.40.61 (talk) 04:52, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Antikythera mechanism

Since you're around, and RFPP has been a ghost town for the past three hours, mind slapping on 24 hours of obligatory Google Doodle semi protection? TimothyJosephWood 15:29, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability and notability

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Nehru College of Engineering and Research Centre

Wow! This is a rather extensive list of abuse claims: 1 on Nehru College of Engineering and Research Centre (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Jim1138 (talk) 10:19, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

@Jim1138: Amazing. I've trimmed the lead as rewritten the rules bit, but really don't want to get more involved, a timesink. Of course after doing that I realised it needs protection. If you request it I'll back you. Doug Weller talk 10:47, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
Definitely a time sink. Could have undone a dozen instances of vandalism in that time. Protection requested. wp:RfPP#Nehru College_of Engineering and Research Centre. It was busy last night. 300+ Huggle edits. Stayed up until 3:30. Need to get a life! Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 19:00, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Question

What went down with this? I was going to nominate the user for Autopatrolled but... probably not the best idea of they are in unsure copyright territory. TimothyJosephWood 20:02, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

To be honest I lost track. I am still not sure about this editor and note that he never responded to me. Hm, let me correct that. He did respond to me six years ago.[16] Doug Weller talk 20:41, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
Ah well. It wasn't immediately obvious from the article history what the violation was, but we can't really have someone with long term COPYVIO issues having autopatrolled. TimothyJosephWood 21:00, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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Puranic Chronology

A friend of mine studied about the history given in Puranas. Here you can find him. http://trueindianhistory-kvchelam.blogspot.in/ So, based on this only I edited, not without source.

Regards

Narayananm1998 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Narayananm1998 (talk • contribs) 04:10, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

@Narayananm1998: We can't use that sort of blog as a source. But that's not the important part. That section says clearly "The Vedic Foundation, for example, gives the following chronology of ancient India". In other words, it's an example. We don't need others and to change the dates so they are not longer sourced by the Vedic foundation is obviously something we shouldn't do. Doug Weller talk 07:16, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #261

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.


REVDEL email incoming

Hello, Doug Weller. 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.

EvergreenFir (talk) 19:20, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Mr. Weller, on the San Buenaventura de Potano page, an anonymous user - who appears to be the same person as "BerkeleyArchaeology" and a number of other sockpuppets which were blocked over the past year - has persisted in trying to add the material from the "International Journal of Archaeology" which failed to meet the reputable source criteria earlier. If there's any way it can be determined if "BerkeleyArchaeology" and the anonymous user are linked/sockpuppets, and the appropriate action taken, I would greatly appreciate it - this person has persistently ignored the guidelines and directions from multiple editors for years. Thank you for your help. Veritas20132014 (talk) 02:15, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

@Veritas20132014: The IP is pretty clearly the account editing logged out. But that's allowed - what isn't allowed is if the IP and the account edited at the same time on the same articles backing each other up, ie trying to hid their identity. Even if I used my Checkuser rights I couldn't tell you if they are one and the same, we rarely comment on IPs. At the moment there isn't enough recent disruption to take any action, but please do let me know if anything changes. Doug Weller talk 12:47, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Will do. Thank you again for looking into this.Veritas20132014 (talk) 20:31, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, and I have more questions for you, hehehe

Wow, nice page buddy, I am copying noticeboards from your page, very useful. Thanks for your help.

  • I came across several prominent biased pages. I just to see a "critical analysis" sort of BALANCED, FACTUAL, UNBIASED and NEUTRAL article. I am trying to contribute sincerely. Even when I mention my changes with rationale on talk pages, sometimes other editors just revert the changes without discussing. Any tips on how do I avoid this?
  • If I get reverted I usually leave additional comments on the talk page of the article as well as the talk page of the editor who reverted my changed but this wastes too much time and with same effort I can edit many more interesting articles. If I get reverted without any replies to my comments on article's talk page and my comments on reverting-editor's talk page, how many days is a good guide to wait before I restore if no response from the person who reverted my edits and never responded to specifics of my responses? Is it considered legitimate to revert? Your tips on fastest way to resolve and get my edits resotred if people are not cooperating/responding to my message or replying with fluff/vague?
  • In the context of the previous comment, how to handle someone gaming the system. E.g. On Birbal article there is lot of systematic introduction of POV base don biased "Islamic" (see, I am a fast learner, hehehe) agenda supported by two low quality essays in obscure books of small private publishes who are likely for self-publications (these are good quality reliable articles or from respected books or journals). I edited those out but Ugog Nizdast (talk) reverted it, I left my reply comments with detailed and specific objections and concerns on Talk:Birbal as well as on my talk page and on his Ugog Nizdast (talk), he used another suspected sock puppet account Drewmutt (talk) to issue me more warnings and revert my counter reply on his talk page using his second account (I suspect, please check their ip addresses to confirm if he is using multiple accounts to game the system. Somewhere on his page, he claims to RIGHT THE WRONGS and by his actions it seems he us going on with "islamization" of even "secular" topics such as [[Birbal}} using dubious low quality references in a convoluted and distorted manner. How do I handle this further as he has not responded for several weeks. Shall i simply remove the POV content? In future, how do I do it without wasting too much time.
  • Re previous, how to have them investigated if Ugog Nizdast (talk) and Drewmutt (talk) are one and the same sock puppet person using same or similar ip addresses and covering each other in pushing specific POV content across articles in systematic manner? Could you please review/investigate them? I assume that would be some kind fo "noticeboard', is it? Which one to list them on? Thanks.
  • How to get the "serial butcher" editors to cooperate? WHo just chop and chop and do not let much content stay on any article, and they hide behind rule book to warn and dump it, sometimes rudely, not in collaborative talk page discussion. Where do I report them or take them to, to get them to cooperate or mellow down?
  • How do I handle if the culprit for any of the above is an ADMIN? Where do I complain against ADMIN?
  • Where to ask for help to create large number of related articles on an important topic (e.g. all of national importance). For example, I created this article National Monuments of Geo-Heritage of India and there are several missing articles. it will take me long time to create all (which i intend to do), but with help I can easily get it done. Which noticeboard to post for such help?
  • Are there any automated tools to automate creation of multiple articles using same template and format?
  • Will I get slapped with ban or warning for manually creating those missing articles using same template and format and only modify the name and important information?


  • Is there any groupism, cover my back, lets gangup, kinda thing among ADMINS? I do not wish to engage in such stuff, I like editing and enhancing, not much onto picking fights, just do not want to see my hard working going down the drain specially its all in good faith with no bias, I expect editors to discuss on the talk page.
  • Where do I find the list of ADMINS or people I can go to for the specific type of help?
  • Are ADMINS paid staff of wikipedia foundation?
  • If unpaid volunteers, how are ADMINS appointed, criteria and process? (this could be a way to avoid lots of harassment from the fellow gaming and non-serious editors). hehehe

I have been reading guidelines and rules, a lot of it, but practical short tips that work will be make my life easy. Thanks. Being.human (talk)

@Being.human:That's an awful lot and I have little time to answer it all. Read WP:NPOV, we don't strive to be 'neutral' in the usual sense of the word.
I doubt very much that those two editors are socks puppets. They seem to be in different timezones, for a start. To raise an WP:SPI you'd have to have excellent evidence, cite diffs (links to edits) where there is something similar other than a pov, etc. I don't see enough evidence there to use Checkuser, which can look at IP addresses. I'd need a lot of convincing before I'd check them.
You can complain about Admins at WP:ANI but only if they are misusing their Admin tools. Otherwise they are treated as normal editors. Admins are not paid staff. See WP:RfA for how they are appointed.
If several people disagree with you consider that you might be wrong, not understand our policies and guidelines that well yet, etc.
Automated tools - ask at WP:HELPDESK about those and their appropriate use. And by the way I don't understand the title of the article you mentioned, why not National Geological Monuments in India? That would be clearer and match the category Category:National Geological Monuments in India. We don't have lists as you wanted, but we do have Wikiprojects on different subjects, look at some article talk pages. Doug Weller talk 17:59, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
@Dough Weller:
  • yes, I have used wikipedia in our corporate intranet and i know coding, so easy to pickup. I have been reading up a lot and your use page has lots good tools and article to learn from, by the time you replied, i realised some of my questions are obsolete after I have found the info on your page. Thanks for your effort to reply all. I am keen and sincere to learn with sustained effort and I have previous similar transferable skills from elsewhere. No worries.
  • Okay, not worries about the socks. I have left messages on their talk pages.
  • about disagreement, no one is, occasionally people just reverting without coming to discuss before and after revert on the talk page of the article. Shall I go ahead and restore edits (subjective, I understand, but in a commonsensical way) if people are not willing to discuss on the articles talk page?
  • I do not intend to report or disrupt others, that would be last resort but all that is good to know and reassuring to know there are checks and balances against abuse by people with special access rights.
  • re: National Geological Monuments in India and Category:National Geological Monuments in India, hahaha you are pedantic but cute hehehe ..because you are patient. And yes, you are right. You picked on the right stuff, before creating I had given it some thought, since you also brought it up, others too will in future. I will move the page as you suggested but I am thinking of a new National Geological Monuments at higher category level (with redirects from "National Geo-Heritage Monuments", I will explain the concept here and then future editors can link back their country specific articles here) article after moving the current one to National Geological Monuments in India

Thanks for your help. Above all, thanks for being KIND, rude editors abound. Cheers buddy. Being.human (talk)

@Being.human: You're off to a bit of a bad start, so I'd advise you to make sure you've posted to the talk page about why your edit was good, and wait several days. Wikipedia isn't an emergency. You don't need to ping me when you post to my talk page, I get notified automatically. I never can figure out why people spell my name "Dough" so often. If a ping fails, start a new edit and sign it, don't fix it, you can't. Ah, read WP:INDENT. Doug Weller talk 18:26, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I am very specific on the talk page, in each case I left details specific points on article talk page as well as user talk page. I have not undone any revert of my edits, I avoid edit wars. I have already waited several days for two reverts I had (actually 5 waited weeks already). Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Being.human (talk • contribs) 18:31, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
(talk page gnome) @Being.human: to answer your question about talk pages, it is not necessary to post both on article talk pages, involved editors' individual ones and yours. For article content discussion, the article talk page should be used (or for larger scope, the relevant Wikiproject's talk page; and you're right that they are not general discussion forums). For non-article content discussions (i.e. to warn an editor or ask an unrelated question), editor talk pages are fine. If someone reverts your changes (see WP:BRD), the article's talk page is usually where to start a discussion about it. And I agree with DW, leave the necessary time for others to answer, you can meanwhile work on other things. Categories also have a related talk page, so do templates. — PaleoNeonate — 20:33, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
@Being.human: one last note (I forgot, but it's important): also avoid fragmenting discussions; if they begin on the talk page the discussion should be pursued there, for instance, rather than being scattered at multiple places. I am not saying that you did that, but editors must also avoid canvassing (WP:CANVASS) and forum shopping (WP:FORUMSHOP), which I mention because they are partly related to discussion fragmentation. Canvassing is contacting multiple editors who are likely to agree with us when in a debate, and forum shopping is contacting multiple administrators independently at the same time (contacting one, or multiple via an administrator noticeboard is not shopping). I hope this helps, — PaleoNeonate — 21:08, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) @Being.human: You might want to read Wikipedia:Writing better articles for tips on how to write articles, and WP:BRD for the approach to take when reverting an edit or when one of your edits is reverted. Also see WP:3RR. When you write your article, you can work on it in your sandbox (see tab at the top of your page). If you want to, you can ask other editors to take a look at it before you "publish" it as a new article. You can check the Wikipedia:Manual of Style for guidelines on formatting, spelling, word usage, etc. You might also consider requesting a copy-edit of your finished article at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests. You can always post a question at WP:HELP. Good luck!  – Corinne (talk) 21:15, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Thanks PaleoNeonate and Corinne, I have taken your tips on board and copied the tags to my page for easy reference for myself and to help/guide other in future (WP:CANVASS, and forum shopping (WP:FORUMSHOP, WP:BRD reverts, WP:3RR sandbox review req, Wikipedia:Manual of Style, Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests copy edit. I am comforted. As for edits, I have been sort of lone ranger, creating articles and/or enhancing on my own, I might get roughly 5% reverts, mostly from the people whose preconceived biases I did not confirm, I handle those by comments on the talk page (so far no one ever replied to my comments on those article talk pages, those who reverted usually go silent once i start discussion on the article talk page, I am learning a lot of people are not at all using good faith, including the experienced editors who might be otherwise sweet to admins and oversighters but not to other members hehehe. if i start a discussion on an article's talk page discussion, then out of respect for the person who reverted me I usually post on their talk page too, no one ever replied except one with a vague answer. since I have been lone ranger, its been a trial and error journey. your tips confirm my learning, and your additional tips and tags you gave me are certainly useful. Big thanks. :) Being.human (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:11, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
@Being.human: if you encounter editors who edit or revert in a way that seems disruptive and never respond to invitations to participate to a discussion despite reasonable delays, Wikipedia:Responding to a failure to discuss may be useful. Among other things it mentions WP:3O to call uninvolved editors to comment as part of forming consensus for what should be in the article. You're welcome, — PaleoNeonate — 22:35, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
@PaleoNeonate:, thanks dear, that is useful. yes i create discussion on talk page and then wait for weeks but never went beyond it, so this has been good for me to reach out to other editors for the tips. thanks for all this, everything you gave so far is specific to my concerns and useful otherwise wiki helpguides are easy to get lost into.
@Being.human: I'm going to add another comment, but on your talk page. We shouldn't tie up Doug Weller's talk page any more.  – Corinne (talk) 00:28, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Listing of articles for deletion

I've recently listed an article for deletion [17] but I notice that it does not seem to appear on the log at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2017 May 22. This must be due to some stupidity on my part. Could you please explain what I've done wrong? Thanks. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 07:06, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, no time right now, and I can't see what went wrong. I always use Twinkle. Try the WP: Hekp desk Doug Weller talk 07:20, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
(talk page gnome) @Mzilikazi1939: It seems to have been corrected now. Afd2 template was not used at the top of the deletion discussion page. The other step was to add it at the deletion log for today, but when doing this I had an edit conflict with a bot that automatically did it. — PaleoNeonate — 07:24, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
@Mzilikazi1939: By your edit summary, I am wondering if perhaps you intended to use "proposed deletion" (WP:PROD) which is another less complex process than "article for deletion" (WP:AfD). In any case, CSD and PROD can easily be contested, while AfD will allow a proper debate to occur (which can still be speedied if the consensus forms for that). Thanks, — PaleoNeonate — 08:38, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks for the help. The article had been in place for a decade at least, so I judged that a simple proposed deletion might not be adequate. Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 09:55, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Blockbuster LLC

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Blockbuster LLC. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Clairvoyance (book) and non-fringe sources

Mr. Weller, can you please take a look at the discussion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Clairvoyance (book)? This is nonsense, when the works of the famous scientists such as the historian of Religions Robert Ellwood (PhD, professor emeritus) and the religious studies scholar Gregory Tillett (PhD) were qualified as fringe sources: see point of view of User:Alexbrn (nominator for deletion). (1) Thank you in advance. SERGEJ2011 (talk) 06:39, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

This message probably falls afoul of WP:CANVAS. In any case, people are not "sources"; but using theosophical books for a theosophical topic is a problem, yes. Alexbrn (talk) 06:52, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Reversion of links on Trundholm sun chariot page

Thanks for looking after Wikipedia if I messed it up unintentionally. I would not normally link to common nouns, but in this case, I thought it was beneficial to link to 'horse' and 'wheel'. My reasons were these: The article 'Trundholm Sun Chariot' describes very early human art depicting a horse and wheels, and I thought it would benefit readers of the article to find out when the horse was domesticated and when the wheel was developed in comparison with the date of this ancient piece of art. I thought the easiest way to do this was to link to articles about these, so that I linked to 'horse' and 'wheel' - common nouns, yes, but in this case, for this reason, I did not feel that it was overlinking.

Best wishes, DB

Boleslaw (talk) 12:04, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #262

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Attending WikiCite
    • Showing badges on other projects (phab:T73887)
    • Improving label tracking (phab:T151717)
    • Working more on statements on forms in order to support lexicographical data

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

Pashtuns

Can you please stop disruptive User:Saadkhan12345, he's removing things from Pashtuns article which he doesn't like, and leaves nonsensical comments on my talk page. Kojakkrags (talk) 04:24, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

i was trying to discuss the matter at pashtun article. not leaving nonsensical comment. you are removing referenced info and adding things with no sources. Saadkhan12345 (talk) 06:30, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
Saadkhan12345 should be blocked for disruption and restricted from editing the Pashtuns article. He made up his mind that he will revert all my edits. For example, I corrected a sentence here and he reverted it. It is common knowledge that the Pashtun Hotaki dynasty and the Pashtun Durrani dynasty ruled eastern Iran for roughly 100 years. Similarly, the Pashtun have an even longer history in Northern India. Malala Yousafzai is an internationally recognized face of a Pashtun female. Saadkhan12345 keeps removing her picture. The women's section is a separate section to the article. Kojakkrags (talk) 15:46, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
I've been to busy to look at this. Don't forget WP:VERIFY and WP:RS. We need academic sources for most of this. Maybe tomorrow. Doug Weller talk 18:28, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Request

Can you please review this? It's filed about a month ago. 103.200.5.88 (talk) 14:28, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 May 2017

"Your latest edit looks ago, but you must follow WP:ERA, particularly as you seem to have a misinformed agenda here. The author of this book teaches at a Jesuit university but uses BCE. This book[1] is published by the Liturgical Press, a Christian publishing house. This book[2] is written by a Presbyterian minister. I could show many more examples. I suggest you find something else to do. There's a lot of interesting things to do here. But if you're here only to get rid of BCE/CE, you are likely to get blocked from editing. Doug Weller talk 11:41, 23 May 2017 (UTC)"

Most people are not really interested in your cherry picking (finding some "minister" who uses BCE and CE to justify YOUR agenda). BCE and CE are not standard and are usually used by those pushing an agenda. You might want to note that BC and AD are still routinely used with none other than PBS, along with most scholarly articles and pieces recently published. Issues like this (with those pretending to have no agenda actually pushing an agenda--even if subtly) are the reason I never donate to Wiki. GrizzlyEchols (talk) 12:46, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

You're clearly unhappy here. We have policies and guidelines to deal with this kind of issue. If you don't intend to follow them you need to accept the consequences. My agenda here is to point out that we have a guideline and that your comments are uninformed. Doug Weller talk 12:59, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
I may be out of place here, if I may jump into the discussion, I chanced upon this. I do not know Dough Weller and I do not know GrizzlyEchols, I have not seen the article being discussed, but I would like to see a NON-RELIGIOUS SECULAR "CE" instead of any religious notions regardless of who actually wrote those. Somewhere in wiki guidelines reed RIGHTING THE WRONGS, for me this thing falls in that category to change religious dates into non-religious secular dating convention. if I want to read the topic, i want to read it without editors or authors religious POV/bias even if if was unintended and subconscious introduced. Being.human (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:07, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)This has been discussed many times since the beginning of Wikipedia. See MOS:ERA for the current policy. If you want to look at previous discussions, go to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers, and in the archive box at the right-hand side, you will see a blank search box. Type in either "era" or something like "CE", and you can read all the discussions going back more than ten years.  – Corinne (talk) 20:53, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

"...people are not really interested in your cherry picking". It's an idiom I've only ever known one other (similarly obsessed) editor use, and he was blocked indefinitely in 2014. Do we have a sock-puppet? Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 14:44, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on User:Guy Macon/sandbox

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on User:Guy Macon/sandbox. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Graham Hancock

Hi, sorry for the revert did at Graham Hancock article, I'm actually tried to fight the vandal IP User:91.75.70.30 just now, now have been blocked by User:Widr with an expiration time of 1 year, thanks to you for the thank button. SA 13 Bro (talk) 05:26, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2017).

Administrator changes

added Doug Bell • Dennis Brown • Clpo13 • ONUnicorn
removed ThaddeusB • Yandman • Bjarki S • OldakQuill • Shyam • Jondel • Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

Miscellaneous

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:40, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 04:31, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

RevDel

Can I get a revdel on this? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tripuraneni_Maharadhi&diff=780875545&oldid=780726594

He's about 100 miles off, but that's still a lot closer than I'm comfortable with. 74.70.146.1 (talk) 23:42, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

He made a poor attempt at doxxing me. 74.70.146.1 (talk) 23:33, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
Ah, I was concentrating on the edit and not the edit summary. But sorry, that's publicly available information. It's one of the reasons we say that editors are more anonymous with an account than they are without one. The IP was probably blocked with the account (an old one) that was indefinitely blocked. If they come back when the autoblock expires I may block them for the same reason the account was blocked. Doug Weller talk 10:09, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Argument against the Globe - Not a lesson in history but reality

Please tell me how a book title=Terra firma : the earth not a planet, proved from scripture, reason and fact; is #51 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Religious #955 in Books > History > World on Amazon is not to be considered a reliable source? Reminder, it was first published in 1901 and more recently in 2010. Just read the positive reviews on Amazon. If this was a dumb topic to consider seriously than why is it not losing popularity? It is also held in Cornell University Library. Knowledge should not be biased.RealGeo (talk) 15:33, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

@RealGeo: For the same reason so many Americans think man was created in the last 10,000 yeaers? Too much ignorance. And Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,122,835[18] Ignorance is not knowledge. The author was blind (almost) in more than one way. Doug Weller talk 16:32, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
And yet it moves. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:38, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
Heretic! Doug Weller talk 17:08, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
Are you saying that those who are too ignorant to believe the popular scientific consensus are wrong even with scientific provable evidence?

And are you claiming that if a source is not supporting the current accepted scientific consensus than it is unreliable even if the source has science proving that the earth is flat? Flat earth is not a theory but a fact. There is a growing scientific evidence and public debate on the flat earth.RealGeo (talk) 18:03, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Yep, I am. Which is not the same thing as saying it fails our criteria, although it does. Read WP:VERIFY and WP:RS. If you still think you can use such sources please ask as I said at WP:RSN and I'll reply there. If you don't do that, this is all a waste of time. Doug Weller talk 18:07, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
We are thought to trust science because it is based on facts and what is sad about science today is the fact that allot of people lost their faith in God because they were only showed the science that wants to disprove Him.RealGeo (talk) 18:49, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) History is full of religious scientists who have investigated the world and its wonders. If you want to know more, check out the Jesuits' contribution to that. For a few semesters, I had a part-time job at a university library specializing in physics and astronomy. In the back room there was a shelf devoted to crackpot physics. Just because a library has something in their collection, one should not assume it is a source of reliable scholarship. Just plain Bill (talk) 20:32, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
(talk page gnome) "allot of people lost their faith in God because they were only showed the science that wants to disprove Him": Science is not a conspiracy against God and it could not disprove its existence (or prove its inexistence). It may defeat myths and pre-scientific claims about how the world works, however. The goal is to understand how the world works in as much detail as possible. This curiosity cannot be restricted by taboo boundaries... Although we attempt to develop ethical considerations in what should and should not be done with acquired scientific knowledge and the technologies it permits to develop, that is of the legal domain more than a matter of faith. Faith is a very subjective and personal thing, sometimes a great driving force, which even scientists may enjoy (as Just plain Bill noted). Faith too does not necessarily have to be constrained by a particular tradition... "And are you claiming that if a source is not supporting the current accepted scientific consensus than it is unreliable even if the source has science proving that the earth is flat": this scientific consensus is not a sacred law code set in stone. It developped according to what could be tested and reproduced. It also keeps changing whenever new reliable information corrects previous misconceptions. Therefore yes, "proofs" that contradict the current scientific knowledge are most probably erroneous or misleading, indeed. They would otherwise be accepted, at least as plausible hypotheses, by the mainstream scientific community. —PaleoNeonate - 21:13, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
Just for clarity. Wikipedia itself is not a scientific endeavor. We, wikipedians, do not consider ourselfs entitled to judge Mr Scott's science or someone's else science. In scientific matters we are restrained to rely more on the author's credentials than on his arguments. The claim You are trying to insert is exceptional, so it would, probably, take no less than a member of a national academy of sciences of a major country (as the author of the source) to consider inclusion of such an extraordinary claim. More than that, even for scientific claims that are much less controversial than Yours, sources that are more than a hundred year old are not usually considered to be reliable for Wikipedia, because of the rapid progress in science. Эйхер (talk) 17:45, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Re: My edit on Australia's pre history page

Hi There, Just getting back to you from a while ago about the second note on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory_of_Australia

It reads: "The dominant view among archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists is that the earliest humans in Australia were among the ancestors of modern Aborigines. There is some evidence to the contrary. For instance, among the Lake Mungo remains, the mtDNA of the remains known as LM3 do not indicate a close relationship to modern Aborigines, according to "Mitochondrial DNA sequences in ancient Australians: Implications for modern human origins" (PNAS, volume 98, issue 2) by Adcock et al. This finding has not been widely accepted by the palaeoanthropological community." I can't exactly remember what I wrote to edit it to, but you have rejected with:

"But I've had to revert you. I'm sure you will be a very valuable editor but there's a real learning curve here and for academics sometimes the hardest part is outr no original research policy which doesn't allow personal analysis. It looks to me as though you are saying that the source was misrepresented. If so it's that that needs fixing. Let me know if you have any questions by asking on my talk page. Doug Weller talk 06:09, 20 June 2016 (UTC)"

Just wanted to clarify, the edit I am suggesting is to clear up the misinterpretation of the Adcock et al (2001) paper, and it's resultant misrepresentation. The Adcock et al paper does not state that there is not a close relationship between the LM3 remains and modern Australian Indigenous people, rather it states that based on the mtDNA insert sequence found in the LM3 remains, it is a much older lineage than was thought previously. This is different than saying "not a close relationship", the paper does not suggest that the earliest humans to Australia were not ancestors of modern Australian Aboriginals, in fact they assert the opposite. For balance, another recent study tried to verify the results of the Adcock paper, (Heupink et al., 2016: Ancient mtDNA sequences from the First Australians revisited, PNAS vol. 113 no. 25. 6892–6897) and were unable to.

Does an edit similar to the above sound acceptable to you? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tara-Lyn Carter (talk • contribs) 03:07, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

User talk:Tara-Lyn Carter Haven't had time today to look at this, but could you move the discussion to the talk page and I'll respond there? I'd rather it be there so others can see it later. You don't need to quote me there, just the paragraphs above and below your quote of me. Doug Weller talk 18:09, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Possible Sock Puppet Account

Dear Doug, While I've been editing and clearing up certain pages I've noticed that two Wikipedia users seem to keep undoing my work on certain articles without proper justification and I suspect that one of them is a sockpuppet account of the other. They are Jobas and the IP user 77.138.160.59. I have also found out that the user Jobas was recently banned for sock puppet accounts. Upon further investigation, the IP address 77.138.160.59 seems to edit the exact same articles in the exact same way that the user Jobas does. For example, both users have made extremely similar edits on the page "Christian Agnosticism" at almost the exact same time. Recently I removed a poorly sourced entry from the page "List of Christians in science and technology" only to have the ip 77.138.160.59 restore the entry. After I removed the entry again, this time Jobas restored the entry causing me to suspect that he is using sock accounts. I've noticed this on other pages as well. Because I cannot confirm that the ip address is a sockpuppet and because Jobas was already confirmed to be using one sock puppet account, I am requesting you to look into the matter. Thanks

@GrandPhilosophe: I suspect that you are correct. But the IP hasn't edited for over a month, so blocking it now would be pointless. Do however let me know if you find any other IPs editing in that fashion, as I'm not convinced Jobas can restrain himself. Doug Weller talk 18:23, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

User:173.72.248.77

Per your thanking me for a recent edit at Mound Builders, if you look at the IP in questions talk page User talk:173.72.248.77, multiple long running warnings for adding personal commentary into articles and not providing citations. Never seems to acknowledge any of the warnings, and as their recent edits show, they just keep on with the problematic behavior. Seems to be the same editor on a static IP, so it's not likely it's several different users but their editing is sporadic. Should they just be warned again or are stronger measures to get their attention in order? Or should I just go on my way and ignore them, lol. I'll defer to your judgement. Hope you are having a good one, Heiro 16:24, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

((re|Heironymous Rowe}} I've left them a clear but friendly warning and an appropriate welcome message. I agree it's probably one person. Let me know if they ignore it, that would be the time for a block. Doug Weller talk 18:19, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
Right on. Sounds like sound judgement to me. Heiro 18:53, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, Doug Weller. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 17:14, 3 June 2017 (UTC). 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.

GABgab 17:14, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Heh, you seem to have also seen what I saw. GABgab 17:15, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
For transparency's sake, I'd be happy to file an SPI. GABgab 19:57, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
Sorry GAB. Let me look at this tomorrow. Doug Weller talk 18:07, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
No worries, there are more urgent things in this world. GABgab 20:26, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Wikipedia policies and guidelines

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Legobot (talk) 04:32, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Avid Kamgar

Do you know of any information on an Avid Kamgar?[19] --Kansas Bear (talk) 22:48, 5 June 2017 (UTC) @@Kansas Bear: She's a scientist.[20] and no one, including me, has until today warned her about COI. She's been adding her book into various articles, has a problem with pov language. Doug Weller talk 12:15, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #263

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Discussions

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.


Maple345

They were at it again - e-making all the edits to Holy Cross of San Antonio that they were told not to make. They were right in the middle of it when I blocked them for 24 hours. I have removed the obviously wrong stuff - the school song lyrics and the non-notable alumni (would you believe they first deleted all the references from the notable alumni???). I'll leave the rest of fixing the article up to you; as the blocking admin I don't want to be WP:INVOLVED in content decisions. Thanks. --MelanieN (talk) 22:43, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

A bug to squash when you have the time

Ararat arev showed up on ancient Egyptian deities again, which means it will need protection again. Here is his latest IP address. A. Parrot (talk) 03:04, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)  Done -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:28, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Franzboas master account

Since you participated in the discussion about Dennis Brown's block of Franzboas, I'm pointing you to this, which presents some proposals for additional action. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:02, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Help!

I'm melting! I'm melting away! Jim1138 (talk) 04:39, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

@Jim1138: Lol! Doug Weller talk 05:27, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 9 June 2017

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:18, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Assume good faith

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Assume good faith. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Why was information about London Mayor Sadiq Khan consulting on defense of Zacarias Moussaoui removed?

Just clarifying why it was removed - not trying to battle over this, but am unclear what is incorrect or inappropriate about it, as it is well-sourced and true. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Proustfala (talk • contribs) 05:41, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #264

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.

Trying to post in discussion of deleting Donald Yates page

Good afternoon, Doug,

Thanks for your welcome and suggestions for guidance to this new editor. I'll undertake them. Lots to learn.

I did want to post my view on the proposed deletion of the Donald Yates page, but couldn't find the link/button to add comment. As the editor of the new version (and I plan to add a briefer publications section as soon as I learn how), I would appreciate entering the discussion if that's allowable.Nightdesk (talk) 19:03, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

@Nightdesk: you should. Replied on your talk page. Doug Weller talk 19:23, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Citation overkill

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Citation overkill. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Help

@Jytdog: is acccusing me for edit warring because I put in reliably a Sourced material. He claims that stuff I put in is not supported by sources, but truth is, I copied hem WORD-FIR-WORD, so he is just being disingenuous.Saronsacl (talk) 05:51, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Question

Hi Doug. Thank you for your quick feedback. But i wanna know whether you took into consideration the listed anons and main location of the banned user too. Because if the accounts' locations match with one of them, especially with the main location, this is an important detail and would be helpful. Thank you. 176.126.71.115 (talk) 10:08, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi Doug, sorry to brother you again, but your feedback is not the answer of my question. The question is above. Can you please close it, after replying? Thanks. 176.126.71.115 (talk) 20:31, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that will be sufficient but I'll try to find time Friday. Doug Weller talk 19:21, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Citation overkill

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Citation overkill. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Looking for a JSTOR source

Good evening Doug, I was wondering if you could provide me a copy if this paper stored on JSTOR. An editor on Maat Kheru used it with the best intentions, yet I believe he may have misinterpreted something in it. Khruner (talk) 19:10, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Khruner: I have a PDF of the article (“A Sphinx Of Amenemhet IV”, right?—very short), but I don’t think I can add an attachment to a Wikipedia e-mail through the on-site interface. Feel free to e-mail me and I’ll send it directly in reply. Or, if you prefer, I can copy the material as plain text and use the WP e-mail to send it that way.—Odysseus1479 22:44, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for you kindness Odysseus1479 but Doug Weller already sent me a copy! Khruner (talk) 10:44, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Anthropology sections

Hey Doug
I removed the Anthropology section in Al-Akhdam article, as it's based on some ratialist concepts, which are now outdated. I would like to know your POV about this matter. Should such things (bullshit) be deleted? Regards -Aṭlas (talk) 04:50, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Good catch, I agree. Doug Weller talk 14:37, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Urgent Intervention

Urgent intervention: On 26 December 2016, Wikipedia's WP:ARCA ratified a new amendment affecting all articles broadly construed with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, making all newly deleted content subject to consensus before it can be restored. But, as you can see by my edit made on 16 June 2017, where the word "illegal" was deleted (see edit), since it did not apply to settlements around Husan, User:Huldra followed in suit by responding in a questionable manner, (see edit), deleting this time valid content, knowing that she can hardly be held accountable in Palestinian-Israeli related articles after the ratification of the new amendment, although, in actuality, what she did is considered WP:Gaming the system. Another edit that can clearly be construed as "Gaming the system" is that of User:nableezy, whose recent edit on the Urif article deliberately caused valid sources to be deleted, those sources which showed that, by one account, no Israeli had set fire to a field, and that it had been set ablaze by somebody else, perhaps even unintentionally. See edit. He deleted what was "balanced" reporting, to make Israelis appear as the sole culprits. What disciplinary measures can be taken against this phenomenon, to assure that we maintain a basis of cordial collaborative editing, and without abusing the system?Davidbena (talk) 19:12, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Since I see I was mentioned in several places, Ill copy and paste the response from one: :You should try writing on the talk page and explaining why you continue to engage in OR and write things in articles that simply do not appear in the sources cited. nableezy - 19:34, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Western culture

Sir, an IP vandal has infested the Western culture article. Could you please block him and remove any vandalism that I have missed? Music314812813478 (talk) 04:22, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

(talk page gnome) @Music314812813478: A diff appears to show that you have reverted all of it. I have reported the IP address at WP:AIV and have requested temporary semi-protection for the page at WP:RPP. These may ultimately be unnecessary, but if it is, it should help. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate - 04:45, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
You're welcomeMusic314812813478 (talk) 04:51, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
@Music314812813478: Update: temporary page protection declined: Special:Permalink/786407933#Western_culture. The IP address is still pending at WP:AIV, if it's also declined, since editing ceased, no action may be necessary at this point until activity resumes. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate - 08:50, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Last update: IP address blocked for two weeks by Oshwah. —PaleoNeonate - 09:07, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for notifying me on this, @PaleoNeonate:Music314812813478 (talk) 11:44, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

Hi, thanks for your note. Re: the DRN for Malayalam, there appears to be a shortage of volunteers to take up the case and from what I can see, WP:3O appears to be even more deserted. I've not had to resort to dispute resolution before. Am I handling this correctly? Any advice will be appreciated.--Cpt.a.haddock (talk) (please ping when replying) 07:08, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

@Cpt.a.haddock: Looks fine. Just make sure you stay polite. Doug Weller talk 12:36, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks.--Cpt.a.haddock (talk) (please ping when replying) 12:55, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #265

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
  • Development
    • Improvements to Wikidata Query Service UI
    • Continued work on importing property constraints from statements (phab:T102759)
    • Started to add support for Senses of Lexeme entities (phab:T160053)
    • More experimenting with the new front-end framework
    • Added RDF mapping for "tabular data" data type (phab:T167951)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.


Books and Bytes - Issue 22

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 22, April-May 2017

  • New and expanded research accounts
  • Global branches update
  • Spotlight: OCLC Partnership
  • Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:35, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Changing username

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Changing username. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Regarding Edit of Vaimānika Shāstra page

In reference to this edit, I wanted to draw your attention to a biography of Shastri, published by Sri M.C. Krishna Swamy Iyengar and Sri Venkatachala Sharma on 12th March 1972, which mentions him meeting Talpade in Bombay. Here is a page mentioning this incident, with reference to the biography. Also, the source PDF used in wiki too mentions him as Dr. Talpade (Page 3, column 2), however, it cites it as an unsuccessful attempt, possibly due to lack of access to original Kesari article and the fact that a serious research was undertaken later(Sentinels of the Sky. Air Headquarter, Indian Air Force. 1999.). But as seen in the other Wiki page, Kesari has recorded the unmanned flight of the craft and there are several eye witnesses as well.— Preceding unsigned comment added by MeditatingDragon (talk • contribs) 03:45, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

@MeditatingDragon: Thanks. Your first source, the Hidden Mysteries book, doesn't pass our criteria for reliable sources at WP:RS although you could challenge this at WP:RSN. Sentinels of the Sky looks better but are you sure it mentions Shastri?[21] Remember that's why I removed it, not because I was challenging the unmanned flight. The pdf[22] is confusing as it says that Talpade did try to make some models along the lines Shastri suggested but those wouldn't fly. The only way I can make sense of that is that his unmanned plane, the Marutsakhā, was not modeled after Shastri but something else. Doug Weller talk 14:16, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Untitled

Thank you Doug. I will change those things. I know this is a redundant subject but the article that is already here is tagged as biased, and when I tried editing it, everything, even what met the "verify" requirement correctly was reverted. I thought I would have a little more leeway in paraphrasing in something I was writing myself, since it seemed like that's how it worked in articles I have read here, but I am trying to be really careful--I really am! This is so hard! I really want to do a good job on this--it seems really important. I would be happy to have just inserted into the existing article--but I don't think the author wanted that. It's discouraging. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:47, 20 June 2017 (UTC)Jenhawk777Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:47, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

It's me again. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:55, 20 June 2017 (UTC)Jenhawk777Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:55, 20 June 2017 (UTC) You said the article fails because it has original research--but it doesn't. Instead of quoting, I paraphrased, then put the reference I paraphrased from at the end of the sentence. I thought that was how the other editor told me to do it--not to quote but to paraphrase and reference. I have a reference at the end of almost every sentence. Only occasionally do I string two sentences together without one--but only because they are from the same source. All of the information in this is published. It is strung together in a slightly different manner than the other guys--but none of this is mine--except that danged intro! Which I will remove--change-- do something with! I so appreciate your input. I am not defensive about correction. Feel free to tear it apart! It will only help me learn. Thank you!  :-)

Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:53, 20 June 2017 (UTC)Jenhawk777 I made some changes--can you tell me if this is more in keeping with the requirements? Could I put this in an edit of the other article instead? I would be happy to do that if you could make a recommendation.

Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:53, 21 June 2017 (UTC)Jenhawk777 Thank you for responding! It's perfectly okay if it takes awhile--I'm guessing you have a life outside Wiki!  :-) I have attempted to edit the original article--again--since you seem so sure this one will not be accepted. I care about the topic, in a time when terrorism is on the rise, it seems especially important to understand it accurately, and it is my field.  :-) I've read all that all three of the commenters have recommended and I keep thinking I understand yet somehow am not pleasing you! Please don't give up on me! I will keep working till I get it right.

(talk page stalker)A couple suggestions, @Jenhawk777:. Put your -first- post of a series on a page at the bottom; afterwards, yes, but continue it in below the responses to it. Next, sign your posts at the end, not the beginning. When a user name shows up at the begining, that usually means it's a reply to them, or a mention of them, not their own words. Sign with four tildes ~~~~. This adds a signature block as long as you are signed in. Anmccaff (talk)
@Anmccaff: Thank you. This is all so confusing! I am way out of my depth but catching up I think. Thank you for your help. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:37, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Christianity and violence and Draft:Violence and Christianity

Doug Weller I need some advice. Jytdog has told me that I am not allowed to have my draft of Violence and Christianity because an article already exists and if I don't move it our of drafts it will be deleted. Does he get to decide this? Is there any court of appeals? Do I not even get to finish it and let Wikipedia decide? I tried editing the original article--again--and it got reverted--again--because he says it is personal opinion but it is not. It follows sticktothesource guidelines exactly. I summarized because the material is new enough it is still under copyright but it is all referenced and verifiable--every statement. It is not original material--not mine anyway--it is not opinion--not mine again. What can I do? Is there anything? He talks about rabid Christians on the talk page there. All I am attempting is some genuine balance. The article is seriously biased. The first paragraph speaks of Christians trying to "justify themselves" through their writings. Doug--that is loaded language. That assumes something needs justifying. The article is filled with statements of that nature. I am not even arguing about removing any of that--let it stand--just include the balancing view -- let people have all the information and make up their own minds. If not, why not a second article? My article will end up better Doug. I just want the chance to finish it and let people there decide. I don't want one person deciding before it's even done. Is there anything I can do? Please help. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:49, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

You are completely misunderstanding me. Completely. This is just about moving a document from one place to another, so that it doesn't get deleted. for pete's sake, calm down. Jytdog (talk) 04:38, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 June 2017

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:32, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

A "troll"

"The wikipedia user inserting all this nonsense into various wikipedia pages (about the C-group culture, Kerma, etc.) is probably some disgusting Berber nationalist troll who is desperately trying to construct a super-ancient Berber civilization of some sort on the pages of wikipedia by using inaccurate citations and distorting the meaning or relevance of sources." Please take a look at this user's edits and behaviors. He's now editing while not logged in. Regards -Aṭlas (talk) 23:49, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:User pages/RfC for stale drafts policy restructuring/B4 clarification

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:User pages/RfC for stale drafts policy restructuring/B4 clarification. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #266

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.
Cheat sheet about Wikidata Query Service (de)
  • Development
    • Creating a separate section for constraint statements (example)
    • Adding client-side hooks for saving and removing statements (phab:T167870)
    • More work on constraints checks (phab:T168629)
    • Enabling Wikidata edits in the enhanced recent changes and watchlist on clients (phab:T46874)
    • Updating constraint check user script and propose to make it a gadget (phab:T167625)
    • Creating Special:PageData as a canonical entry point for machine readable page data (phab:T163923)
    • Working on editable Glosses on Senses (non-persistent) (phab:T165567)
    • Setting up federation on mediainfo test system (phab:T163119)

You can see all open tickets related to Wikidata here.


City of David walls removal

Hi Doug, regarding this edit, can you point me in the direction of this new information? thanks, Poliocretes (talk) 10:40, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

@Poliocretes: I posted this at Spring of Gihon. I was going to rewrite the City of David one but never got around to it. It's possible still that these are part of the City of David but the new dates make it later. Might want to request the full study at the resource request page.
A 2017 study by the Weizmann Institute of Science has redated the constructions, reporting that “Scenarios for the construction of the tower during Middle Bronze Age (MB) and Iron Age II are considered, based on the new 14C [radiocarbon] data, yielding a series of dates, the latest of which falls in the terminal phases of the 9th century BCE, alongside previous excavation data.”[1] Israel Finkelstein has suggested that the tower could still be Bronze Age but restored in the Iron Age adding that “In any event, a late 9th century date should come as no surprise, as there are other indications for the growth of the city at that time – from the Temple Mount (in my opinion the original location of the mound of Jerusalem) to the south, in the direction of the Gihon spring”.[2]

Doug Weller talk 11:50, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Regev, Johanna; Uziel, Joe; Szanton, Nahshon; Boaretto, Elisabetta (6 June 2017). "Absolute Dating of the Gihon Spring Fortifications, Jerusalem". Radiocarbon: 1–23. doi:10.1017/RDC.2017.37.
  2. ^ Borschel-Dan, Amanda (19 June 2017). "Carbon dating undermines biblical narrative for ancient Jerusalem tower". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 26 June 2017.

Cheras and Malayalam

Hi. I'm unsure how to handle the disputes going on over at Cheras (particularly) and Malayalam. There's an ongoing DRN for Malayalam that appears to be going nowhere. The original issue of synthesis at Cheras was posted to the NOR noticeboard and there have been no takers in 5 days for what should be an open and shut case. I've since posted it as a new DRN case and have been informed that moderation of WP:SYNTH cases is out of DRN's ambit. The editor's also made dubious edits to the article about the Cheras trading with the Egyptians in 1500 BCE and with the IVC in 2000—3000 BCE. The first supporting reference was (and still is) an anecdote from a newspaper article which provided a date of 1279 BCE. Upon questioning, a new source was added of a commercial book sans page number. A page number was then added days later. When I requested a quote to confirm the dates mentioned, I was told to look it up on my own and my request quote tag was reverted from the page. I'm sure that the other editor is sick of seeing my critical edits/questions. Can someone intervene to set this right? Or if I have to do that myself, how do I proceed? Thanks.--Cpt.a.haddock (talk) (please ping when replying) 14:03, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

@Cpt.a.haddock: No, you've a right to ask for a quote. If you use a source you should be able to quote it. The Kumar source doesn't support around 1500 BCE as it says "Ramses II is hailed as one of the greatest Pharaohs who ruled Egypt from 1279 to 1212 BC. Examination of his mummy led to a tiny, yet astounding, discovery about international trade in the ancient world. Found tucked inside the nostrils of the pharaoh were fragments of pepper, a plant indigenous to Malabar coast. And yet it had apparently travelled from flowering vines in Kerala to the hands of Egyptian embalmers as far back as over a millennium before Christ." If that accurately represents Turner then the edit doesn't. Doug Weller talk 16:45, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Ah, missed the elephant in the room. How is this relevant to the Chera Dynasty? We'd need multiple reliable sources saying this. Yes, Ramesses II was mummified with pepper. That can be easily sourced. Tracing that to the Chera Dynasty? Doug Weller talk 18:35, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Indeed. And the very next paragraph in the same section also notes that bulk spices were exported (in early CE) to Egypt and Mesopotamia and comes with a scholarly citation. In some ways, this is symptomatic of what's been happening to the entire article. If you compare a before and after version, you will find a dramatic POV shift after his edits. Granted, the earlier version wasn't very good, but all mentions of the Cheras being a part of Tamilakam or of Tamil origin have been excised from the lede. Mentions of them being a part of Tamilakam is a staple of just about every article on the Cheras. Tamilakam has now been bowdlerised to "Southern States". Then there's, of course, the current issue of the Early Cheras being speakers of "Early Malayalam" (and the relegation of Tamil to a "literary language") which is also synthesised from a source that does not mention the Cheras at all. I'm surprised that the Tamil language warriors haven't pounced on this yet. There have only been a couple of them thus far.
Anyhow, I'm trying to get my hands on Sreedhara Menon's book which is what he's relying on for most of his edits. Menon's known for being something of a non-conformist and it should be interesting. Even the statement on land routes from Kerala to the IVC was initially attributed to the Hindu article (and Jack Turner) but was then switched to Menon. Also, leaving a message here appears to have miraculously led to progress on the DRN front. Fingers crossed, there'll be some closure soon. Thanks.--Cpt.a.haddock (talk) (please ping when replying) 19:47, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Citation overkill

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Citation overkill. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

One day...

Someone will report us to WP:SPI. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:16, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

REVDEL email incoming

Again...

Hello, Doug Weller. 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.

EvergreenFir (talk) 18:24, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy. Legobot (talk) 04:33, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Ajativada

I've opened an SPI on User:Aocler Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Aoclery a couple of weeks ago, but work seems to be piling up there. Can you block 70.78.128.169 right away? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:50, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

ResidentofPlanetEarth

I noticed you earlier warned this user about WP:BLPCAT, could you please keep an eye on them. I'm convinced this is the latest incarnation of JP8077 (the most recent sock of which was blocked just one day before ResidentofPlanetEarth registered). JP8077 and sock's contributions mostly consist of the addition of categories related to atheism/nihilism to a lot of BLP's. Here are some example intersections: [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] Sro23 (talk) 17:29, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Misuse of my account.

Hi there! Just to let you know that I had a look at previous edits made by this account as I didn't know what the issue was as I never recall editing a page relating to the Holocaust. It turns out that someone who I allowed to temporarily have access to my system decided to use it for a rather unpleasant 'Joke' as he called it when I asked him about it. I hope that this issue won't affect editing rights in future and I will make sure to log out of my account after each session.

Kind regards, Reed1967 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reed1967 (talk • contribs) 08:28, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

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