User talk:Iridescent/Archive 16

This is an archive of past discussions about User:Iridescent. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 10

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Archive 14

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Necro-bump: Soft-block of School IPs

Some people do come up with some wonderful time wasting proposals at the VP - even in good faith. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:43, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I can see the arguments—regardless of whether I agree or not—for abolishing IP editing altogether, but sorting between "good" and "bad" IPs would be a, um, courageous idea. – iridescent 07:51, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

(add) Looks like a brand-new user who thinks they've spotted what we've been doing wrong for the last ten years. Be gentle. – iridescent 07:56, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes. The other thing we did wrong was to allow just anybody to be a new page patroller. If the other RfC gets its way, it might be a problem solved. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:08, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia. No problem here is ever solved, they just turn into new and more intractable problems. – iridescent 12:51, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

BLP

If you restore defamatory attacks on a living person, I will block you. Fences&Windows 21:03, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

You could. I'd suggest you be extremely confident that you're in the right, though, since the content you're edit-warring to remove is very clearly the personal opinion of one editor, as expressed on a {{noindex}}ed page. To save you looking, the relevant line of WP:BLP is "and not related to making content choices"; since the comment in question is an editor discussing whether a particular person is a serious academic or a WP:FRINGE theorist (a matter on which I have no opinion) their credibility is obviously material related to making a content choice; if you're primly removing swearing from a thread about swearing, you're stifling debate and trying to force the decision your way, even if in this case I'd tend to agree. (If you really think "nutjob" qualifies as a gross personal attack, though, I envy you.) – iridescent 21:12, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Iridescent is a nutjob. Please tell me this warrants a block. --Moni3 (talk) 21:27, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Careful, Moni. Aren't you the one who committed this grave BLP violation? – iridescent 21:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

That clearly is my post, but that statement is as honest, true, and verifiable as what was written on stones given to Moses. I challenge anyone to claim it a violation of the BLP policy. --Moni3 (talk) 21:45, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

This exchange demonstrates one of the differences between an arbitrator and a lowly lout like myself. My reply to Fences' nonsense would have been a little more direct and a lot shorter, consisting of only seven letters arranged into a well-known phrase or saying. Malleus Fatuorum 22:43, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

"Marry me"? There's a danger in being ambiguous, Malleus :-P. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:03, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Not enough "f"s in "marry me". The danger in not being ambiguous is that some officious clot of an administrator ... well, you know the rest. Malleus Fatuorum 02:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I do indeed. Of course, if you had said "marry me" to F&W in response to the initial comment, someone likely would've felt justified in blocking you for being off your rocker. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:57, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps. I think though that in my small way I've given administrators pause for thought before they impose daft blocks on established editors, which is a good thing. Did I ever tell you about the time I was blocked for using the word "sycophantic"? Or GWH's five-second block? Malleus Fatuorum 03:36, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

You've mentioned it once or twice. One can always hope. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:16, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in but... "sycophantic"... seriously? I'd love to hear about that one :) --Errant ^(chat!) 22:28, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

You'll find it in my block log, but you may have to scroll down a bit. Malleus Fatuorum 03:54, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

(re Malleus's original post) One thing which is noticeable to me—and I shouldn't have been surprised—is that there's a reason so many Wikipedia higher functionaries communicate publicly in that strange stilted lecture-to-the-royal-society-of-tax-lawyers style. (This seems to apply across the spectrum, from Jimmy Wales himself through to Alison.) When one always has the knowledge at the back of one's mind that anything you say can be taken as a public pronouncement and waved at one of the drama boards in support of some wiki-crusade or other, it forces one to be very measured and pedantic with the wording of anything said for public consumption; Bradspeak is a virtually inevitable consequence. This isn't peculiar to Wikipedia, as anyone who's had any dealings with politicians, CEOs or high-ranking military and police will know, but it is interesting (to me) how strong this particular pressure is, even in an environment like Wikipedia which prides itself on its (generally artificial) unstuffiness. – iridescent 18:45, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I had exactly the same thought when I read your reply to F & W above. Surely the old Iridescent would have been content with something on the lines of "Knock yourself out"? Bishonen | talk 21:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC).

I am minded not to entirely agree with your comments concerning Bradspeak; I think one has to deliberate and evaluate fully and then come to a considered opinion before giving one's opinions in a forum where one's opinions could be subject of debate and conjecture which could reflect upon oneself and lead to others to form an opinion as to one's opinion. Giacomo Returned 21:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Probably, although I did preach my share of sermons back then too. (As an aside, F&W must surely be the first user in Wikipedia's history to be such a hardline crusader for civility that both Sandstein and GWH tell them to stop.) – iridescent 21:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Anybody who gets Sandstein to say "fuck" (not when he quotes it, but when he actually says "flying fuck" in his own voice, and the negative is missing) deserves a barnstar. P.S. I know, I'll ask him to marry me. Bishonen | talk 21:37, 21 April 2011 (UTC).

(serious point) The long-winded replies do serve a point. "Go away" or variations thereof would just send F&W away annoyed and confused, since he probably thought he was being helpful in Defending The Purity Of The Wiki. (As I and others have said many times, many people have genuinely never stopped to think that "civility" is a relative concept and the civility policy is aimed at "intent to offend", not "offence caused".) Explaining to him why he's mistaken serves the short-term purpose just as well, but also stops him making the same mistakes again, and doesn't annoy him so much he goes away in a huff and we lose another editor. Most people here are trying to help; if someone has the potential to be useful it's never a good idea to drive them away. – iridescent 21:40, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Some people here though seem to believe that it's their job to drive others away. Many of them are member of the civility police. Malleus Fatuorum 22:18, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

r.e. to iridescent; If RL (and my job specifically) has taught me anything it is that such language has its place... it sometimes helps to come across as the "cool capable ~~beurocrat~~bureaucrat" (that's a word I can never spell :S). i.e. "I have the right answer, listen to me", people do listen. It is rather scary how unimaginative they can be. I've seen "Bradspeak" work a decent number of times. The issue isn't that it's used.. it's that certain people simply cannot step out of it and bring themselves to say "sod off" (even if they mean to) and take the criticism that ensues. Anything you say, even if it is couched in bullshit, can be "used in evidence against you". So it strikes me as a false economy. But, then, I am reliably informed that I am a member of the "civility police", so that could be a load of crap ;) --Errant ^(chat!) 22:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

(Responding to the original post; I'll try to avoid spreading Bradspeak as best I can, although I fear the condition may be terminal) I think everyone posting on this page understands the importance of the BLP policy, but this strikes me as a situation where "why are you restoring this material, which I think is inappropriate?" would have been a better approach than starting off with a block threat. Just a thought. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:46, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

You're almost certainly right, but why is it that so many administrators lace their admonitions with threats? Because they can? Malleus Fatuorum 03:49, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

The root cause of anger and threats is almost always fear—but the trouble with the written word is that it carries so little information in comparison to a physical meeting. If I offer what you perceive as a threat of some kind, unless I choose my written words very carefully it may be very hard for you to tell if I am: drunk; venomously angry; 'avin' a larf; offering a polite and well-meaning warning; etc., whereas in person it would almost certainly be much more obvious. Ben Mac Dui 07:28, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

(re Brad) You're missing the point here. The reason F&W didn't say "why are you restoring this material, which I think is inappropriate?" is that at no point did I restore the material or, indeed, make any comment, reversion redaction etc to this or any other thread at ANI; my last edit to ANI in any context was on 9 April. This thread is F&W issuing a pre-emptive block threat against me just in case I was thinking of daring to take an action with which he disagreed. The people who complain about a culture of admins acting as if their status makes them "power users" with the right to boss people around may be overegging the pudding in that 95% of admins are completely non-problematic, but it doesn't mean the issue doesn't exist. Consider what would likely happen if one of our more vocal non-admins were to start issuing threats against other users on the grounds that they thought they might violate their particular interpretation of a disputed policy, in which consensus is broadly against them. ("If you replace that double-hyphen with a spaced en-dash I will report you to ANI.") – iridescent 11:31, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

(1) Actually, your post reminds me that in checking the history, I couldn't quickly find whatever it was that led Fences & Windows to warn you, either—but I assumed that he or she wouldn't have warned you without some sort of triggering event, so I figured I must have overlooked something. (2) Re "Bradspeak," a point of causation: it didn't happen that I became whoever it is I am on Wikipedia and then started to talk the way I do; rather, I always talked more-or-less the way I do from more-or-less the day I started editing. Make of that what you will. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:28, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

You know what they say about "assume". AGF has much to answer for. Malleus Fatuorum 23:03, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

"Bradspeak"??? ... are we gonna have to add a new term to this article now? And yep, that Sandstein post made me wonder if someone had hijacked his account. Cheers and Happy Easter to all (rather all that it applies to). — Ched : ? 21:40, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
Belated apologies for misinterpreting your comment on my talk page. I thought your reference to censorship referred to my redaction of defamatory comments that Orangemarlin had made at ANI about an article subject, which someone else had already reverted once. I was not aiming to threaten someone simply for disagreeing with me (I hope I've never been that petty when acting as an admin). I now realise that your comment referred to the revdel of his edit summary, which is another matter entirely. While I disagree with the restoration of that edit summary, that's not something I'd consider blocking over. So, sorry. Fences&Windows 12:21, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
(Replying to comment above) We can take people to ANI for DASH violations? Hmmmm .... - Dank (push to talk) 23:19, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
Bien sur. See Talk:Mexican-American War for how serious hyphens and dashes are. Fences&Windows 00:55, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

In fact, there's a MOSDASH thread at ANI now. There was also one last month. And one the month before. – iridescent 12:57, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Bradspeak

Hurry up and read this new essay before it gets deleted! You have five seconds from now! Please help Wikipedia by expanding it! Bishonen | talk 21:22, 2 May 2011 (UTC).

In fairness to Brad, I did make it clear that this was a phenomenon which affects any environment in which someone's words might be taken by others as an ex cathedra ruling, and not unique either to Brad nor to Wikipedia. (Obama's Over the years, I've repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was. That is what we've done. But it's important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding. Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and ordered attacks against the Pakistani people. Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates. – which when stripped of the semantic niceties translates as "we invaded one of our own allies because we thought it was in our best interests to do so, and didn't notify them until after it happened because we don't trust them" – is about as perfect an example as will ever be seen.) – iridescent 13:05, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

(adding) Probably makes sense to merge it with the main WP:WikiSpeak page, though. (On a tangential subject, looking at that for the first time in years prompted me to look at Decoding RFA as well. Given that it's three years (!) since Keeper and I wrote that, it's still depressingly accurate.) – iridescent 13:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Update ...

... on our FAC editorial in the Bugle, including your comments, here. The idea for this editorial was to give a lot of brief statements by a lot of different people to convey the idea that there's broad support for the idea that anyone can (and more should) review at FAC. After we see if the editorial has any effect, we can try to do something less scattershot in another editorial. Please let me know if you are (or aren't) happy with any effect this might have at FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 19:40, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me. If it hasn't been done already, if you do a more formal follow-up it would probably be worth going into detail on the similarities and differences between FAC and GAN—people coming from one to the other (in either direction) are sometimes taken by surprise. Giano's essay is aimed at writers, not reviewers—and is three years out of date—but is still well worth a read as a general introduction to the FAC mentality. – iridescent 16:19, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

May Metro

The Metropolitan

The WikiProject London Transport Newsletter
(Issue 32 - May 2011)
March 2011 | June 2011

Please go to WT:LT to discuss the future of the Portal

London Transport News

April

Final weekend closures announced for Jubiliee line upgrade, occcuring in May and June.
Traffic restrictions introduced on Wilton Road for Victoria Station Upgrade
Tour of Britain cycle race to start in London in September
Expansion joints to be replaced on A406 Redbridge flyover
For 2010-2011 financial year, passenger figures on London Underground top 1.1 billion.
18 buses to be trial fitted with equitment to tackle nitrogen oxide emissions
Work to begin in summer on building Thames Cable-Car
Gold membership announced for freight operators
Bombardier awarded new signalling contract on Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines
Two Berclays Cycle Superhighways now under construction
Taxi and private hire license fees frozen
Northern Line to not stop at Tottenham Court Road until November due to upgrade

March

New District Line timetable will see increase in Wimbledon trains with weekday withdrawal of Kensington Olympia service
TfL publishes Business Plan
Wi-fi to be available across 120 stations by June 2012
Bidders shortlisted for new Croydon trams
Taxi fares increase by 2.7%
New ticket hall open at Stratford Regional station
Over 100,00 people use Congestion Charge Auto-pay
Works to improve traffic flow at Henlys Corner begin in April
Out-of-London permits to be abolished from Oyster card and other Oyster improvements announced
TfL relaunches teen road safety campaign with help from young TV stars
Staff recognised at Dial-a-Ride Awards 2011
Blackwall tunnel to only close for three more weekends.
Staff recognised at London Bus Awards 2011
Essential escalator works to begin at Holborn for six weeks

For more information see: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/3119.aspx (most times) Note: Oldest news items at bottom of list

Project News

Articles

Hugahoody (talk · contribs) suggested various London Underground related GA nominations which were later withdrawn.
William Henry Barlow was promoted to Good Article status in March, RAF Northolt in April and Frank Pick in May
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Other

Discussions within the project included redirection of WP:TFL, Good article nominations of the London Underground and Frank Pick, renomination of the portal as a featured portal, project colour schemes, splitting of London Underground stations and abandoned London Underground proposals
Other project related discussions included naming conventions on classes of trains, S-rail blunders, railway gauge discussions, banners, capitalisation of lines, St Pancras station naming and water navigation categories.

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Editor: Simply south (talk)
Many, many apologies for not having an April edition but here is the May edition. Does anyone fancy doing June?
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Wikipedia ads	file info – #137

Simply south...... trying to improve for 5 years 22:21, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

On the front

This is strange. How did you manage to get on the front page? Simply south...... trying to improve for 5 years 16:49, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject UK Railways in the Signpost

WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject UK Railways for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Other editors will also have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 16:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Exactly the same answers as last year. (My original answers here if you want to work from them rather than last year's finished article.) – iridescent 17:01, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

User:Philip Baird Shearer

I'll not say that "I'm concerned", or "worried" about this user's behaviour. No, I'm annoyed at his repeated attempts to derail the improvement of articles I've written by repeating ad nauseum the same, tired old points about his preferred inclusion of trivia, the formatting of references sections, the placement of images, etc. Despite repeatedly being knocked back on article talk pages, like a bad smell he keeps returning to make changes which appear to ignore consensus on those talk pages. He'll do it on a long-term basis as well, so as to steer clear of 3RR, while attempting to have other users (me), who have no such concerns, blocked for the same.

I'm quite sure he has very little or no experience in writing a half-decent article. Certainly with historical articles, he seems completely ignorant of anything that isn't on the nternet. He objected to the promotion of Hanged, drawn and quartered to FAC (comments which were ignored by delegates), and now he's posted on the talk pages of at least two users regarding the current FAC for Guy Fawkes Night, and has in fact posted on that same FAC.

I've noted similar concerns about his behaviour expressed at WP:ANI, and I think it's time the problem is brought to a wider audience. What would you suggest? Parrot of Doom 09:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Despite the oh-so-reasonable wording of his posts he's blatantly canvassing two editors who have already been his allies on the Guy Fawkes night article. He should be banned from any further editing to the article for his constant disruptive behaviour. Richerman (talk) 13:35, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I've wondered for years why he still has the ability to edit Wikipedia; get two editors to attempt to resolve problems with him, then start an RFC. He has such a long-standing history of disruption that it's difficult to understand that he can still edit, much less be an admin. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The standard argument of course is that in all of his trolling he "hasn't abused the admin tools", so his behaviour is perfectly acceptable for an administrator. Which has always seemed to me to be somewhat analogous to claiming that a police officer who habitually exposes himself on the street should remain in the job because he didn't arrest anyone while doing it. Malleus Fatuorum 15:05, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

(tries to get his mind around the concept of a police officer arresting someone while exposing himself, exactly where is he getting the handcuffs from?)--Wehwalt (talk) 15:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to be deliberately non-committal here, for reasons which are hopefully obvious. Concur with Sandy, in that the best course of action if you want to go down the formal route is to file an RFC (which do actually work work surprisingly often). If that doesn't work, then Arbcom is thataway; the usual warning applies that when something reaches that level the conduct of everyone involved is examined. If you want someone to have an informal chat with PBS, I'd suggest SlimVirgin, Wehwalt and/or Karanacs*—they have the background knowledge of writing about contentious historical topics at FA level, but AFAIK have no prior involvement or particular interest in this topic and no previous bad history with either you or PBS. – iridescent 16:44, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

*B & G, my omitting you is intentional. I know you've done more than anyone else when it comes to this period, but where you go a horde of people spoiling for a fight will likely follow, so you're probably not best suited to be the people to calm an argument down.

I'll be happy to get in the middle if asked. I know nothing about the topic matter.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I just want him off my back, and I suspect I'm not the only one. Look at the comments on the lower part of this. I accept I'm not perfect, but I don't go around pissing on others' efforts while contributing nothing of note myself. Parrot of Doom 17:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't do the heavy-handed disciplinarian very well, I'm afraid. There are other admins who care to indulge in that kind of thing.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I was asked to comment here. It's difficult to convey how disruptive Philip can be. I don't want to be overly harsh, but it's hard to avoid. The basic problem is that, whatever he has personally experienced in his life, becomes the truth and the way. It applies to everything: writing style, history, punctuation, copyright law. His strong convictions are often accompanied by poor writing, research, and reasoning. When he arrives at an article or policy, it tends to halt development, with people forced to start discussing whatever tangent he has introduced. If you stop replying to him, he engages in serial reverting to force you to respond.

I tried discussing it with him on his talk page last year, so I'd be in a position to certify an RfC, but I couldn't face it at the time. See here. My post here sums up my experience of him. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 23:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Per Sandy, Slim, Parrot of Doom. I knew nothing of the Guy Fawkes FAC, but was asked to comment here. I'd like to be able to get on with Philip, but there has always been a spiralling, intransigent, steely, belligerent aspect to his presence (I first came across him in 2005). I do wish he could engage in a better way with other editors, and it doesn't surprise me in the least to see this thread. I support measures to bring this matter under control. Tony (talk) 12:54, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

One interesting thing about PBS is that the problems go back so long and are so pervasive and have occurred in so many areas, that it's hard to even remember where to look for diffs; I just know that for as long as I've been on Wiki, he's been a difficult editor, one you hope to never cross paths with, and if you must, you hope it's in an area you can just unwatch rather than be sucked in (which I know I've done in several areas where I've encountered him). Unfortunately, we can't just unwatch some pages, and when he's disrupting FAC with canvassing, it's time for action. By the way, how do we know he hasn't abused the tools unless we launch an RFC where others begin to speak up? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

All good points. Tony (talk) 14:40, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

So, is an RFC the logical next step? Are they particularly difficult to draft? I've never had to go there. Parrot of Doom 19:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I think it's the only possible next step, particularly as SlimVirgin has indicated her willingness to certify one. I've been to RfC once I think, but only as the defendant (now deleted as it wasn't certified), so others will undoubtedly be in a better position to advise on how to go about it. Malleus Fatuorum 19:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't have the foggiest idea how these things are done and to be honest, my eyes tend to glaze over a little bit when it comes to such things. I'd much rather write articles but if RFC is the only way that PBS can be forced to "do one" then RFC it is. Parrot of Doom 19:59, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

To set up an RfC, you would create this page, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Philip Baird Shearer. You can either do it manually, so that it ends up looking like Template:RfC, or there's an automated option here. Best thing is to keep the statement of the dispute brief and general; if you restrict it only to Guy Fawkes, people not involved with that won't be able to certify it. So it should offer a general description of the disruption, using Guy Fawkes as one example if you like.

Once that's up, it would have to be certified within 48 hours by at least two people who have previously tried, but failed, to resolve similar disputes with Philip, along with diffs showing the efforts at dispute resolution. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 02:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

So would there be two users who could certify the RFC? I'm not clear if there would be. Certainly there are several users who think he's out of order. Parrot of Doom 07:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I could certify it, because I had that talk-page discussion with him asking him to rethink his approach in general. [1] Tony1 and CDGeist could certify it too, because they commented there, as could anyone who asked him to stop the Guy Fawkes issue, or anything similar. The RfC rule is that the certifiers must show an effort at dispute resolution, not just the continuation of the dispute, though that can be a fine line. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 01:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I've made a start here. This is the first time (and hopefully the only time) I've done this so I'd appreciate any input. Parrot of Doom 09:21, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

It looks fine to me. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 01:11, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, looks good to me as well. This is an extremely instructive case, and as a completely uninvolved party I will be happy to make my views known once the Rfc is started. Jus da fax 06:10, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

RFC discussion of User:Philip Baird Shearer

A request for comments has been filed concerning the conduct of Philip Baird Shearer (talk · contribs). You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Philip Baird Shearer. -- Parrot of Doom 10:47, 9 May 2011 (UTC) Parrot of Doom 10:47, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Enter the Grave

Hi, I hope you're well. Awhile ago you commented on my FAC of the above article. With that in mind, I was hoping you could review the article with FA standards in mind, and share that review with me on my talk page? If you could, that'd be much appreciated. LuciferMorgan (talk) 18:51, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I no longer participate at FAC and aren't up to date with the current standards. Your best bet would be other people who've put articles through the process recently on relatively niche music articles which don't have the widespread coverage the Michael Jacksons and Pink Floyds get, and will have a better feel for what the current flavor of the month is regarding which sources are good and which are bad (User:Another Believer and User:Moni3 spring to mind). – iridescent 16:23, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your advice - I'll be sure to take it. LuciferMorgan (talk) 22:39, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Groid

Lovely page history. :P Also, fun fact: Damian Yerrick is user ID 1. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Remind me again why Groid→Negroid race is acceptable, but Turd burglar→Gay led to immediate deletion as an attack page and sprawling threads over every conceivable drama board up to and including RFAR for the next year? – iridescent 16:27, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Probably something to do with the makeup of the editorship? :-) (Or was that rhetorical... it can be difficult to tell.) --MZMcBride (talk) 00:41, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

What, these people? I hope you haven't uncovered the secret that Wikipedia is actually a vast experiment to discover whether sitting in front of a flatscreen monitor for eight hours a day can function as a substitute for sunlight. – iridescent 18:13, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

RfC/U note at WP:AN

Just wanted to make sure you don't think I endorse the creation of the RfC/U re:Sandstein. I just wanted to make sure it was listed (since the OP didn't exactly follow the guidelines for starting it) so the RfC process would move along. Cjmclark ^(Contact) 19:06, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

No problem, although I personally would just close it, since the likelihood of it concluding that Sandstein overreacted here is zero. – iridescent 19:08, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree. My intent was to make it visible to a wider range of admins as no one actively commenting on the RfC seemed to be moved to take action regarding it. I think everyone was just waiting for the 48 hours to expire. Cjmclark ^(Contact) 22:02, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello Iridescent

Umm...Could you please do me a few solids i) Please delete File:Republic of new tomland flag 2.png ii) Please delete Republic of New Tomland iii)Please block User:MBAxTom for creating nonsense pages.

Thanks. maucho eagle _(c) 18:47, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

The former is a Commons file, and nothing to do with us; compared to some of the shite the Global Penis Depository hosts, it's practically Da Vinci. I've deleted the latter, but not sure why you're coming to me for this; in future, just stick {{db-hoax}} on hoax articles and the Wikipedia Fairies will magically take them away. – iridescent 18:58, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, will do, and not to ask so much of you but I think I forgot one, Is it possible that you could create protect that page? maucho eagle _(c) 19:01, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Someone else has salted it (I wouldn't have, but I'm not going to wheel-war over it). – iridescent 19:17, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

request for oversight

Hi, after a request from the subject at BLPN could you please oversight/suppress this diff - thanks. 21:21, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

No. I have oversight for Arbcom auditing purposes—sometimes we need to see what people said and when—but I'm not an oversighter (the full list is at Wikipedia:Oversight#Oversighters). Email to this link if you want something oversighted. I personally am not convinced that warrants it. – iridescent 21:26, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 21:27, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Is it worth bothering about this kind of thing?

While researching the lordship of the manor of Wakefield (re the gibbet) I couldn't make sense of which John de Warenne to link to, so I checked the ODNB and discovered that the 5th and 6th earls were incorrectly named the 6th and 7th. I've moved the articles, but I'm wondering if there's any reason not to ask for the redirect pages to be deleted, as its unlikely that anyone would need them. Or should I just forget about it? Malleus Fatuorum 21:10, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Ask at WP:PEERAGE; they're very active, and anyone likely to have an opinion will probably have that talkpage watched as a matter of course. User:BrownHairedGirl is usually the best person to go to with lords-and-ladies questions. – iridescent 21:19, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'll do that. Malleus Fatuorum 21:31, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I've checked with the Peerage project and there are no dissenting voices, so could I trouble you to move John de Warenne, 8th Earl of Surrey to John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey, which is the redirect I created a couple of days ago? Malleus Fatuorum 11:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Saw this go past on my watchlist so... sorted it for you Malleus. :) --Errant ^(chat!) 11:58, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Malleus Fatuorum 12:39, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi

Hello there Iridescent, I hope this post finds you well. To be honest, I've been looking for an excuse to stop by and say hi. I don't know if you even remember, but I still recall the first time I stopped by to talk to you, and I expressed myself very poorly - and I still feel bad about that. Anyway, I see you decided to not only pick up your bit again, but to also throw yourself to the wolves (so to speak) by helping out at ARBCOM .. congrats and thank you by the way. The reason I found to stop and say hi was the Mick block reduction. Good call in my opinion. Nothing against BW, I think he's a fine wikipedian. I guess that's all I really had to say - cheers and best. :) — Ched : ? 16:49, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. To clarify, I don't think there was anything out of order in the way BWilkins acted here; sometimes people have to make snap judgements, and sometimes other people are going to disagree with that judgement, or on reflection the original person making the decision will reconsider. Unless I'm missing something, Bearian appears to have acted appallingly here, in deliberately baiting a user who was obviously under a great deal of stress in an effort to provoke a reaction; non-admins have been indefblocked for considerably less, and I really hope this was just a bad day and not the start of another flame-out. Give the benefit of the doubt for the moment, though; everyone has bad days and does something they regret at some point. – iridescent 22:28, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Brill Tramway - Wood Siding

I've noticed an inconsistency in the dates of the opening of Wood Siding extension. If I'm reading it right, it says on the Brill Tramway article that the extension opened 17 June 1871 yet the station article says November 1871. Please point out if i have got this wrong. Simply south...... unintentionally misspelling fr 5 years 16:28, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

They're both correct; industrial tramways don't have clear-cut opening and closing dates in the same sense that airports, tube stations etc have them, so it depends what one considers the "opening date".

17 June 1871: the line of rail from Wotton reached the Wood Siding site;
19 August 1871: the first rolling stock other than construction traffic reached Wood Siding, in the form of some passenger cars stabled there in readiness for the demonstration passenger run;
26 August 1871: the first commercial use of the Wood Siding site, in the shape of the disastrous GWR passenger demonstration run to London;
some point prior to 29 November 1871: the line through Wood Siding to the brickwork siding (probably not yet complete) is finished, and occasional goods services (mostly coal) start;
January 1872: opening of passenger services (temporarily abandoned in mid-March for permanent way work on the incomplete line);
1 April 1872: Re-opening of passenger services, operating to a formal published timetable;
10 May 1872: Formal opening of the extension to paid goods and passengers (i.e., paying customers rather than the Duke hauling materials and labourers around his estates); this is the "official" opening date, although the line had actually been accepting paying passengers since January;
1 December 1899: the Metropolitan Railway's upgrading of the route is complete. The line finally meets Railway Clearing House standards and the stations officially become "railway stations".

There really is no "right answer", and you'll find all of them given as the "opening date" in some place or another. The 1899 date is the closest thing to a "correct" answer—until it met RCH standards, it was officially just a piece of industrial plant rather than a "railway line"—and is the one you'll find on Douglas Rose's Diagrammatic History, but I'd venture to say it's outright misleading to use it. – iridescent 19:28, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. Simply south...... unintentionally misspelling fr 5 years 20:23, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

No problem—Brill is a funny case, as it blurs the line between cart-horse trackway and modern metro line in a way few others do. It's always worth bearing in mind that for these primitive railways, "passenger use" was mainly symbolic (and often horse-drawn even on mechanised railways); the trains ran at average walking pace (and well below the speed of a typical horse), so for anything other than mass bulk transport there was no reason for anyone to use expensive, slow, smelly and unreliable mechanical haulage. (It's no coincidence at all that every early railway served either a coalfield or a port used for heavy bulk goods.) – iridescent 21:12, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

RE:Since nobody seems to have bothered to notify you…

Nobody seems to have actually notified you, but an edit of yours is being discussed at great length on Jimbo's talk page, having made multiple newspapers. You may want to comment there. – iridescent 09:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your thought and humanity. I would offer to assist you in your efforts in Wikipedia, but in light of Jimbo Wales attack, have decided to take some time out. Best Regards, --Trident13 (talk) 18:21, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

See how (and if) Jimmy replies to you, before you take any action you might regret later. While I don't see eye to eye with him on much, I appreciate that he's often under immense time pressure, and when he feels he has to comment on an issue can sometimes make snap calls without knowing all the facts of the case. As you can probably tell from my comments in the thread, I find the idea of the Daily Mail as an inherently unreliable source dubious—I think some of this may stem from a misunderstanding of the different meanings of "tabloid" in the US and the UK. I can certainly sympathise with the view that we should never (or rarely) treat any newspaper reports as reliable for anything other than commentary on how an issue is covered in the press. However, treating the Mail as unreliable while continuing to treat the equally celebrities-and-sex-obsessed Times as an inherently reliable source is in my opinion an unfortunate decision. – iridescent 22:36, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I have found The Times to be just as fallible as the worst tabloid paper. I don't trust any source that doesn't offer it's own sources. Parrot of Doom 22:59, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

The Times is great for "newspapers of the day described it as a sombre occasion" type background material, because it goes back so far; it's also good for non-contentious court circular material ("The MP for Grabham-by-the-Danglers visited Lady Grimley-Fiendish at her country estate at Toad Hall"). For anything remotely contentious or at all likely to be challenged, it's about as reliable as the Beano; the British press has a well-deserved reputation for blatant fabrications going back centuries. (I can provide impeccably-sourced newspaper coverage that human-pig hybrids were roaming the streets of London in the 19th century.) – iridescent 23:17, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

It also depends, to a large extent, on what assertion it is that we are seeking a source for. If it's "Mets centerfielder [Oxford cricketer] John Doe hit three home runs [hit a century] at Shea Stadium [the Oval] on June 22, 1973" then one newspaper is as good as another. If it's "President Nixon [Prime Minister Major] announced that he was appointing Harry Blackmun to the Supreme Court [recommending that Speaker Wetherill be promoted to the Lords]" then again, one newspaper is as good as another. If it's marital information that the article subject has actively denied, then the quality of the newspaper is critically important, and any one paper might not be enough (and in some cases it's questionable whether we should include the information at all). Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:25, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

As I've said privately, I don't think there is such a thing as a "quality newspaper" in Britain, in the context in which it's used here. With the exception of a brief blip in the latter 19th century, the British daily press has always been primarily a medium of entertainment, with serious news coverage historically covered by various weekly and monthly journals and to a lesser extent the Sunday papers. (You cannot hope/To bribe or twist/Thank God! The/British journalist./But, seeing what/The man will do/Unbribed, there's/No occasion to could have been written at any time since the 17th century.) Can you really spot a significant difference between the Last Surviving Broadsheet Newspaper the Telegraph (as I write this, currently devoting much of its front page and no less than six picture slots on its website to the World Beard Championship) and the much-maligned Daily Mail? – iridescent 23:37, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree. But what is this "brief blip in the latter 19th century" of which you speak? Carcharoth (talk) 08:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

There was a period under the third John Walter, after the rise of the penny-dreadfuls, when the Times made a conscious effort to maintain its position by upping its game and promoting itself as a 19th century equivalent of the present-day Economist, rather than trying to slug it out toe-to-toe with the populist press. The result was something akin to the modern Financial Times, in that it was deadly dull but prided itself on its accuracy, integrity, and broad scope. This incarnation of the Times ended abruptly in 1908 when Lord Northcliffe (the Rupert Murdoch of his day) seized control of it in the general chaos following the collapse of Britannica and turned it into the obsessively small-c-conservative mix of wildly biased reporting, pompous sermons to the lower orders and deeply dull chit-chat about the lives of the rich, which has lasted ever sense. (Someone who really likes pointless editwars ought to slap a {{cn}} on "The Times is generally seen as a serious publication with high standards of journalism", since the Times and its sister papers The Sun and the News of the World are arguably the three most despised mass-circulation newspapers in Western Europe.) – iridescent 19:19, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Disruptive Editing

Tony, one of the editors in the Dash arbitration, went to the Village Pump (policy) to notify them about the RfC, in line with the Arb motion. Several editors seem intent on sniping and negativity. I've tried hatting this thread, but another editor seems to think the commentary is fine. My concern is that this stay on track and not be derailed by negativity. I'm not sure if you can do anything, but I would hope editors would see that the more positive they can be the more quickly the issue will be resolved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#RfC_on_dashes

Diff of my hatting it: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&diff=429850440&oldid=429846752

Diff of editor unhatting: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&diff=429861968&oldid=429850440

Link to comment on user's talk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Yoenit#Disruptive_Editing

Thanks, and I appreciate your input on this. -- Avanu (talk) 11:15, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I see the frustration. I will post something, given that I have been overlooking this. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:36, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Please explain to me how an announcement can "stay on track". There is no track, just the announcement and several comments making fun of it. The RFC it points to has already been archived. Yoenit (talk) 11:38, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

The new discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/dash drafting where we can try and get everyone to offer their points of view once and for all and then (hopefully) come ot a consensus with some decent editor numbers Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:08, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I see the frustration on both sides. I can entirely see why a lot of people think this is absolutely pointless given that most readers can't even tell the difference between – and -; I can also see why a lot of other people think it's genuinely significant that Wikipedia have an internal standard and stick to it. I honestly don't really care either what the process is for deciding the answer, nor what the answer should be, but I'd encourage as many people as possible—including the "who cares?" contingent—to participate in this. If the soi-disant "polite, thoughtful, smart, geeky people, trying only to do something which is undoubtedly good in the world" can't come up with a solution to relatively minor issues like this, then to me it's a sign that the collaborative model isn't scaling and we should be seriously looking at a Committee of Last Resort to issue binding decisions on those policy-and-content issues Arbcom avoids. – iridescent 20:08, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate your comments on that. I'm fine with people adopting a 'who cares' attitude on this issue. I myself am fairly ambivalent on the dash issue, but I like consistency as well. I would just hope that even if someone doesn't care about the issue, they still maintain a civil attitude toward editors who do care, and express arguments in term of the issues, rather than what a 'big timewaster' someone is simply because their priorities are different. -- Avanu (talk) 20:42, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Hence if we have a few folks doing what I am trying to do - facilitate, spread the word, etc. we can get through this relatively painlessly. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:40, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm trying to avoid doing too much directly. I'm long enough in the tooth to remember Userboxes, Ireland and Date Delinking, and I want to leave as little scope as possible for "you notified WikiProject Spaced Em Dashes but didn't notify WikiProject Double Hyphens, this (renders the whole process invalid)/(means you're hopelessly biased) and we have to run the whole process again" arguments. I'm painfully aware that if the process fails we're going to wind up having to issue ex cathedra ruling on a topic on which none of us are particularly well qualified to comment; I want the likelihood of that as low as possible. – iridescent 21:59, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Rumpy pumpy

As another purveyor of filth, I wonder, do you think I've included enough smut on this article? I have the Catharine Arnold book you mentioned but I haven't had time to read through it so far. Parrot of Doom 10:08, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a reasonable balance to me; you don't want to turn it into a gallery of smut. It would probably be good if you can find some vocal "ban this evil filth" voices from the time (some bishop or MP somewhere must have spoken against it). As currently written it gives the impression that nobody at the time saw a problem with the woman-as-object attitude; I don't believe for an instant that in this period—during the high-water-mark of Dissenting Christianity and hardline evangelicalism in English history—no Methodist, Quaker, Baptist etc (or Roman Catholic, for that matter) saw Harris's List as a soft target to score points against the failure of the established church to provide moral guidance.

It might be impossible to source, but if at all possible the legacy section should probably mention the successors. The English tradition of rate-my-whore publications didn't die out with Harris's List—IIRC the British military even compiled official versions to try to discourage their officers from going to street whores and catching diseases—and there's probably a direct line of succession from Harris's List to McCoy's Guide. – iridescent 11:37, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

That's good advice, and I'll take it, thanks. Parrot of Doom 16:47, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Your edit at Nazi talking dogs

Hi Iridescent, your edit at Nazi talking dogs reminded me a joke:

A man calling a doctor:"Doctor,it is John Hendel, come fast, my wife's appendices is inflamed. It should be removed ASAP." Doctor responds:"John,I removed your wife's appendices last year, and I have never seen a person who gets another appendices after an appendectomy." "Doctor" - cries John -"Have you ever seen a person, who gets another wife after he divorced the old one!"

I am not sure you'll understand the meaning of the joke (I translated it from Russian, and it is hard for me to translate jokes), but what I meant to say is: don't you think that the man could be a rheumatologist and a historian at the same time:-) After all he is introduced as "a historian" by a few RS. Cheers.--Mbz1 (talk) 16:44, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

No, by no possible definition (including his own; the blurb on the book in question just describes him as "a senior lecturer and consultant rheumatologist at Cardiff University") is Jan Bondeson "a historian". He's a rheumatologist at Cardiff who was selected to do the tests when Julia Pastrana was exhumed; since then, he's earned pin money writing extremely dubious "believe it or not" books about medical history. (You might have had a better chance of convincing me, if not for the fact that I'd recently caught him passing off an 1805 description of Melrose Abbey from The Lay of the Last Minstrel as "an ancient charity document from Kent".) He's very good as a source-of-sources, and as a citation for unchallengeable material (that is, material where the primary source he's using is also available), but not for anything else outside his specialist fields of rheumatology and teratology. For a case like this, where he's the only source for the claims and none of the primary sources are visible, he's about as reliable a source as a back issue of Razzle. – iridescent 16:56, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't know if you've notice, but this is being considered at WP:DYK - Template talk:Did you know#Articles created/expanded on May 26.--DavidCane (talk) 21:39, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Meh. To my eyes, this looks pretty much to be a checklist of unusable sources (The Sun?✓ citing to reviews of the source with no citations to the actual source?✓ Daily Mail?✓) and even Bondeson himself has complained that this coverage is grossly misrepresenting his book (which the article's owner admits to not having even read), but the "it's in the Sun so it must be true" brigade are out in force for it. It'll go on the main page and give Wikipedia Review something to bitch about for a few days, then someone will presumably either quietly AFD it (once the unreliable sources are stripped out, the current article will be down to sub-stub length), or someone will turn it into a less inaccurate German experiments on animal psychology in the 1930s. (People who refer to the entire population of Germany in the 1930s as "Nazis" are a pet peeve of mine. If someone were to refer to every living Chinese person as "communist" they'd be rightly laughed out, but there seems to be a general impression that every German after 1933 liked nothing better than dressing up in jackboots and shooting their next door neighbour.) – iridescent 13:11, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

According to me (see what I did there) that's a pretty dire article. I wouldn't entertain that as a DYK for a single moment. Parrot of Doom 13:48, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration Case

Dear Iridescent, I'd just like to bring to your attention my note at the case. Thanks. -- Ashot ^(talk) 07:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

No problem. Don't take anyone's comments there as meaning that you don't have a valid case (or the converse), but since your argument is based on the fact that the other party is refusing to reply, you need to give them every reasonable opportunity to do so. Especially at this time of year when a lot of people are on holiday or trying to clear a backlog of work in the run-up to the holiday season, people do sometimes take a long time to reply. – iridescent 16:16, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. But probably there was a misunderstanding. I meant my following note:
-->

Note. Though already after filing this request I contacted Angel670 2 times on his/her talk page and my edits were reverted:

1st revert, where he/she tagged the revert as "stop vandalising my talkpage" which is a clear personal attack and incivility.
2nd revert (includes both previous messages and new note).

I just bring this to your attention to explain why I was not that inclined to get in direct contact earlier.

<--
Regards, -- Ashot ^(talk) 16:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi Iridescent

i sent you a mail yesterday. could you please look into it. --CarTick (talk) 19:10, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Replied. – iridescent 19:16, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for paying attention

even though you are not happy with the tradition. Hans Adler 15:55, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

No problem. I will warn you, though, that you may regret it. There's a reason few people who've had a TFA are keen to repeat the experience; there is very definitely a reason nobody who's had an April 1 TFA is ever keen to repeat the experience. – iridescent 16:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Eric Hill

Hi. I'm probably just being daft, but in a few rudimentary searches, I can't seem to find a citation for Eric Hill's death. If you have a minute, could you take a look? I really hope this isn't another case of death by Wikipedia.... --MZMcBride (talk) 16:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks like it at first glance; no obituaries I can see and nobody mentioning the death except Wikipedia mirrors. His publisher is still treating him as alive, and they're usually lightning-fast at changing bios when someone dies. The death was added by an IP, and unintentionally whitewashed by a lot of people who should know better tidying it up. Fixed until someone can point to an obituary. – iridescent 16:35, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I just poked around when I saw MZMcBride's note, and didn't find anything either, so I agree completely with Iridescent's edits. MZMcBride, out of curiosity and/or a desire to replicate what you did, how did you notice this problem? Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:09, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Out of boredom I was sampling Potential biographies of dead people (3) (configuration) and fixing a few talk pages (marking them as |living=no so they'd stop being listed on the report and having the {{BLP}} banner on the talk page). I usually try to do a quick sanity check and the weird birth date/death date formatting combined with the very short bio (and lack of an obit link) made me suspicious. When I verified that he had indeed received an OBE, it seemed even stranger that nobody had noted his death. So... random chance, I guess. I'm not sure if there's any programmatic way to catch cases like this. I think someone set up an AbuseFilter rule somewhere that can tag edits that add death dates/change verb tenses. Dunno for sure, though.

Iridescent: my thanks as always for the assist. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:08, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Wikipedia:Death by Wikipedia is a red link? Hmmmm.

P.P.S. God this place is great.

Gas-powered trams

While bumbling around filling in a few minor gaps in local history, such as the British Gas Traction Company, I noticed that although we have an article on the electric trams we have nothing on gas-powered trams, which seem far more interesting to me. Is that something you have any sources on? Malleus Fatuorum 20:44, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't really know much about trams, although if you poke WikiProject Streetcars and WikiProject UK Trams someone will probably know something. The quick-and-dirty way to do a rapid expansion of a rail-related article is go to the Robert Humm catalogue and search for titles in the area, and then go to WorldCat, find some UK libraries that have the relevant title (there's almost always at least one) and set up an inter-library loan. The Bibliography of British Railway History lists 25,000 books on British railways alone; whatever the topic, someone will almost certainly have written a book on it at some point. – iridescent 20:51, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I'll have a look around. Malleus Fatuorum 21:22, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

(butting in) There's always the Wikipedia Reference Desk, too. It's a crapshoot, obviously, but the few times I've used it I've had good results. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:16, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Err, yeah, there's always that I suppose. Malleus Fatuorum 22:21, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Railway of Death

Saw you were working on these. I'll review them both this evening.--DavidCane (talk) 13:06, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I've been telling people I'm "about to write" the parent article for at least a year. Hopefully, that one should be coming soon; I intentionally plucked the low-hanging-fruit on the railway first. The cemetery article will be necessarily massive, so I want as much as possible on the railway hived off to these subpages. (With bishops, horses, executions, disused railway stations, World War II, Victorian architecture and an Anglo-Saxon king, I think all it needs now is a hurricane and I'm the winner of Wikipedia Bingo.) – iridescent 15:51, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

PS—thanks for doing the reviews on those. They're both quite complicated; I have a feeling most of the GA reviewers would back away in horror. – iridescent 16:02, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

London Necropolis railway station has passed, though there are a couple of minor matters you might want to look at listed in the review.--DavidCane (talk) 22:26, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Lots of replies on the talkpage. – iridescent 16:59, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I have passed London Necropolis Railway as well. I made a few very minor adjustments as I read through, but nothing else needs doing. Both are excellent.--DavidCane (talk) 00:04, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for those... Now on to the parent articles, which I suspect will be harder. – iridescent 16:11, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

London Necropolis Railway

Wow, that's very impressive work. Any objections to me nominating it for GA?♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:33, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Already there—DavidCane's in the middle of the review (see above). – iridescent 10:41, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Its literally like featured quality already lol! No wonder you are critical of some short stubs and certain poor quality DYKs if you are capable of producing content that good!! Well done! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:49, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Mmm do you think British Humane Association refers to Royal Humane Society or British Humanist Association or neither?♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:53, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I may put at least some of the Brookwood series through FAC, but I want to wait until the series is a good deal more complete; at the moment I've only finished two of them, and they're the two easiest ones to write. FA status confers no actual benefit (the article is exactly the same regardless of whether it has a yellow dot or not) and potentially leads to a lot of problems as it opens up the risk of an article being TFA'd, so I'm in no hurry. Besides, FAC is quite clogged at the moment, and I don't like to add to the backlog.

Neither, so far as I can tell; certainly not the Humanists, but the RHS was "Royal" and not "British" since the 18th century. I suspect it was an early animal welfare charity, but can't be certain, and don't particularly have the inclination to go digging through old land registry archives. – iridescent 11:11, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Neither indeed – Founded in 1920 for "the promotion of benevolence for the good of humanity and the community". Bencherlite ^Talk 11:13, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

And who says you can't learn anything on Wikipedia? (I'd love to know what the reaction of the present day Charity Commission would be to an application with "The promotion of benevolence for the good of humanity and the community" as an object.) – iridescent 11:20, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I did look in google books for some info but it didn't turn up anything, that's why I wondered if it was the royal one... I've started it to fill in a red link, web sources are lacking though, otherwise I'd expand it further..♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:31, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I am working on a very different railway of death in my sandbox at present, temporary link here (sorry, unsigned by Wehwalt)

Aren't we all cheerful this month, with my mass graves, your rail crash, Malleus's gibbet and Moni's nuclear meltdown? Must be summer. When you send that live, be aware that half a dozen people you never heard of will immediately turn up demanding it be renamed Canoe River disaster, Canoe River incident, November 21, 1950 Canadian railroad crash and every other permutation you can think of; rail accidents always seem to bring out a legion of the "naming convention" contingent. – iridescent 16:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I started out writing this to clear up a loose end for another link in my FA, John Diefenbaker. I knew the story of the case, since it is one of the most famous about Dief as a lawyer. However, it turns out to be a fascinating story.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Template:Like

For what it's worth, {{like}} was mostly created (or hijacked, really, it already existed in some form when I arrived) as a proof-of-concept/joke. I think it's always interesting to see how well wikicode can emulate code elsewhere. And with the help of a few others, it turns out the answer is "pretty well." The reactions on the talk page make it fairly clear that it's not this template that people fear, it's what people assume it stands for. Good art challenges the viewer. (-;

Tangentially, I've supported having template like {{support}} in the past and still do. The difference between typing {{support}} and '''support''' is two characters, but people seem to think that requiring those extra characters will lead to a reasoned, rational discussion versus an irrational, barbaric vote. Or at least they pretend to think so. It's all a bit silly, fittingly. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:25, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

There's an obvious argument against {{support}} etc, in that it frazzles the servers. On most pages that's not an issue, but for the sort of places where voting processes are likely to be used—FAC, RFA etc—it's possible for the accumulated templates to hit the template limit, which is A Bad Thing. (This is why Raul bans the {{done}} template and its kin from FAC.)

Did you ever see Gurch's old userpage design? – iridescent 15:37, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

PS. Just noticed someone using "Grandma sharing photos with their grandkids" on that talkpage, as an example of what Wikipedia should be doing. The mind boggles. – iridescent 15:41, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Gurchbook? Of course. :D

I think my favorite Gurch creation is his old archive index, though. Hands down one of my favorite users. His creative touch is all over the site (the {{sudo}} redirect is another good example).

I suppose template limits are a reasonable enough reason, though Commons seems to get by well enough in most cases. It's mostly a matter of how complex the templates are. ParserFunctions usage is directionally proportional to parse speed. If the template just contained a simple image and bold text, you'd never come near a limit. But people want to be able to do all sorts of conditional magic; the {{like}} template is a good example of a simple design that quickly balloons.

My grandma loves Facebook; I can't imagine her ever uploading anything to Commons, though. I can't really imagine anyone uploading anything to Commons ever, actually. The Master Plan™ seems to be to make uploading from mobile devices easier, which may trickle down to the web UI at some point, I guess. Personally, I'll continue to contend that MediaWiki is the jack of all trades and master of none. Until it picks a damn focus (image repo, encyclopedia, or dictionary), it'll never be great. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:22, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

My opinion of Commons is vanishingly low. I'll upload completely non-contentious things there, but anything remotely unusual I'll keep locally; I'm heartily sick of their editors "improving" files.

MediaWiki may suck, but remember it's aimed at a much broader userbase than pretty much any other comparable software. It needs to be able simultaneously to cope with people using 20-year old DOS terminals over a spotty dial-up connection, high-end users handling massive video files, and people editing via antiquated WAP phones, all the while with 3,000 people constantly demanding it be changed to fit their pet project. It's actually remarkably good at what it does—try running the beta version of our future over Lynx and see how your computer reacts. (Thanks to Amazon's intentionally clunky browser software on the Kindle—outside the US Amazon massively discounts them with unmetered and unrestricted free 3G access worldwide bundled, so they intentionally make the browser shitty—you'd be surprised at just how many people are accessing Wikipedia via a command-line.) – iridescent 22:49, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Seeking input on a proposed finding of fact

Hello. I am writing this message as a third party monitoring an ongoing arbitration case. I have been voicing concerns about a proposed finding of fact since 6 June, but no arbitrator has chosen to respond to those concerns. If you have a moment, I would appreciate your input on Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Racepacket/Proposed_decision#Proposed_finding_9. I apologize for contacting you on your personal talk page, but despite posting notes daily on the proposed decision talk page requesting arbitrator input, no one has responded. Thank you. —Bill Price (nyb) 22:11, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I stand by my comment of "Simplified, but correct". To break proposed finding 9 down:

Interactions between LauraHale and Racepacket have been problematic.
Not in dispute, or it wouldn't be at Arbcom;
For example
Note the "for example"; this is not purporting to be a definitive summary of the incident;
Racepacket said the Netball article contained close paraphrasing
Demonstrable fact;
LauraHale misinterpreted this to mean that she was responsible, and asked for evidence.
Not in dispute;
Initially, Racepacket didn't explain there was a misunderstanding, and that LauraHale was not responsible for the close paraphrasing, or indicate where the close paraphrasing was.
Not in dispute, unless you're challenging the word "initially";
LauraHale repeatedly indicated that she believed Racepacket had in effect accused her of plagiarism
Demonstrably true.

I'm not clear what the issue is here. – iridescent 22:33, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I will copy this to the central discussion on the proposed decision talk page and respond there. —Bill Price (nyb) 14:30, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

You have some great discussions on reviewing in your talk page

Don't freak out (not doing it for personality stuff) but got referred to your page for some discusison of FA reviewing (and then you even referr back deeper into your archives). Some very thoughtful comments in there and points from 2008 that still apply.

TCO (talk) 23:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

P.s. Yes, the only thing that matters are GA+ articles on topics of importance matter.

P.s.s. I agree with Mallman2008 that reviewers need to temper their tone given what the nominator is going through (and that he did all this work). Also, that the most important things are right content, well organized. Not dashing or that stuff.

P.s.s. We should probably have Sub/start/GA/"better" (maybe call it Outstanding)/FA. If we want, we could have some other stuff in there between start and GA or have the confusion of letters, but maybe better to not even have that. Just recognize everything below GA IS a "start" in that it is not a coherent, composed article yet.TCO (talk) 23:31, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

RE: Your comment | here

Iridescent - You've accused me of:
* Making up policy | on this page
* Suggested that an AFD be closed as being disruptive | here
I suggest that you read policy a bit more, in particular Wikipedia:Attack_pages as this is really is policy and not something I've made up.
I am following policy for attack pages, that's all KoshVorlon'_Nal^uboutes _Aeria^Gloris 11:59, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of your interpretation of policy (and I happen to agree that it is a violation of BLP), you can't unilaterally act when consensus tells you to wait. Like it or not, the community overrules the individual, unless that individual is Jimmy Wales :)

So by going against the actual authority here (the community), you're not following general policy. Many people happen to agree with you that the page needs change, but you aren't permitted to act unilaterally by policy if people challenge it. -- Avanu (talk) 15:45, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

As you were told after you unilaterally blanked the page, after you unilaterally blanked the page again, after you unilaterally blanked the page yet again, after you tried to canvass other people to blank the page for you, after you vandalised the related template and after you vandalised the related template again, you don't get to unilaterally rewrite Wikipedia policy just because you don't like a particular article.

As I write this 273 people have commented on that article's talkpage; there's a reason 272 of them have not seen fit to blank the article or tag it for speedy deletion, and there's a reason the large number of people trying to come to a consensus on the issue are getting annoyed at an editor who's had no input on the article, no input on the BLP policies, and no history of understanding the nuances of the neutrality policies as they relate to the real world, wading in all-guns-blazing and telling them that although they're outnumbered 272–1 their opinions count for nothing because they don't happen to agree with yours. There are legitimate discussions to be had on how Wikipedia covers notable cases of defamation and to what extent it's necessary to repeat the defamatory content, and how to handle the fact that Wikipedia's intentionally disproportionate Google rankings can lead to topic of marginal relevance to a topic becoming the first hit on a search for that topic. Both these matters have been discussed in multiple venues at great length, and you've never once bothered to participate in any of those discussions.

Once a page is under discussion at Arbcom, it's certainly not appropriate to try to circumvent the debate by nominating the page under discussion at AFD (without even a token effort to consider the overwhelming keep votes in the many previous AFDs). You have been warned—repeatedly—about your editwarring and disruption as regards this page. (You've had enough warnings in the past regarding showboating and disruption, such as your "NFCC doesn't apply to me" claims a couple of years ago, or your attempt to nominate Larry Sanger for deletion, to know where the bright-lines on what is and isn't acceptable are.) If you have something sensible to say about this, then the Arbcom case is the place to say it. – iridescent 15:54, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Irridescent --- the image you refered to was deleted anyway, and far as I'm concerned I acted stupid over it, no excuses, I was stupid. Larry Sanger issued a legal threat and was actually taking court action against Wikipedia and our policy for legal threats is blank the page, which is just what I did. Yes, an admin unblanked it, against policy and threatened to block me.

I spoke with her but she was insisted I leave the page alone, and I did. Apples to Oranges, basically. On Santorum_Neologism, our policy on attack pages calls for them to be blanked and deleted. It's just that simple. That's what I am attempting to do. There's no arb case either, 2 arbs accepted, the rest declined. That means no case will be heard on that. That leads us back to...... you guessed it, the policy on attack pages. I'm not real happy that an admin is accusing me of vanadlism, when that's really not the case, nor I am particularly happy that you're mis-labeling my attempts to follow policy (BTW - please read the policy on Vandalism, removing Santorum from those templates was not vandalizing. Also read the policy on canvassing as that's not what my actions were. ) I shouldn't have to tell you, as an admin, to not attack editors, it makes it look like WP:ILIKEIT, which I know is not the case. So to review:
* This is not being arbitrated
* This is an attack page
* We have a real live policy on attack pages, blank 'em and 'delete 'em. .... and that's just what I did (blank and call for deletion.

It's really just that simple. KoshVorlon'_Nal^uboutes _Aeria^Gloris 17:38, 13 June 2011 (UTC) KoshVorlon'_Nal^uboutes _Aeria^Gloris 17:23, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Four arbs have accepted it and two have declined; can you at least credit me with the ability to count? With 16 active and two recusals, that means only three more accepts will see it accepted (assuming no further opposes). And—as you've been told on countless occasions—can you please get your head around the concept that an article about a legal threat is not itself a legal threat, and an article about a libel is not itself a libel? – iridescent 17:34, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK for London Necropolis Railway

On 13 June 2011, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article London Necropolis Railway, which you created or substantially expanded. The fact was ... that the London Necropolis Railway was used to relocate the exhumed contents of at least 21 London graveyards to Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey? You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 12:14, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Great article! I enjoyed reading it. --Coemgenus 16:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! It's necessarily dull in places (there's no way to make fare structures or railway junction design interesting), but I think it's an interesting story on a topic most people are only vaguely aware of. – iridescent 17:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

...

Cranky much? (seeing above comment) :) -- Avanu (talk) 15:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I am heartily sick of people who treat something which has a real and sometimes devastating impact on real people's lives like some kind of videogame, of people who think disrupting other peoples' work is justified because they think causing trivial drama is somehow cool, and of people who think their own personal prejudices are divine right but anyone else's opinions are just What The Man Wants You To Think and they're striking a blow for freedom by ignoring them, in roughly equal measure. Finding this steaming heap waiting for me, containing liberal doses of all three, is not my idea of fun; finding something similar plus a couple of hundred emails every time one turns the computer on, less so. This particular user has a very long history of disruption-for-disruption's-sake, and my AGF level as regards him is squarely at zero. – iridescent 16:09, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

In The Times today

Times 2 Quiz, question 4: "Daniel Lambert (1770–1809) was famous for what reason?" Thought you might be interested as to how far interest in that article has spread (working on the not-unreasonable assumption that no-one would have asked that question before you rewrote the article and took it through FAC to TFA). Wikipedia strikes again! Regards, Bencherlite ^Talk 16:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

It's possible that it's unrelated to the article. He's still a local celebrity in Leicester, which has something of a cottage-industry in Lambert-related tat, plus he turns up in a lot of 19th century books (Nicholas Nickelby, Vanity Fair etc). What I find more interesting regarding that series is how much of an impact my Tarrare article—which has a reasonable claim to be the most obscure article on Wikipedia—has had; it gets quoted in the unlikeliest places. (Did you ever see that dinosaur?) Interestingly, this page on the Campus Crusade for Christ website seems to be one of the few that's understood my thinking in writing the "18th century compulsive eaters" series; to me, their story isn't a pitying "hey, look at these guys who ate too much", but an inspirational one in that these were people with serious physical and/or mental illnesses (the jury is still out in all their cases) who nonetheless managed to carve out niches for themselves in a particularly unpleasant wartime society. – iridescent 17:09, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

A1 road (London)

Hi. I wondered if you might be interested in this: Talk:A1 road (London)#Should it be Henly's Corner or Henlys Corner?. I do have this horrible feeling that you'll think I'm an idiot, but I thought it was a bit churlish to raise it without mentioning it to you. Thanks and best wishes DBaK (talk) 12:40, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Concur with "Henlys" not "Henly's"; since the no-apostrophe version is what TfL use and they're responsible for the signs, whatever they use is "correct" regardless of grammar. – iridescent 15:49, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, great, thanks! Best wishes DBaK (talk) 16:22, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Comments on DRV

On the Drv you wrote:
*Endorse. KoshVorlon, will you quit forum shopping? By my estimation this is your seventh attempt to get this page deleted this month. Wikipedia's deletion process isn't shoot-till-you-win, and your constant refusal to admit that other people disagree with you is well over the line into disruption. – iridescent 14:25, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Please comment on content, not contributors. Read WP:CIVIL, WP:NOTVANDAL and the policy on Deletion, DRV isn't forum shopping, it's part of the policy on deletions. KoshVorlon'_Nal^uboutes _Aeria^Gloris 15:21, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

No; when a contributor is intentionally being disruptive because on six separate occasions there was an overwhelming consensus against them (a consensus that included Jimmy Wales, most of Arbcom and dozens of long term users on one side, and you on the other) we comment on the contributor. Wikipedia is not your personal vanity project, and we're not going to change some of our core policies just because you don't like an article. – iridescent 15:32, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Following policy is not being disruptive. Comment on content not contributor is very march part of civility and has to be followed.

KoshVorlon'_Nal^uboutes _Aeria^Gloris 16:26, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

This has gone on long enough, and you're ignoring the long line of people who've warned you about your behaviour. I'll post this on your talkpage as well, but I'll also post here for the record since I suspect you'll blank the talkpage warning.

You are repeatedly disrupting Wikipedia process, refusing to abide by the results of an RFC, and refusing to engage in discussion on the topic. If you blank, significantly reduce in content, or nominate for deletion any article, page or template relating to Rick Santorum or Dan Savage you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. If you have genuine concerns that you don't feel have adequately been addressed, raise them on the article or template's talkpage; this is one of the most watched articles on Wikipedia, and if you are unable to persuade even one of the people watching the page that your argument has merit, it very likely does not. – iridescent 16:52, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Again, I am following policy not disrupting it. Please strike your threat from my page.

KoshVorlon'_Nal^uboutes _Aeria^Gloris 16:57, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Final post, and after this I'm not going to reply to you any further. There are 179 people currently watching that page. Of those, 178—even the ones who are in favour of this article's deletion or substantial reduction—do not agree with you. If your arguments have merit, all you need to to is persuade one of them to nominate it for deletion. If you're unable to do so, stop and consider why. – iridescent 17:02, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Wickenby

Hi,I am just letting you know that I have created Wickenby, one of the things on your to-do list. Wigginton (talk) 15:27, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Please check your email

urgently. — Coren ^(talk) 18:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

FYI - ANI

Hi, please see a thread in which you are discussed, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Arbcom.27s_personal_attacks - thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 22:15, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Off2riorob, thanks for taking care of the notification on behalf of the original poster. I've posted some comments in the thread. With everything else that is going on, I do not think Iridescent should worry much about this particular ANI thread at this time. If he wants to respond to Silver seren's concern at some later date, that's up to him. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

RfC/U: Cirt

Dear Iridescent, further to the recent Political activism request for arbitration and various arbitrators' comments at that request to the effect that there had not been to date an RfC/U on Cirt, please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Cirt. Best, --J N 466 13:23, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Any Comment?

Hey Iri, do you have any comment about what's going on over here? Sure looks like you're being thown under the bus by arbcom, but I have my doubts. What's going on? Tex (talk) 14:10, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Tex, excuse me for butting in here. We're hoping, too, that Iridescent will be in a position to post in the near future; however, xe may be quite busy ensuring that there are no other personal security breaches that need to be addressed urgently. Without minimizing the impact of this event to the Arbitration Committee or the general Wikipedia community, the impact on Iridescent as an individual is proportionally more severe. Just as intelligent, careful people can find themselves spending hours and even days mitigating the damage if they have their wallets stolen, the same is true when one's online identity is compromised in some way. Iridescent has been able to contact us in the immediate aftermath through alternative verifiable means, and we expect to hear further information in the near future that will help us to verify the extent of the account compromise. Risker (talk) 16:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Understood. Thanks, Risker. Tex (talk) 19:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

So, it now appears that it wasn't your e-mail that was hacked. Seems strange that you still haven't commented at all, though. The longer you are MIA, the more the natives are going to believe you were the leak. You weren't the leak, were you? Tex (talk) 18:30, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I am not a technical expert, so I can't comment on the e-mail headers that led someone to conclude that a hack was made through Iridescent's account, but my understanding is that this evidence is no longer considered probative. As for any suggestion that Iridescent has leaked the arbcom archives intentionally, I am confident that there is no possibility whatsoever that this is the case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:17, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Anyone who wants to believe that I was responsible for this, will believe it regardless of what I do or say. I am not an expert in email tracking, so can't comment either way on the validity of the claims that the emails came from my account. (The account has been retired as a precautionary measure, although as I understand it the evidence has now turned out to be fake.) Given that I know first-hand how annoying it is to be accused of involvement on the basis of (apparently) inaccurate evidence, I'm certainly not going to join in any speculation as to the identity of those involved, unless and until evidence is found. – iridescent 09:01, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Hope to see you back online soon..

I understand you're offline for a bit longer, but I'm hopeful that we'll have ya back with us soon, we need ya around :) SirFozzie (talk) 23:19, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Strongly seconded. I miss your article work and your arbitrating and even your calling me various names. I understand that you must have other priorities right now, but I hope to be working with you again soon. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Chin up old thing. I noticed this latest drama-fest and wandered over to WR to see what all the fuss is about. A shade embarrassing for those involved perhaps, but it (the whole site) is all rather dreary really. Hope you make it back soon. Ben Mac Dui 17:52, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

July Metro

The Metropolitan

The WikiProject London Transport Newsletter
(Issue 33 - July 2011)
May 2011 | August 2011

Please go to WT:LT to discuss the future of the Portal

London Transport News

July

New guide released showing passengers where to avoid stairs on London Underground
Six moths until next Low Emission Zone limits launched
Transport for London employee wins National Apprentice of the Year

June

London Underground extends District line timetable consultation
Bus travel in London highest in 50 years
Work continues to keep London transport cool
Transport for London has won a National award for employee communications at the Institute of Internal Communications annual awards
Golders Green bus station reopens early
TfL reveals first concept drawings of improved Tottenham Hale bus station and square
TfL installs eco-lighting in Upper Thames Street tunnel
Passengers and staff invited to submit stories of kindness seen on the Tube by artist Michael Landy
Various change to be applied to travel around Moorgate and Liverpool Street to help deliver Crossrail
Businesses urged to start planning now to keep running effective during Olympics
Sponsorship offered on London Cable Car
London Underground awards major signalling contract
Northern Line upgrade begins later this year
Delays on London Underground down one third in eight years
Blackwall Tunnel refurbishment approaches completion
Passenger numbers double for East London line one year on.
More bins on London Underground
Huge increase in lost property on TFL network
Crime dropped by 7% on London Underground and Docklands Light Railway and 4% on London Buses
Initial results of removal of Congestion Charge Western extension shows little impact on traffic and air quality
Daniel Buren to create new permanent artwork at Tottenham Court Road Tube station

May

Polish poetry introduced on London Underground
Pedestrian Countdown brings benefits to London
Electric vehicle scheme "Source London" switched on
Bus route 488 extended to Dalston
New bus design now given testing
TfL urban realm designer scoops the Alan Cherry Award for Placemaking
More trams in evening between Wimbledon and New Addington
Over 1300 drivers arrested on unbooked minicabs over last year
Increased train frequencies in many London Overground lines
London Cycle Challenge back for 2011
Contract awarded to Birse Metro to complete London Overground's orbital railway
Cyclists concerns have been included in Blackfriars junction plan
A consultation is launched on exemptions to taxi and private hire vehicle age limits
Twenty five community grants have been offered to improve community cycling projects across London
Figures show large improvements in road safety for past 10 years
Transport for London (TfL), Cubic and the Association of Train Operating Companies partnership awarded Excellence in Technology and Innovation at the London Transport Awards for bringing Oyster onto the National Rail network in London.
Docklands Light Railway 3-car upgrade complete
Consultation on the Northern Line extension to Battersea begins
More major car companies sign up to offer discounts to customers affected by the Low Eimission Zone next year

For more information see: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/3119.aspx (most times) Note: Oldest news items at bottom of list

Project News

Articles

Frank Pick was promoted to Good Article status in May
Charles Holden and RAF Northolt were promoted to Featured Article staus in May
London Necropolis Railway and London Necropolis railway station were promoted to Good Article status in June
The Featured Article 1910 London to Manchester air race was added to the project.
List of works by Charles Holden is currently a Featured List candidate
London Buses route 394 was proposed for deletion but kept, whilst London Buses route 153 was redirected.
London Necropolis Company is currently a Featured Article candidate
There are currently 2,781 project pages; nearly all have been assessed for quality and importance. If you see a new article on a project topic which is not rated, please add the banner to the talk page and assess it.

Portal

The portal has now been automated by DavidCane (talk · contribs)
It was also promoted to featured portal status in July

Requests

Haynestre (talk · contribs) has requested comment on London General Omnibus Company
WhisperToMe (talk · contribs) has requested photos of various companies across London including airlines.
Tyw7 has requested help with improving Docklands Light Railway rolling stock
MRSC has requested help with improving North and West London Light Railway and West London Orbital
Lifelike (talk · contribs) has requested more info be added to rail line infoboxes
Usage data has been published on National Rail stations by the DfT. The recent 2009/10 includes Oyster usage.
File:Thames tunnels.svg (below) requires updating (leave a note here explaining what needs doing)

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Cleanup : Lists of articles needing cleanup
Expand : These top 10 favourite articles to Good Article: J. P. Morgan · Heathrow Airport · River Thames · London Bridge · London Underground · London Bridge (Lake Havasu City) · Gatwick Airport · London Congestion Charge · Tube map · Tower Bridge These top importance articles to Good Article: 7 July 2005 London bombings · Buses in London · Crossrail · London Passenger Transport Board · London Transport (brand) · London Transport Museum · Transport for London · Transport in London
Photo : Upload your non-copyrighted London transportation images to Wikimedia Commons
Stubs : Improve a stub article
Update : London low emission zone, London congestion charge
Other :
- Suggest: A Did You Know...? fact here or an Anniversary fact here.
- Patrol: Recent changes
- Join: Become a member of WikiProject London Transport or encourage others

Other

Discussions within the project included the good article nomination of Frank Pick, 2010 London Underground usage now available, renomination of the portal as a featured portal, Source London and the London Overground roundel
Other project related discussions included railway gauge discussions, renaming disused station categories, RDTs in infoboxes, detail of RDTs, naming convention of trains, station diagrams, railway usage and the opening of Canary Wharf station.

Members

Newest member: Cherryguy93 (talk · contribs) joined in April. Welcome to them.
Number of participants is 78

Editorial

Editor: Simply south (talk)
Many, many apologies for not having an April edition but here is the May edition. Does anyone fancy doing June?
It is sad to see that Kbthompson (talk · contribs) passed away in mid-December. Condolences to his many family and friends.
All suggestions to improve the newsletter are welcome at feedback page or User talk:Simply south

Best Articles

Featured

Good

Featured topic

Wikipedia:Featured topics/Brill Tramway

Featured portal

Portal:London Transport

Recently promoted to Featured Article or Featured List

None at present

Recently assessed as Good Articles

Featured Article candidates (FAC or FLC here)

Good Article candidates (here)

None at present

Most visited pages

For a list of the Project's most visited pages, see Wikipedia:WikiProject London Transport/Favourite pages

Gallery

This month's gallery of images (selected by Portal:London Transport)

If you want to unsubscribe from this newsletter or, if you are visiting this user page and want to sign-up, then please visit this page. You may also like to provide your opinions on this newsletter by visiting The Metropolitan's feedback page or the project's discussion page. Any other issues with this, don't be afraid to drop a line at Simply south's talkpage.


Wikipedia ads	file info – #137

Simply south...... digging mountains for 5 years 21:49, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Congratulations on being CheckUsered (again)

Too soon?

It looks like (nearly? *) the whole Arb family got CheckUsered. If there's one group I'd count on to be my Clouseau, it'd be Wikimedia. The Head of Reader Relations is going to figure out if we've had an Emergency Level IX subsection B breach, using every tool in his belt. Go to red! #thisisnotatest

I see you're back editing. I'm glad. :-)

* (I don't actually have any idea how many people are on ArbCom at this point. Until about a week ago, I thought Carcharoth was still serving. It turns out he left in December 2010.)

MZMcBride (talk) 05:49, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Featured Article promotion

	Congratulations!
	Thanks for all the work you did in making London Necropolis Company a Feature Article! Your work is much appreciated. In the spirit of celebration, you may wish to comment on another Featured article candidate... or perhaps review one of the Good Article nominees, as there is currently a backlog. Any help is appreciated! All the best, – Quadell ^(talk) 13:22, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, so don't be so lazy in future Iridescent. ;-) Malleus Fatuorum 18:31, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm... also not very knowledgeable about who is already doing more than their part in reviews. – Quadell ^(talk) 18:40, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure there are lots of editors who would take great pleasure in sharing with you a list of those whom they believe to be members of the mysterious FAC cabal. But then I'm just pissed off that nobody's ever asked me to join. Malleus Fatuorum 18:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll send you the SuperSekrit password immediately ... hold your breath! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:02, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

... turning blue now ... starting to feel very faint ... Malleus Fatuorum 19:10, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Hey wait! Where's MY SuperSekritPasswordOfDoom??? (I'll do anything to avoid actually doing work today .. with the heat indices around 111 degrees F (43.8 degrees C, says my converter) I'm not in the mood to even get out of my basement... Ealdgyth - Talk 19:12, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

We've had a rather pleasant 22 degrees C here today, going down to a rather comfortable 16 degrees later this evening. Our weather is rather strange though. I know you won't believe this Ealdgyth, but a tornado tore through a housing estate about 10 miles from here last week. In fact I think we have more tornados than any other place on Earth, but they're obviously not of the same strength as the ones that rip though the US. Some years ago I was sitting in the upstairs bar of a sailing club I belonged to when one hit the boat park. Seeing the dinghies lifted up into the air and tossed aside was just awesome. Malleus Fatuorum 19:29, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Image source problem with File:Haringey wards with Noel Park highlighted.jpg

Image Copyright problem

Thank you for uploading File:Haringey wards with Noel Park highlighted.jpg.

This image is a derivative work, containing an "image within an image". Examples of such images would include a photograph of a sculpture, a scan of a magazine cover, or a screenshot of a computer game or movie. In each of these cases, the rights of the creator of the original image must be considered, as well as those of the creator of the derivative work.

While the description page states who made this derivative work, it currently doesn't specify who created the original work, so the overall copyright status is unclear. If you did not create the original work depicted in this image, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright.

If you have uploaded other derivative works, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Wikipedia:Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 18:14, 11 July 2011 (UTC). If the file is already gone, you can still make a request for undeletion and ask for a chance to fix the problem. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:14, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Don't be ridiculous. Borders are a geographic fact, not a work of original creation, and it's established beyond any doubt that it's impossible to copyright a geographic fact. – iridescent 18:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Have you walked away from your Chesham branch FAC?

Your last posting to the FAC page was a week ago. Did I waste my time doing a full review and leaving copious comments? Brianboulton (talk) 13:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Can you drop me a line

Someone has raised concerns over the Brookwood cemetery articles & related. Apparently they have a no photography clause and I was just wanting to clarify a few things r.e. the images. Any chance you could drop me an email - this involves an OTRS request so I can't go into too much detail here :) tom@errant.me.uk - if you have chance. --Errant ^(chat!) 15:05, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

August Metro

The Metropolitan

The WikiProject London Transport Newsletter
(Issue 34 - August 2011)
July 2011 | September 2011

Please go to WT:LT to discuss the future of the Portal

London Transport News

August

Plans set out to help transform central London into major 2012 Games venue
Person drowns overboard from Woolwich Ferry
Traffic around Hyde Park Corner on diversion as world's best triathletes race for one weekend

July

Full fleet of Victoria Line trains now in service
Fruit and veg sprout up all over the Tube
Barclays Cycle Hire celebrates one year with £25 million investment from Barclays
Woman gives birth on a bus on route 145 in Dagenham
Improvement work begins on Stratford bus station in time for Olympics
Firms race to get 2012 Games travel plans in place
New Oysters can now be bought from ticket machines
TfL annoyed with Thames Water over 'pointless' disruption trying to locate leak near Baker Street
Temporary changes to bus stopping arrangements around Putney Bridge Bus Station due ti improvement works to both bus and tube stations until September
Coach parking facilities increase by 25% in London
Work is set to start on an essential new road layout on Blackfriars Bridge to handle 40,00 passengers from upgraded station
London Cycle Challenge circles the globe 69 times
After one year, the Mayor's Cycle Task Force celebrates safety and security successes
Dial-a-Ride completes record number of trips
Two further Barclay's Cycles superhighways now open
TfL responds to Coroner's recommendations following 7/7 Inquest
Congestion at Henly's Corner on A406 to be cut as part of Mayor's clampdown on roadworks
New art at Hampstead Heath station
New programmes launched to help businesses of all sizes keep on running during 2012 Games
Consultation sought on changes to bus routes 206, 224 and PR2 in the Wembley and Park Royal area
High Street Kensington to Edgware Road on the Circle and District lines close for four weeks for essential upgrade works
Final weekend closures cancelled on Blackwall Tunnel refurbishment
TfL publishes draft accessibilty action plan for comments
Construction begins on Thames cable car
New guide released showing passengers where to avoid stairs on London Underground
Six moths until next Low Emission Zone limits launched
Transport for London employee wins National Apprentice of the Year

June

London Underground extends District line timetable consultation
Bus travel in London highest in 50 years
Work continues to keep London transport cool
Transport for London has won a National award for employee communications at the Institute of Internal Communications annual awards
Golders Green bus station reopens early
TfL reveals first concept drawings of improved Tottenham Hale bus station and square
TfL installs eco-lighting in Upper Thames Street tunnel
Passengers and staff invited to submit stories of kindness seen on the Tube by artist Michael Landy
Various change to be applied to travel around Moorgate and Liverpool Street to help deliver Crossrail
Businesses urged to start planning now to keep running effective during Olympics
Sponsorship offered on London Cable Car
London Underground awards major signalling contract
Northern Line upgrade begins later this year
Delays on London Underground down one third in eight years
Blackwall Tunnel refurbishment approaches completion
Passenger numbers double for East London line one year on.
More bins on London Underground
Huge increase in lost property on TFL network
Crime dropped by 7% on London Underground and Docklands Light Railway and 4% on London Buses
Initial results of removal of Congestion Charge Western extension shows little impact on traffic and air quality
Daniel Buren to create new permanent artwork at Tottenham Court Road Tube station

For more information see: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/3119.aspx (most times) Note: Oldest news items at bottom of list

Project News

Articles

Frank Pick was promoted to Good Article status in May
Charles Holden and RAF Northolt were promoted to Featured Article staus in May
London Necropolis Railway and London Necropolis railway station were promoted to Good Article status in June
The Featured Article 1910 London to Manchester air race was added to the project.
List of works by Charles Holden was promoted to Featured List status in August
London Necropolis Company was promoted to Featured Article status in July
London Buses route 394 was proposed for deletion but kept, whilst London Buses route 153 was redirected.
There are currently 2,804 project pages; all have been assessed for quality and importance. If you see a new article on a project topic which is not rated, please add the banner to the talk page and assess it.

Portal

The portal has now been automated by DavidCane (talk · contribs)
It was also promoted to featured portal status in July

Requests

Haynestre (talk · contribs) has requested comment on London General Omnibus Company
WhisperToMe (talk · contribs) has requested photos of various companies across London including airlines.
Tyw7 has requested help with improving Docklands Light Railway rolling stock
MRSC has requested help with improving North and West London Light Railway and West London Orbital
Lifelike (talk · contribs) has requested more info be added to rail line infoboxes
Usage data has been published on National Rail stations by the DfT. The recent 2009/10 includes Oyster usage.
File:Thames tunnels.svg (below) requires updating (leave a note here explaining what needs doing)

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Cleanup : Lists of articles needing cleanup
Expand : These top 10 favourite articles to Good Article: J. P. Morgan · Heathrow Airport · River Thames · London Bridge · London Underground · London Bridge (Lake Havasu City) · Gatwick Airport · London Congestion Charge · Tube map · Tower Bridge These top importance articles to Good Article: 7 July 2005 London bombings · Buses in London · Crossrail · London Passenger Transport Board · London Transport (brand) · London Transport Museum · Transport for London · Transport in London
Photo : Upload your non-copyrighted London transportation images to Wikimedia Commons
Stubs : Improve a stub article
Update : London low emission zone, London congestion charge
Other :
- Suggest: A Did You Know...? fact here or an Anniversary fact here.
- Patrol: Recent changes
- Join: Become a member of WikiProject London Transport or encourage others

Other

Discussions within the project were the fact that the London Transport was promoted to featured portal status and tagging Tillingbourne Bus Company as part of the project
Other project related discussions included naming convention of trains, railway accidents, previous rail employment is now found online, railway usage and the opening of Canary Wharf station.

Members

Newest member: Fabregas0414 (talk · contribs) joined in August. Welcome to them. Tyw7 (talk · contribs) retired in June.
Number of participants is 78

Editorial

Editor: Simply south (talk)
Many, many apologies for not having an April edition but here is the May edition. Does anyone fancy doing June?
It is sad to see that Kbthompson (talk · contribs) passed away in mid-December. Condolences to his many family and friends.
All suggestions to improve the newsletter are welcome at feedback page or User talk:Simply south

Best Articles

Featured

Good

Featured topic

Wikipedia:Featured topics/Brill Tramway

Featured portal

Portal:London Transport

Recently promoted to Featured Article or Featured List

Recently assessed as Good Articles

Featured Article candidates (FAC or FLC here)

None at present

Good Article candidates (here)

None at present

Most visited pages

For a list of the Project's most visited pages, see Wikipedia:WikiProject London Transport/Favourite pages

Gallery

This month's gallery of images (selected by Portal:London Transport)

If you want to unsubscribe from this newsletter or, if you are visiting this user page and want to sign-up, then please visit this page. You may also like to provide your opinions on this newsletter by visiting The Metropolitan's feedback page or the project's discussion page. Any other issues with this, don't be afraid to drop a line at Simply south's talkpage.


Wikipedia ads	file info – #137

Simply south...... unintentionally mispelling fr 5 years So much for ER 17:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

A1 road (London) is going through a GAR

Details here: Talk:A1 road (London)/GA2. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:44, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Credit where credit is due? And show it? (LNC)

[Note: Identical comment also placed on discussion page of London Necropolis Company WP article]

A fascinating article, probably a bit too detailed for a truly encyclopaedic WP contribution , but ticks all the right WP style and format boxes. Good example for anybody writing a WP (historical) article and justly given Featured Article status.

But, I wonder, I just wonder: in a 99,000 bytes article (say, 25 pages normal text in word) there are some 320 cites to only two books from one author. There are ten cites to one page from Clarke 2004 alone. Credit where credit is due: if WP used the Harvard style of citations, the name Clarke would be mentioned 320 times in the body of the text. As WP prefers the numbered Vancouver style, Clarke is only mentioned twice (in the bibliography). To address this imbalance gently I will add the source (and mention Clarke’s name) in two of the illustrations, which are based on maps from the two Clarke books. It creates inconsistencies in the citation style but that’s in my view a small price to pay for making the originator of most of the material in this splendid WP article slightly more visible. Sleuth21 (talk) 08:08, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Tempest

Back in 2008, you deleted a page on a Christian rock band called Tempest, due to "Article about a band without assertion of notability". I am preparing to re-create a page on the band, but am including multiple references, sources, etc. that will hopefully address your original concerns from 2 1/2 years ago. I'm still putting together album data, etc., but will hopefully release it soon. Per the directions on the page, I am contacting you, both to let you know about the new page, but also to invite comments on the page I've created and suggestions for improvements. Thanks! 5minutes (talk) 12:32, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Regrettably, Iridescent isn't active on Wikipedia at present. I am afraid you will have to request this input elsewhere. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:53, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:FOUR for Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway

		Four Award
		Congratulations! You have been awarded the Four Award for your work from beginning to end on Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 13:21, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 13:21, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

SPI help

Hi, I'm writing this because the SPI page's content defending yourself suggests talking to an Arbitrator for help. The Falkland Islands talk page is out of control due to a group of editors whose failure to discuss and [WP:AGF] has apparently pushed several users completely out of the discussion or into anonymous IPs. I am suspected of being one of them and User Nightw started an SPI investigation against me. Clerk has declined CI request and yet this SPI remains opens, although nothing has been posted for three days.

Meanwhile, discussion at the page with end to make changes continues to be blocked, with all changes reverted. A [WP:ANI] request went nowhere because it was suspected to be from a sockpuppet. A previous WP:ANI incident went nowhere. I've also taken this to WP:WQA where an admin said a resolution there is not likely. On the issue of sources, WP:RSN goes nowhere either. The article has been to WP:MEDCAB a few years ago with no resolution then. And it's been to ARBCOM where it was declined in favor of RfC and lower forums. Always the same users, always the same antics.

It doesn't look like outside editors are responding to WP:RFC requests and no forum wants to touch this, everyone treats it like a hot potatoe. Personal attacks, violations of WP:AGF, WP:NPOV, WP:OR, WP:GAMES, WP:IRS, etc all continue. Agreeing with another editor becomes WP:BEANS. Notifying editors of proceedings becomes WP:CANVASS, but if a notification is delayed they'll accuse you of not following procedure. This article needs admin involvement immediately and I and other editors who are screaming for it can't get it. In the meantime the ongoing and apparently stalled SPI against me seems to cast doubt on any dispute resolution measure.

Please help. Thank you.Alex79818 (talk) 15:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Iridescent is not active on Wikipedia right now. If you need to pursue this issue, you will have to request assistance from someone else. Just letting you know. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:26, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The Signpost interview

"WikiProject Report" would like to focus on WikiProject London Transport for an upcoming edition of The Signpost. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, you can find the interview questions here. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. If you have any questions, you can leave a note on my talk page. Have a great day. – SMasters (talk) 02:39, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Reminder: This interview will be published this coming Monday. Your input is appreciated. – SMasters (talk) 04:06, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Giving credit

Just giving credit where credit is due. Toddst1 (talk) 04:28, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

September Metro

The Metropolitan

The WikiProject London Transport Newsletter
(Issue 35 - September 2011)
August 2011 | October 2011

Five years as a project this month! Yay!

In September, WP:LT was interviewed by Signpost

London Transport News

September

Transformation of Green Park station nears completion
Transport for London secures further improvements to coach parking
No more bendy buses on route 73
New Oyster system to help customers pay the correct fare
'Plan for Paralympics too' businesses urged

August

Consultation begins on lane rental scheme to tackle roadworks
New artwork for pocket tube by Michael Landy
New Stratford International branch od DLR opens
Businesses kept on track with free London 2012 support package
Consultation begins on proposed changes to South Kensington station
Circle & District lines reopen after four week closure for upgrades.
Young people of Hackney create album of songs as a gift for Central line passengers
New online facility to report illegal taxi touting
Consultation begins on lane rental scheme to tackle roadworks
New competition gives BikeSafe-London riders chance to win their dream motorcycle or scooter
Enhanced voice recognition technology and text service on TfL information line
Tramlink to aid regeneration of Croydon
Transport for London unveils innovative measures to tackle pollution
Brief closure of taxi rank and bus station at London Bridge for Thameslink upgrade
Groom and bride in wedding clothes went back to South Woodford Tube station where he had proposed, to tell staff they had got married and thank them.
Woolwich Ferry service briefly suspended for tribute day
Plans set out to help transform central London into major 2012 Games venue
Person drowns overboard from Woolwich Ferry
Traffic around Hyde Park Corner on diversion as world's best triathletes race for one weekend

July

Full fleet of Victoria Line trains now in service
Fruit and veg sprout up all over the Tube
Barclays Cycle Hire celebrates one year with £25 million investment from Barclays
Woman gives birth on a bus on route 145 in Dagenham
Improvement work begins on Stratford bus station in time for Olympics
Firms race to get 2012 Games travel plans in place
New Oysters can now be bought from ticket machines
TfL annoyed with Thames Water over 'pointless' disruption trying to locate leak near Baker Street
Temporary changes to bus stopping arrangements around Putney Bridge Bus Station due ti improvement works to both bus and tube stations until September
Coach parking facilities increase by 25% in London
Work is set to start on an essential new road layout on Blackfriars Bridge to handle 40,00 passengers from upgraded station
London Cycle Challenge circles the globe 69 times
After one year, the Mayor's Cycle Task Force celebrates safety and security successes
Dial-a-Ride completes record number of trips
Two further Barclay's Cycles superhighways now open
TfL responds to Coroner's recommendations following 7/7 Inquest
Congestion at Henly's Corner on A406 to be cut as part of Mayor's clampdown on roadworks
New art at Hampstead Heath station
New programmes launched to help businesses of all sizes keep on running during 2012 Games
Consultation sought on changes to bus routes 206, 224 and PR2 in the Wembley and Park Royal area
High Street Kensington to Edgware Road on the Circle and District lines close for four weeks for essential upgrade works
Final weekend closures cancelled on Blackwall Tunnel refurbishment
TfL publishes draft accessibilty action plan for comments
Construction begins on Thames cable car
New guide released showing passengers where to avoid stairs on London Underground
Six moths until next Low Emission Zone limits launched
Transport for London employee wins National Apprentice of the Year

For more information see: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/3119.aspx (most times) Note: Oldest news items at bottom of list

Project News

Articles

Frank Pick was promoted to Good Article status in May
Charles Holden and RAF Northolt were promoted to Featured Article staus in May
London Necropolis Railway and London Necropolis railway station were promoted to Good Article status in June
The Featured Article 1910 London to Manchester air race was added to the project.
List of works by Charles Holden was promoted to Featured List status in August
London Necropolis Company was promoted to Featured Article status in July
London Buses route 394 was proposed for deletion but kept, whilst London Buses route 153 was redirected.
There are currently 2,804 project pages; all have been assessed for quality and importance. If you see a new article on a project topic which is not rated, please add the banner to the talk page and assess it.
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway was put on a peer review.

Portal

The portal has now been automated by DavidCane (talk · contribs)
It was also promoted to featured portal status in July

Requests

Haynestre (talk · contribs) has requested comment on London General Omnibus Company
WhisperToMe (talk · contribs) has requested photos of various companies across London including airlines.
Tyw7 has requested help with improving Docklands Light Railway rolling stock
MRSC has requested help with improving North and West London Light Railway and West London Orbital
Lifelike (talk · contribs) has requested more info be added to rail line infoboxes
Usage data has been published on National Rail stations by the DfT. The recent 2009/10 includes Oyster usage.
File:Thames tunnels.svg (below) requires updating (leave a note here explaining what needs doing)

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Cleanup : Lists of articles needing cleanup
Expand : These top 10 favourite articles to Good Article: J. P. Morgan · Heathrow Airport · River Thames · London Bridge · London Underground · London Bridge (Lake Havasu City) · Gatwick Airport · London Congestion Charge · Tube map · Tower Bridge These top importance articles to Good Article: 7 July 2005 London bombings · Buses in London · Crossrail · London Passenger Transport Board · London Transport (brand) · London Transport Museum · Transport for London · Transport in London
Photo : Upload your non-copyrighted London transportation images to Wikimedia Commons
Stubs : Improve a stub article
Update : London low emission zone, London congestion charge
Other :
- Suggest: A Did You Know...? fact here or an Anniversary fact here.
- Patrol: Recent changes
- Join: Become a member of WikiProject London Transport or encourage others

Other

Discussions within the project were errors in TV dramas, The A1 road going through a Good article review, the Signpost Interview, out-of-station interchanges and categorisation of stations.
Other project related discussions included train and station identification, use of symbols in infoboxes and RDT symbols.

Members

Newest members: Fabregas0414 (talk · contribs) and Davemnt (talk · contribs) joined in August. Welcome to them. Tyw7 (talk · contribs) retired in June.
Number of participants is 79

Editorial

Editor: Simply south (talk)
Many, many apologies for not having an April edition but here is the May edition. Does anyone fancy doing June?
It is sad to see that Kbthompson (talk · contribs) passed away in mid-December 2010. Condolences to his many family and friends.
All suggestions to improve the newsletter are welcome at feedback page or User talk:Simply south

Best Articles

Featured

Good

Featured topic

Wikipedia:Featured topics/Brill Tramway

Featured portal

Portal:London Transport

Recently promoted to Featured Article or Featured List

Recently assessed as Good Articles

Featured Article candidates (FAC or FLC here)

None at present

Good Article candidates (here)

None at present

Most visited pages

For a list of the Project's most visited pages, see Wikipedia:WikiProject London Transport/Favourite pages

Gallery

This month's gallery of images (selected by Portal:London Transport)

If you want to unsubscribe from this newsletter or, if you are visiting this user page and want to sign-up, then please visit this page. You may also like to provide your opinions on this newsletter by visiting The Metropolitan's feedback page or the project's discussion page. Any other issues with this, don't be afraid to drop a line at Simply south's talkpage.


Wikipedia ads	file info – #137

Simply south...... eating shoes for 5 years So much for ER 07:48, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

sockpuppet editing

There is an open WP:SPI case looking at sockpuppet editing primarily on the Johann Hari/ Talk page. As you edited the Johann Hari/Talk page between 2004 and 2011, your input is welcomed. Yonmei (talk) 22:33, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Iridescent. You have new messages at Redrose64's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

--Redrose64 (talk) 21:13, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Pig-faced women

I have nominated the article Pig-faced women, to which you are the primary contributor, to to be featured on the main page this month. Since you haven't been active for a while I don't know if you'll get this message, but if you do, please feel free to respond. Difluoroethene (talk) 05:10, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Is there ever going to be an explanation?

Is there ever going to be an explanation of what happened here? Why my discussion with Iridescent was the first to be leaked, and why Iridescent has subsequently disappeared? Malleus Fatuorum 17:45, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Malleus. I don't know whether we will ever get a satisfactory answer to your first question. However, Iridescent has periodically communicated with members of the committee, and the absence is due to non-Wikipedia factors; I understand this has happened from time to time in the past, and the two situations are not related. Risker (talk) 18:37, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Seconding and confirming Risker's response. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:56, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Thirded. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:13, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

The timing seems a little odd. Coincidence? Malleus Fatuorum 22:24, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Neither I nor, to the best of my knowledge, any of the rest of us (i.e., the currently active arbitrators) have any further information that would be relevant to your questions. I frankly don't understand either what (if anything) you are suggesting or insinuating, nor what more you want of us at this point. I understand that you are upset about what occurred a couple of months ago—so are we, and that is an understatement—but it would probably be best to drop the matter at this point, at least unless and until any new information were to come to someone's attention. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:47, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm insinuating that I don't believe in coincidences. Nothing more, nothing less. Malleus Fatuorum 23:04, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

If you're insinuating that I'm responsible for the Arbcom and Checkuser leaks, you're down the wrong path; I can assure you I'd find something more interesting to leak were I the leaker, and any number of people can confirm that I never even had access to the Checkuser list in question. I'm not sunning myself with YellowMonkey and LaraLove on the Island of Lost Users; my "disappearance" is for entirely uninteresting real-life reasons. (My occasional bursts of no or minimal activity have happened as long as I've been on Wikipedia; you can see a neatly arranged activity-chart here should you care.) The only, very weak, link between my recent inactivity and the assorted on-wiki crap in July is that the prospect of endless conversations like this one any time I do anything is a disincentive to waste what little spare time I have on a visit to interminable arguments about spaced em-dashes and the definition of original research. – iridescent 17:18, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not insinuating anything about you, simply expressing my suspicion that the whole truth about this episode has not yet been told. Malleus Fatuorum 18:40, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

The whole truth can't be told, but it's not for lack of trying by involved parties, and certainly not out of spite, malice, or obstruction. Nothing is being hidden. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 14:36, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Nah, Malleus; my 0.000002 cent hunch: unless Iridescent has managed some IQ-shrinking---Iridescent is not mr Malice.

And of course the whole truth has not yet been told. And I´m not sure it ever will be. And who cares (if you are a dog)? Cheers, Huldra (talk) 21:37, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a dog, and I have never suggested that Iridescent was responsible for the leak. Malleus Fatuorum 21:41, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a dog, but I do own a couple and like them I am a bit of a terrier, have a very keen nose and seldom give up. I too have been wondering when this infortunate matter was going to be properly explained by the Arbcom - I suppose election time (which must be almost upon us) is the time to mention it again. Speaking of Arbs - who are they these days? Since the last election, they seem to come and go rather like badly timetabled busses. Giacomo Returned 21:58, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm more of a cat person myself. The next ArbCom elections may indeed be interesting. Malleus Fatuorum 22:02, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh la la. I am sooooo sorry if I insinuated that any WP-editor is a dog. I tried to indicate that it is your contributions that counts, not your DNA, canine or humanoid. And that also holds for mr.Malice. And I somewhat disagree with you, when you say that you "never suggested that Iridescent was responsible for the leak". Technically; that might be true. (Just like, a-hem, technically, I have never accused you of suggesting that). But you just raising the question here...what does that imply? Cheers, Huldra (talk) 22:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The implication is surely obvious; the truth has not yet been told. Malleus Fatuorum 22:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Nope; it is more than that: you raising the question on this talk-page implies that Iridescent could tell that Truth™. Which I am not sure about. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 23:19, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I think you need to revisit your copy of Teach Yourself Logic. The reason I posted here was that the conversation between Iridescent and myself was the first to be leaked, and I still wonder why that was. And I have no doubt that someone here on Wikipedia knows, but they're not telling. Malleus Fatuorum 23:31, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

PS: (lots of edit-conflicts here.) And I´m a serious cat-lover myself. Huldra (talk) 22:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, Teach Yourself Logic was not part of my Examen philosophicum -curiculum (which a took a life-time-ago, anyway.) Something local British? We only use the Arne Næss-books. Anyway; I am perfectly aware that the conversation between Iridescent and yourself was the first to be leaked; BUT: if Iridescent was the leaker: do you really think they would be pointing the finger -first- at you two? I would rather guess:

1: chance ...or
2: someone really does not like either you, or Iridescent (Could happen, you know, when you edit in conflict-filled areas. (Gosh:I miss the Emoticons from that other unmentionable place! )

That someone here (Here = Wikipedia-user) knows and is not telling: whaw! That is the most shocking news I have heard since someone told me that the world was round, and not flat! Cheers, Huldra (talk) 00:18, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The world isn't round, it's an oblate spheroid. You ought not to believe everything you hear. Malleus Fatuorum 00:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Lol! I deserved that! (Hope we can agree that it is not flat). Anyway: Sorry if I sounded "bitchty"; seriously: I did not mean to. But try to see the difference between a mosquito and an elephant, as we say in my part of the world. And that your conversation with Iridescentis was the first to be leaked: it is still a mosquito, the way I see it, Cheers, and good-night, Huldra (talk) 00:38, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't like cats because of the way they claw and scratch furniture and stick their bottoms in people's faces - and they don't seem to like me much either - in fact, they remind me of quite a few wiki editors. If we don't get at least a partial explanation there's not going to be a lot of trust about at the next election is there? I suspect that's when people will airing their hunches and showing some feline traits. Giacomo Returned 22:14, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I love cats because they're much like me, their own men and women, not subjugated like dogs. The next election will indeed be interesting(ish). Malleus Fatuorum 22:18, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I certainly can't speak for Iridescent, but I believe that when he last posted to this page, he suggested that when he has an occasional moment to look in on Wikipedia, it's a bit disconcerting for him to be greeted with this kind of discussion. Might it possibly be better to take this somewhere else? Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps. But let's not forget that Iridescent has done nothing promised at his election, and has been largely absent since you know what. I would like to see a plausible explanation. Here. Malleus Fatuorum 01:40, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I make no comement on Iridescent - I don't know him/her, but I am wiki-familiar with several of the other Arbs - including you Brad! So I know wherever it is taken we will get no answers at all - especially from you - we will have waffle, pleas for patience and general "go away unimportant person and don't bother your little head about this - shows over" well I have news for you Brad - the show has barely begun and patience is exhausted. You surely did not imagine that people like Malleus and I would just let the matter drop unanswered? Giacomo Returned 07:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

(@Malleus) The promises I made at the elections are here. I'd argue that on the core points (dilution of the power of the arb/admin dual oligarchy; enhanced status for proven contributors without giving a blank check for vested contributors to bully other users; an end to the use of block logs as badges of shame; serious consideration as to what the structure of a Wikipedia 2.0 will be), I've done as much as anyone can be expected to do when outnumbered 14-1. Brad & co can testify as to how hard I pushed for the dismantling of the existing setup and its replacement by a series of subcommittees under a congress of delegates from Wikipedia's various factions, vaguely modelled on Hong Kong's LegCo (a real-world solution to a similar problem—how to reconcile aspiration, social mobility and guarantees of independence on the one hand, with nominal absolute dictatorship on the other). They can also confirm just how repetitive my constant "I think we should unblock xxxxx" was, and that I was pushing for a restructuring of block logs to be listed on the blocker, not the blockee's, log. (Although I originally wanted bad blocks deleted from the log altogether, I've been persuaded that this would make it too easy for bad admins to hide the evidence of their incompetence.) Even if you include Elen, the "tear it down and rebuild something better" faction is a minority of two on Arbcom—I'm not sure what more you expected from us. (If the pair of us hadn't run, you'd have had Sandstein and Georgewilliamherbert, and I'm not convinced they'd have been any more to your and Giano's taste.) – iridescent 08:47, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I think you'll find that PhilKnight has also articulated some fairly significant proposals for change as well, see Wikipedia:RfC Committee and Wikipedia:ArbCom reform. To be honest, my greatest issues with most of these proposals is that they are predicated on the notion that there are sufficient competent and interested members of the community to make some of these proposals work effectively. That, and the history of the knee-jerk rejection of any proposals even vaguely related to governance that come from ArbCom or its members. There's also an ongoing discussion over at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Content dispute resolution that some may find interesting. I can confirm that Iridescent has been amongst the more liberal arbitrators in recommending unblocks of contributors, and making proposals for alternative structures. (The block log thing doesn't sount familiar, but I won't dispute it. I'll just point out that every block made by an admin shows up in their activity logs as well, and I'm not sure what the point would be in not having a log of blocks on the blockee.)

Even those of us perceived as more, umm, traditional have done some of the heavy lifting in trying to move things back into the community: CheckUser and Oversight are largely managed by community members, the community members are the main drivers on the AUSC, and the majority of decisions made by the committee include a discretionary sanctions clause that essentially devolves authority and responsibility for managing problem areas to the community. I think there's more that needs to be done, but it might not be something that comes from Arbcom, rather some ideas that come from the community that Arbcom (or its individual members) can leap in to support. Risker (talk) 14:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

But Risker, we are not discussing Iridescent's contributions to the Arbcom, we are discussing the arbcom leaks; a matter never properly explained - so can we please stay on subject. I well remember the intimidation I had via email etc from the Arbcom and that Sur Largo person when they stupidly thought I had breached their sacred wiki (even though it was me who told them it was at risk) There are only 3 people it could have been and one of those is highly unlikely - so could we please be told "who dunnit"? Or is there one law for naughty Arbs and another for the rest of us and please don't say you don't know because I think that would be a porkie. Giacomo Returned 18:25, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I read Iridescent's post this morning and was planning to come here to discuss some of it, but I see that Risker has anticipated several of the comments I was going to make. In particular, I agree there is a perception shared by many that to the extent "governance reform" (cynics might say "governance creation") on En-WP is desirable, it is not at all clear that ArbCom should take a leading role in bringing it about. Rightly or wrongly, it will be perceived that the arbitrators must have some hidden agenda of solidifying their power or controlling the evolution of the project, even though in reality was have no such intent.

(Frankly, as a general statement, a lot of people overemphasize the importance of the Arbitration Committee. The number of cases we now resolve each year is about a sixth of what it used to be, and for better or worse, a lot of what would formerly have been ArbCom's workload is now being handled by admins or by the self-selected portion of the community that watchlists AN and ANI. But that's probably a different discussion.)

I can confirm the accuracy of everything Iridescent has said about his work as arbitrator: he did push for governance reform (a conversation that was starting to get underway internally when we were sidetracked by the hacks/leaks), and he did suggest that we respond to various appeals by banned users by unblocking them and seeing what happened (I agreed sometimes and disagreed sometimes). Iridescent's contributions to the Committee during his admittedly limited periods of activity so far were sound. I came to value his posts to the arbitration pages and on the mailing list—assuredly more than he probably valued mine—and I do hope his circumstances allow him to return to arbitrating soon, though that of course is for him to tell us.

To Giano's points, I don't have the slightest idea who was responsible for the hacks or leaks that we saw this summer, nor do I have reason to believe that any of the other arbitrators knows who it was. I have said this before, and I don't know how to say it more clearly. If you or anyone else choose not to believe me there is nothing more I can do, but after my five years of activity on this project, I would like to think that I have earned the right to have my statements of fact accepted as true. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:12, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

The importance of the committee is as a symbol. If there's one thing the leaks ought to have made clear, it's how little authority Arbcom actually wields. (By the time most things reach the Arbcom level, it's generally pretty clear what community consensus is, and Arbcom generally just decides how it should be enforced.) The main reason I think a single central committee should be done away with is the signal it sends; my model would be to start with an independent committee with the power to impose binding solutions to RFCs (to separate the judge, jury and executioner roles); if that fizzled then no harm done, and if it took off it would be a step away from the overcentralized current setup. Before the leaks sidetracked everything, this proposal was fairly close to getting grudging acceptance.

Regarding the leaker, I have a suspicion who it was, but no more than that. In the absence of evidence, I'm not going to start throwing accusations around publicly; having been the victim of dubious evidence in this case myself, I certainly don't want to put someone else through the same. To be absolutely clear, I do not believe it was a current member of the committee. – iridescent 12:09, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Richard D'Oyly Carte

As a former commentator on some of the G&S-related articles, I thought you might like to weigh in on the current discussion about infoboxes at this page. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:57, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Probably better I don't in this case—I've had no input on this particular article, and there's not much more irritating than someone parachuting in out of nowhere and haranguing people who've actually devoted a lot of time to something about where they've been going wrong. My feeling on infoboxes is no secret; they have a useful role on articles that form part of a series (battles, villages, albums etc) but when it comes to biographies, unless the article is very statistic-heavy (athletes and so on) they have no purpose, make the page look cluttered and distract the viewer from the images and text. I see you have Giano and Blofeld on that talkpage, who will make the argument more passionately than I ever could. – iridescent 12:15, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Main page appearance: Waddesdon Road railway station

This is a note to let the main editors of Waddesdon Road railway station know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on October 9, 2011. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 9, 2011. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director Raul654 (talk · contribs) or his delegate Dabomb87 (talk · contribs), or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/instructions. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. The blurb as it stands now is below:

Waddesdon Road railway station was a small halt in open countryside in Buckinghamshire, England. It was opened in 1871 as part of a short horse-drawn tramway to assist with the transport of goods from and around the Duke of Buckingham's extensive estates in Buckinghamshire and to connect the Duke's estates to the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway at Quainton Road. In 1872 the line was expanded and converted for passenger use, becoming known as the Brill Tramway. In 1899 the operation of the line was taken over by the London-based Metropolitan Railway. In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway was taken into public ownership to become the Metropolitan Line of the London Underground, and despite its rural setting Waddesdon Road station became a part of the London Transport system. The new management could not see a future for the line as a financially viable passenger route, and Waddesdon Road, along with the rest of the former Brill Tramway, was closed in late 1935. (more...)

UcuchaBot (talk) 00:02, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Help

Hi.Please help me.Please tell me What I must do? I am new comer to wikipedia.I delete some mistakes and lies about Azerbaijan and Iran.But these two users User:Xooon and User:Alborz Fallah were plotting against me Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Orartu to continue their lying about Iran and Azerbaijan.For example:When there is no valid source about Azerbaijani ancestry of a person, they insist to put them in category:Iranian people of Azerbaijani descent.This user User:Ebrahimi-amir and me are different users.But this user User:Xooon wants to intend we are same.They want to violate the neutrality of wikipedia.They want the deletion of this articleAzerbaijani Genocide in Iran too.Please help me.In advance thanks a lot for your helpsOrartu (talk) 18:21, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

A beer for you

Thankyou for participating in my request for adminship. Now I've got lots of extra buttons to try and avoid pressing by mistake... Redrose64 (talk) 15:37, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

November Metro

The Metropolitan

The WikiProject London Transport Newsletter
(Issue 36 - November 2011)
September 2011 | January 2012

Five years as a project in September! Yay!

In September, WP:LT was interviewed by Signpost

London Transport News

November

Mayor drives first New Bus for London off production line
London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games mascots join last leg of month-long Games themed walking relay
Northbound Blackwall Tunnel safety improvements completed more than a year early

October

Revamped service information boards make journeys easier for customers to plan
Transport for London leads the way with new Quantity Surveying apprenticeships
Dial-a-Ride offers new NVQ in Customer Service
Tube Lines sets green standard as double winner
More services on TfL's London Overground from December
New Tube Poems remember war dead and reflect on quest for peace
London Underground bridge between Ravenscourt Park and Hammersmith wins Small Civil Engineering Project category at the British Construction Industry Awards for its replacement in one weekend
Tramlink rewarded for helping restore Croydon
Oyster pay as you go to be extended to national rail stations between Liverpool Street and Hertford East
Transport for London acquires Tube Lines' bonds
Victoria Tube station escalator work completed three months early
Real-time bus information now available anytime and anywhere
Greenwich Pier gets roof and lighting in time for London 2012 Games
Final Jubilee line upgrade cost vindicates decision to end PPP says TfL
Half a million London employees now signed up for 2012 travel advice, TfL tells Assembly and borough leaders
Mayor secures Emirates Airline as private sponsor for pioneering new Thames crossing
Two thirds of bendy buses converted and major savings being made
150 million year old stone for new Green Park Tube station
London Overground upgrade named project of the year at Rail Awards
Guide dogs to be allowed to use moving escalators for the first time ever
250 London schools take part in London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic torch walking relay

September

Following a meeting at Acas today London Underground (LU) has received confirmation from the trade unions that they will be recommending acceptance of LU's four-year pay settlement
Safer Travel at Night: TfL warns of dangers of unbooked minicabs as new students arrive in London
Almost eighty per cent of passengers in favour of proposed changes. Removal of weekday Kensington (Olympia) service will allow five additional trains on Wimbledon branch during morning peak. New timetable will be introduced in December 2011.
Green wall for Edgware Road Tube station to trap harmful pollution
Operators urged to take action now to meet tougher London Low Emission Zone standards to improve air quality, or risk fines
Chart toppers Rizzle Kicks team up with TfL to help reduce teenage road casualties in London
New Docklands Light Railway extension an instant hit with passengers
New London 2012 Games travel 'hotspot' info to help businesses plan ahead and avoid transport disruption
Tour of Britain, the UK's biggest professional cycle race, returns to the Capital
Mayor confirms fares increase for 2012 to support unprecedented £12bn investment in London's transport network
LU reaches agreement with drivers' unions over Olympics and Paralympics working arrangements
Latest figures confirm trend of long-term improvements in Tube performance
New bus routes to serve Stratford and surrounding area
New online postcode data released by Transport for London (TfL) at the inaugural 2012 Freight Forum meeting will help firms plan and manage deliveries during Games-time
2011 Great River Race occurs
Mayor announces Olympic Park electric charging network, creating air quality legacy
North Acton station wins Underground in bloom gardening competition.
Businesses urged to plan for paralympics too.
Mayor of London and Transport for London act to save 812 PlusBus route
Transformation of Green Park station nears completion
Transport for London secures further improvements to coach parking
No more bendy buses on route 73
New Oyster system to help customers pay the correct fare
'Plan for Paralympics too' businesses urged

For more information see: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/3119.aspx (most times) Note: Oldest news items at bottom of list

Project News

Articles

Frank Pick was promoted to Good Article status in May
Charles Holden and RAF Northolt were promoted to Featured Article staus in May
London Necropolis Railway and London Necropolis railway station were promoted to Good Article status in June
The Featured Article 1910 London to Manchester air race was added to the project.
List of works by Charles Holden was promoted to Featured List status in August
London Necropolis Company was promoted to Featured Article status in July
- Aldwych tube station was promoted to Featured article status in September
There are currently 2,804 project pages; all have been assessed for quality and importance. If you see a new article on a project topic which is not rated, please add the banner to the talk page and assess it.
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway was put on a peer review.
British Airways has been put on Good Article Review.

Portal

The portal has now been automated by DavidCane (talk · contribs)
It was also promoted to featured portal status in July

Requests

Haynestre (talk · contribs) has requested comment on London General Omnibus Company
WhisperToMe (talk · contribs) has requested photos of various companies across London including airlines.
Tyw7 has requested help with improving Docklands Light Railway rolling stock
MRSC has requested help with improving North and West London Light Railway and West London Orbital
Lifelike (talk · contribs) has requested more info be added to rail line infoboxes
Usage data has been published on National Rail stations by the DfT. The recent 2009/10 includes Oyster usage.
File:Thames tunnels.svg (below) requires updating (leave a note here explaining what needs doing)

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Cleanup : Lists of articles needing cleanup
Expand : These top 10 favourite articles to Good Article: J. P. Morgan · Heathrow Airport · River Thames · London Bridge · London Underground · London Bridge (Lake Havasu City) · Gatwick Airport · London Congestion Charge · Tube map · Tower Bridge These top importance articles to Good Article: 7 July 2005 London bombings · Buses in London · Crossrail · London Passenger Transport Board · London Transport (brand) · London Transport Museum · Transport for London · Transport in London
Photo : Upload your non-copyrighted London transportation images to Wikimedia Commons
Stubs : Improve a stub article
Update : London low emission zone, London congestion charge
Other :
- Suggest: A Did You Know...? fact here or an Anniversary fact here.
- Patrol: Recent changes
- Join: Become a member of WikiProject London Transport or encourage others

Other

Discussions within the project were the Signpost interview, categorisation of railway station openings, a look back at the project over five years in terms of assessment and some templates for deletion.
Other project related discussions included train and station identification, use of symbols in infoboxes, RDT symbols, airport railway stations.

Members

Newest member: Trivran (talk · contribs) joined in September. Welcome to them.
Number of participants is 80

Editorial

Editor: Simply south (talk)
Many, many apologies for not having an April edition but here is the May edition. Does anyone fancy doing June?
It is sad to see that Kbthompson (talk · contribs) passed away in mid-December 2010. Condolences to his many family and friends.
All suggestions to improve the newsletter are welcome at feedback page or User talk:Simply south

Best Articles

Featured

Good

Featured topic

Wikipedia:Featured topics/Brill Tramway

Featured portal

Portal:London Transport

Recently promoted to Featured Article or Featured List

Recently assessed as Good Articles

Featured Article candidates (FAC or FLC here)

None at present

Good Article candidates (here)

None at present

Most visited pages

For a list of the Project's most visited pages, see Wikipedia:WikiProject London Transport/Favourite pages

Gallery

This month's gallery of images (selected by Portal:London Transport)

If you want to unsubscribe from this newsletter or, if you are visiting this user page and want to sign-up, then please visit this page. You may also like to provide your opinions on this newsletter by visiting The Metropolitan's feedback page or the project's discussion page. Any other issues with this, don't be afraid to drop a line at Simply south's talkpage.


Wikipedia ads	file info – #137

Simply south...... "time, department skies" for 5 years 01:16, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Footnotes

Hello Iridescent - I am converting an article’s footnotes to a style similar to yours in Postman's Park. Citations for books “jump” to the book in the bibliography section. My questions is: what happens if the book has no listed author? My citation currently has to use the book name, but I don’t think it will “jump” to the bibliography.TwoScars (talk) 21:06, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

If no author name is provided, use Anon. That's what I do. Parrot of Doom 21:09, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Analysis on quality

See here: PowerPoint: Wikipedia's poor treatment of its most important articles

There is a section on one of your articles (mostly negative). Just being straight and telling you.69.255.27.249 (talk) 17:02, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

According to that, I'm a Battleship editor. I'm guessing that's heavily influenced by Gunpowder Plot related articles. Poor Malleus is relegated to a Star Collector, lol. Nev1 is a dabbler - around Manchester that probably isn't something you'd call anyone! Parrot of Doom 17:29, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I've been called worse. I don't give much credence to that vital article list beyond the obvious such as planets and elements anyway, and some I think are bizarre choices that could never amount to spit. But after checking the figures I see that Cottingley fairies got 19,055 hits last month,[2] Peterloo Massacre got 17,045,[3] Donner Party got 84,188,[4] and even the Green children of Woolpit got 3,988 views,[5], all well above the 3,000 hits per month criterion chosen, so I don't feel too shabby. Malleus Fatuorum 20:10, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I do (sniffle) Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:17, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Classifies me as a star collector, but he couldn't even get my name right! (page 64).--DavidCane (talk) 23:13, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Probably a good job the authors didn't look at the page views of my most recent GA [6] or they would have had a fit... Alzarian16 (talk) 01:33, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I am probably missing a point here? Is it not incredibly hard to write an FA on a high profile subject simply because gaining consensus is exponentially^{[citation needed]} harder than it is on an obscure subject? --Senra (Talk) 01:40, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

No, I think it's someone else who misses that point; it reads like a "Manic Manifesto" from someone who pounded out a pseudoanalysis based on faulty assumptions, and who regularly asks to be blocked, to vanish, then comes back, posts as an IP, posts as a Vanished user, reinstates his account, uninstates his account, and so it goes ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:05, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Keep the mudslinging to a minimum Sandy. We all know how defensive you are about FA, no need to re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-establish the fact. ResMar 04:23, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Aren't you up a bit late? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:35, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

It was around 12, yes. What does that have to do with anything? ResMar 22:05, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Vanity Publication??

Can I come back to the ppt presentation mentioned above PowerPoint: Wikipedia's poor treatment of its most important articles ? It deals with the character of some WP 'featured articles'. Iridescent has published a few, e.g. the London Necropolis Company (LNC) one. It’s excellent, but I wonder, after studying its content, form and genesis carefullly:

The article has been created essentially by only one editor and is a ‘featured article’. Typically, Wikipedia articles are (should be?) the result of collective efforts, but this article was put on WP 'in one go' (on 10 June 2011) and there are only few subsequent 'collective' edits. As mentioned above, this article complies (on a very high standard) with WP style editing policies but is much too detailed to qualify as an 'encyclopedic' contribution. It also violates the spirit of copyright restrictions and ‘close paraphrasing’ rules. Some of the main editor’s paraphrasing falsifies careful scholarly statements in the two main sources (by John Clarke). This and similar major WP articles seem to use WP as a vanity press publisher. (I have placed a corresponding general comment on the vanity press site and on the LNC article’s talk page.) Sleuth21 (talk) 11:58, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Most Featured Articles on obscure topics are created by one person, with minor contributions from other editors. For instance, I'm almost single-handedly responsible for this article. As it's very unlikely I could ever have got anyone else interested enough to purchase source material, should I not have bothered? Parrot of Doom 12:19, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick reply: I would say ‘No’ and I am glad you bothered with this interesting article (Harris's list). Strictly speaking, using my own improvised definition, it could still be called a vanity press publication but it differs in several substantial aspects from e.g. the London Necropolis Company article:

It was developed over several weeks in full view of the Wikipedia community and grew gradually from some 4,000 to 36,000 bytes and wasn’t dropped on the WP public in ‘one go’.
It cites a wider range of sources and no single source constitutes (my eye-balling impression) more than 40% of the references.
Only one or two pages from your sources are cited more than once. The LNC article ‘cannibalises’ (cites from) individual pages up to ten times, i.e. drops nearly the whole page only slightly, sometimes misleadingly, paraphrased into the WP article.
The subject matter of your article is of interest to a wider audience (ahem) and not just (in the case of the LNC article) railway buffs.

So yes, still vanity, but acceptable in the circumstances! Sleuth21 (talk) 15:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Most articles that are posted in one go have been developed by the author in a user space sandbox. There are a number of reasons why author's choose to fully develop articles before posting them:

The author wants to do a proper job of completing the article rather than post a partial or incomplete product
They are complex and need a lot of development time, but can be worked on at the author's own pace without a sense of pressure to complete
It is easier to handle referencing and formatting when it is done in one go rather than bit by bit
It avoids "help" from other users and bots putting in citation required type templates on partially done articles
The author may be developing a number of related articles in parallel and wants to coordinate their development
There is a greater sense of achievement and flourish in the publication of a completely new article than one that has been developed bit by bit over a period of time in main space (even if has been developed by the same user)

The LNC article is heavily cited, but citing from individual pages is the usual way to do this. Where multiple pieces of information are being referenced in multiple places, each use should be cited. The density of citations is often part of a user's style, but under referencing is more likely to be criticised in GA and FAC reviews than over referencing.

As to whether Iridescent or other users use Wikipedia as a vanity press; that really asks a question as to motivation. Why do any of us spend time researching and posting content here? There is a sense of sharing of our knowledge and in a collaborative process (particularly within a field of interest), but, like most things in life, a bit of recognition is always welcome. Wikipedia is hardly the ideal vanity publishing medium though - unlike a blog, it is relatively hard to learn all of the MOS rules and the formatting tools to present a page in an attractive way and nothing is truly permanent because other users can edit the "masterpiece". The amount of effort to get an article through the FAC process is also considerable. Wikipedia is also essentially anonymous - editors are not identified on the article (only in the history) and most users post pseudonymously. If vanity were the only reason to publish here, it hardly seems worth it. --DavidCane (talk) 22:43, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I have thanked DavidCane for and commented on his thoughtful note above on the Vanity Press talk page. Sleuth21 (talk) 20:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Is it reasonable to ask Sleuth21 to reveal him/her-self and to explain why there is a need to hide their identity? What gives Sleuth21, indeed anyone, the right to ask searching questions of any editor without fairly letting such editors know who they are dealing with. If I did this, I would be blocked. I am getting sick and tired of this continual charade to be frank --Senra (Talk) 23:39, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Senra, your question is reasonable, but which WP misdemeanour did I commit which would get you blocked? - I have always signed my edits with my user name since I registered it with WP. Before that (going back to ca. 2003) I posted anonymously but often mentioned both my real name and my e-mail en clair in the body of the edit. - There are serious concerns about at least two of Iridescent's FAs. They have been taken up by a WP admin editor (I believe to no avail) and with WP's head office. - If I think it appropriate I will further discuss this matter on my talk page. Sleuth21 (talk) 20:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It is well-known that Iridescent has been away from Wikipedia for some time and is inactive at the moment, so I don't see much point to having this conversation. Please stop. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:42, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

A good suggestion, Brad. If Iridescent doesn't want to comment here (his last WP activity dates from 06.10.2011), he will have his reasons. Further comments may appear on my talk page, or elsewhere, as appropriate, not here. Sleuth21 (talk) 20:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Question about arbcom

Why aren't you staying on ArbCom? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Griefer ladness (talk • contribs) 02:56, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Main page appearance: Norwich Market

This is a note to let the main editors of Norwich Market know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on December 10, 2011. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 10, 2011. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director Raul654 (talk · contribs) or his delegate Dabomb87 (talk · contribs), or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/instructions. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. The blurb as it stands now is below:

Norwich Market is an outdoor market consisting of around 200 stalls in central Norwich, England. Founded in the latter part of the 11th century to supply Norman merchants and settlers moving to the area following the Norman conquest of England, it replaced an earlier market a short distance away. It has been in operation on the present site for over 900 years. By the 14th century, Norwich was one of the largest and most prosperous cities in England, and Norwich Market was a major trading hub. In the Georgian era, Norwich became an increasingly popular destination with travellers, and developed into a fashionable shopping town. Following the First World War, the local authority began to systematically buy up all the stalls on the market, eventually bringing the entire market into public ownership, and the market was radically redesigned in the 1930s. Stalls were arranged into parallel rows, and a new City Hall was built along the entire western side of the marketplace to replace the by now inadequate Guildhall. This new arrangement survived with few significant changes for the rest of the 20th century. By the 1990s the market was becoming decrepit, and proposals were made for another radical rebuilding of the area. These proposals were abandoned in favour of a scheme which replaced the old stalls with steel units of four stalls each. The rebuilt market was completed in early 2006, and is one of the largest markets in Britain. (more...)

UcuchaBot (talk) 23:01, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Season's tidings!

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 03:25, 25 December 2011 (UTC).

New Yaer Metro

The Metropolitan

The WikiProject London Transport Newsletter
(Issue 37 - January 2012)
November 2011 | Febuary 2011

In September 2011, WP:LT was interviewed by Signpost

London Transport News

January

All drivers are urged to switch off their engines when parked, loading or waiting at the roadside
More reliable Tube carries record-breaking numbers
Mayor hails new measures in 2012 to deliver cleaner air for London

December

Hammersmith Flyover closed due to structural defect found
Edgware Road signal improvements delivered early, paving way for longer, accessible, air-con trains
Mayor announces trial to cut harmful pollution at industrial and construction sites across London
Interim operator for Putney to Blackfriars River Bus service
TfL has today announced details of a strategic review of traffic movements through the Kings Cross area
Motorcycles to be allowed permanent access to bus lanes
Around 85 of London's 700 bus routes will be changed in some way during the 2012 Games
TfL ramps up safety efforts on London Tramlink
Major crackdown on dangerous pedicabs in central London
Emirates Air Line lands on iconic Tube map as first tower completed
Mayor heralds the arrival of the new bus for London
More local transport improvements for London Boroughs announced by Mayor
Mayor and DfT announce £10 million to cut pollution from Capital's bus fleet
Mayor hails successful bid to make more London Overground stations step free
Vibrant London life captured in Yayoi Kusama's new artwork for the Pocket Tube Map
Additional peak trains for the 200,000 Wimbledon branch passengers each day will bring fewer delays and extra capacity
Overall Transport for London (TfL) fares to rise by 5.6 per cent in 2012
Lewis Hamilton toasts free travel on London transport to welcome in the New Year
Out-of-hours deliveries during London 2012 Games are viable, trials show
Real time digital bus information proves a hit with Londoners
As part of Transport for London's (TfL) commitment to the mental and physical health of its 27,000 employees, the organisation has signed the Time to Change Pledge

November

Dial-a-Ride vehicles trialling biodiesel
Business welcomes Games transport 'hot spot' information to ensure London is 'open for business' in 2012
Green wall unveiled at Edware Road station
TfL saves £250 million by purchasing two maintenace companies working on DLR
Routes 29 and N29 converted to bendy bus
Woolwich Ferry returns to normal
Lighting replacement work on Tower Bridge to LED lighting
Northern Line platforms reopen at Tottenham Court Road
Continued trend of Tube reliabilty as passenger numbers grow
Routes 12 and 436 convert from Bendy bus to double decker
Central line trains overhauled for the 2012 Games and beyond
Bus stop arrangements change around Victoria to make way for improvement works
Crime on London's transport network falls again
Statford bus station reopens
New Acts of Kindness artwork now on Tube seats and trains
London charges ahead with wireless electric vehicle technology
Mayor and TfL set out action to make London's streets safer for cyclists
TfL calls for taxi demo to be cancelled
London Transport Veterans to take part in the annual Remembrance Sunday parade
Plans for improvement to Bank station go on public display
Mayor drives first New Bus for London off production line
London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games mascots join last leg of month-long Games themed walking relay
Northbound Blackwall Tunnel safety improvements completed more than a year early

October

Revamped service information boards make journeys easier for customers to plan
Transport for London leads the way with new Quantity Surveying apprenticeships
Dial-a-Ride offers new NVQ in Customer Service
Tube Lines sets green standard as double winner
More services on TfL's London Overground from December
New Tube Poems remember war dead and reflect on quest for peace
London Underground bridge between Ravenscourt Park and Hammersmith wins Small Civil Engineering Project category at the British Construction Industry Awards for its replacement in one weekend
Tramlink rewarded for helping restore Croydon
Oyster pay as you go to be extended to national rail stations between Liverpool Street and Hertford East
Transport for London acquires Tube Lines' bonds
Victoria Tube station escalator work completed three months early
Real-time bus information now available anytime and anywhere
Greenwich Pier gets roof and lighting in time for London 2012 Games
Final Jubilee line upgrade cost vindicates decision to end PPP says TfL
Half a million London employees now signed up for 2012 travel advice, TfL tells Assembly and borough leaders
Mayor secures Emirates Airline as private sponsor for pioneering new Thames crossing
Two thirds of bendy buses converted and major savings being made
150 million year old stone for new Green Park Tube station
London Overground upgrade named project of the year at Rail Awards
Guide dogs to be allowed to use moving escalators for the first time ever
250 London schools take part in London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic torch walking relay

September

Following a meeting at Acas today London Underground (LU) has received confirmation from the trade unions that they will be recommending acceptance of LU's four-year pay settlement
Safer Travel at Night: TfL warns of dangers of unbooked minicabs as new students arrive in London
Almost eighty per cent of passengers in favour of proposed changes. Removal of weekday Kensington (Olympia) service will allow five additional trains on Wimbledon branch during morning peak. New timetable will be introduced in December 2011.
Green wall for Edgware Road Tube station to trap harmful pollution
Operators urged to take action now to meet tougher London Low Emission Zone standards to improve air quality, or risk fines
Chart toppers Rizzle Kicks team up with TfL to help reduce teenage road casualties in London
New Docklands Light Railway extension an instant hit with passengers
New London 2012 Games travel 'hotspot' info to help businesses plan ahead and avoid transport disruption
Tour of Britain, the UK's biggest professional cycle race, returns to the Capital
Mayor confirms fares increase for 2012 to support unprecedented £12bn investment in London's transport network
LU reaches agreement with drivers' unions over Olympics and Paralympics working arrangements
Latest figures confirm trend of long-term improvements in Tube performance
New bus routes to serve Stratford and surrounding area
New online postcode data released by Transport for London (TfL) at the inaugural 2012 Freight Forum meeting will help firms plan and manage deliveries during Games-time
2011 Great River Race occurs
Mayor announces Olympic Park electric charging network, creating air quality legacy
North Acton station wins Underground in bloom gardening competition.
Businesses urged to plan for paralympics too.
Mayor of London and Transport for London act to save 812 PlusBus route
Transformation of Green Park station nears completion
Transport for London secures further improvements to coach parking
No more bendy buses on route 73
New Oyster system to help customers pay the correct fare
'Plan for Paralympics too' businesses urged

For more information see: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/3119.aspx (most times) Note: Oldest news items at bottom of list

Project News

Articles

Aldwych tube station was promoted to Featured article status in September
There are currently 2,804 project pages; all have been assessed for quality and importance. If you see a new article on a project topic which is not rated, please add the banner to the talk page and assess it.
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway was put on a peer review.
British Airways has been put on Good Article Review.

Portal

The portal has now been automated by DavidCane (talk · contribs)
It was also promoted to featured portal status in July

Requests

Haynestre (talk · contribs) has requested comment on London General Omnibus Company
WhisperToMe (talk · contribs) has requested photos of various companies across London including airlines.
Tyw7 has requested help with improving Docklands Light Railway rolling stock
MRSC has requested help with improving North and West London Light Railway and West London Orbital
Lifelike (talk · contribs) has requested more info be added to rail line infoboxes
Usage data has been published on National Rail stations by the DfT. The recent 2009/10 includes Oyster usage.
File:Thames tunnels.svg (below) requires updating (leave a note here explaining what needs doing)

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Cleanup : Lists of articles needing cleanup
Expand : These top 10 favourite articles to Good Article: J. P. Morgan · Heathrow Airport · River Thames · London Bridge · London Underground · London Bridge (Lake Havasu City) · Gatwick Airport · London Congestion Charge · Tube map · Tower Bridge These top importance articles to Good Article: 7 July 2005 London bombings · Buses in London · Crossrail · London Passenger Transport Board · London Transport (brand) · London Transport Museum · Transport for London · Transport in London
Photo : Upload your non-copyrighted London transportation images to Wikimedia Commons
Stubs : Improve a stub article
Update : London low emission zone, London congestion charge
Other :
- Suggest: A Did You Know...? fact here or an Anniversary fact here.
- Patrol: Recent changes
- Join: Become a member of WikiProject London Transport or encourage others

Other

Discussions within the project were the categories for renaming, creating Cromwell Curve and the notability of Bateaux London.
Other project related discussions included train and station identification, the Crystal Palace to Beckenham Junction Line, renaming categories, Greater Anglia, the Harrington Hump, bus stations and road bridges on route diagrams.

Members

Newest member: Davidwo (talk · contribs) joined in December. Welcome to them.
Number of participants is 81

Editorial

Editor: Simply south (talk)
Happy new year to everyone. sorry for the rather late arrival. I have been busy sorting my work out. Anyway, here is the 1st edition of 2012.
All suggestions to improve the newsletter are welcome at feedback page or User talk:Simply south

Best Articles

Featured

Good

Featured topic

Wikipedia:Featured topics/Brill Tramway

Featured portal

Portal:London Transport

Recently promoted to Featured Article or Featured List

Recently assessed as Good Articles

Featured Article candidates (FAC or FLC here)

None at present

Good Article candidates (here)

None at present

Most visited pages

For a list of the Project's most visited pages, see Wikipedia:WikiProject London Transport/Favourite pages

Gallery

This month's gallery of images (selected by Portal:London Transport)

If you want to unsubscribe from this newsletter or, if you are visiting this user page and want to sign-up, then please visit this page. You may also like to provide your opinions on this newsletter by visiting The Metropolitan's feedback page or the project's discussion page. Any other issues with this, don't be afraid to drop a line at Simply south's talkpage.


Wikipedia ads	file info – #137

Sorry its late and happy new year. Simply south...... having large explosions for 5 years 23:06, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

February Metro

The Metropolitan

The WikiProject London Transport Newsletter
(Issue 38 - February 2012)
January 2012 | March 2012

In September 2011, WP:LT was interviewed by Signpost

London Transport News

February

TfL-funded police officers continue to reduce Blackwall Tunnel delays for drivers
Mayor of London helps 71 schools get pupils cycling
Mayor announces innovative bus technology set to deliver cleaner air across London
Olympic Taxi fare increase rejected by TfL
TfL reveals design for transformed Euston Circus junction

January

Tube performance on track for a successful Games
Major campaign launched to help people 'Get Ahead of the Games' and keep London and the UK moving in 2012
DLR launches a new three-car route and enhanced timetable to meet Games-time demand
Changes to travel around Paddington Station due to Crossrail works
Avoiding congestion made easier with new Transport for London live traffic news
London Overground passenger satisfaction soars following investment in capacity, trains and stations
Mayor welcomes green light for scheme to charge companies for disruptive roadworks
Mayor welcomes 200th greener, cleaner hybrid bus to London's fleet
New docking station for cycle hire in the heart of Westminster gets planning permission
Pedestrian Countdown technology to be rolled out across London from summer 2012
One in five people bought cycle equipment as a result of Barclays Cycle Hire
New cleaning contract of bus stations and stands to reduce CO2 emissions and cleaner air
Hammersmith flyover reopens to cars and light traffic as repairs continue
Free London 2012 support package for freight operators and their customers
Cycle safety improvements proposed around Bow
All drivers are urged to switch off their engines when parked, loading or waiting at the roadside
More reliable Tube carries record-breaking numbers
Mayor hails new measures in 2012 to deliver cleaner air for London

December

Hammersmith Flyover closed due to structural defect found
Edgware Road signal improvements delivered early, paving way for longer, accessible, air-con trains
Mayor announces trial to cut harmful pollution at industrial and construction sites across London
Interim operator for Putney to Blackfriars River Bus service
TfL has today announced details of a strategic review of traffic movements through the Kings Cross area
Motorcycles to be allowed permanent access to bus lanes
Around 85 of London's 700 bus routes will be changed in some way during the 2012 Games
TfL ramps up safety efforts on London Tramlink
Major crackdown on dangerous pedicabs in central London
Emirates Air Line lands on iconic Tube map as first tower completed
Mayor heralds the arrival of the new bus for London
More local transport improvements for London Boroughs announced by Mayor
Mayor and DfT announce £10 million to cut pollution from Capital's bus fleet
Mayor hails successful bid to make more London Overground stations step free
Vibrant London life captured in Yayoi Kusama's new artwork for the Pocket Tube Map
Additional peak trains for the 200,000 Wimbledon branch passengers each day will bring fewer delays and extra capacity
Overall Transport for London (TfL) fares to rise by 5.6 per cent in 2012
Lewis Hamilton toasts free travel on London transport to welcome in the New Year
Out-of-hours deliveries during London 2012 Games are viable, trials show
Real time digital bus information proves a hit with Londoners
As part of Transport for London's (TfL) commitment to the mental and physical health of its 27,000 employees, the organisation has signed the Time to Change Pledge

For more information see: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/3119.aspx (most times) Note: Oldest news items at bottom of list

Project News

Articles

Aldwych tube station was promoted to Featured article status in September
There are currently 2,820 project pages; all have been assessed for quality and importance. If you see a new article on a project topic which is not rated, please add the banner to the talk page and assess it.
British Airways has been put on Good Article Review.
Franz Muller was proposed to be moved with no consensus.
A2199 road was propsed for deletion, the result was a redirect.

Portal

The portal has now been automated by DavidCane (talk · contribs)
It was also promoted to featured portal status in July 2011

Requests

Haynestre (talk · contribs) has requested comment on London General Omnibus Company
WhisperToMe (talk · contribs) has requested photos of various companies across London including airlines.
Tyw7 has requested help with improving Docklands Light Railway rolling stock
MRSC has requested help with improving North and West London Light Railway and West London Orbital
Lifelike (talk · contribs) has requested more info be added to rail line infoboxes
Usage data has been published on National Rail stations by the DfT. The recent 2009/10 includes Oyster usage.
File:Thames tunnels.svg (below) requires updating (leave a note here explaining what needs doing)

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Cleanup : Lists of articles needing cleanup
Expand : These top 10 favourite articles to Good Article: J. P. Morgan · Heathrow Airport · River Thames · London Bridge · London Underground · London Bridge (Lake Havasu City) · Gatwick Airport · London Congestion Charge · Tube map · Tower Bridge These top importance articles to Good Article: 7 July 2005 London bombings · Buses in London · Crossrail · London Passenger Transport Board · London Transport (brand) · London Transport Museum · Transport for London · Transport in London
Photo : Upload your non-copyrighted London transportation images to Wikimedia Commons
Stubs : Improve a stub article
Update : London low emission zone, London congestion charge
Other :
- Suggest: A Did You Know...? fact here or an Anniversary fact here.
- Patrol: Recent changes
- Join: Become a member of WikiProject London Transport or encourage others

Other

Discussions within the project were the categories for renaming, creating Cromwell Curve and the notability of Bateaux London.
Other project related discussions road bridges on route diagrams, notability within the London Underground, GB Railways and coordinates UK wide

Members

Newest member: Davidwo (talk · contribs) joined in December. Welcome to them.
Number of participants is 81

Editorial

Editor: Simply south (talk)
I just hope this year round I can make the newsletters roughly within the first week of every month. If you ever feel you want to have a try, please feel free to drop me a line on my talk page.
All suggestions to improve the newsletter are welcome at feedback page or User talk:Simply south

Best Articles

Featured

Good

Featured topic

Wikipedia:Featured topics/Brill Tramway

Featured portal

Portal:London Transport

Recently promoted to Featured Article or Featured List

Recently assessed as Good Articles

Featured Article candidates (FAC or FLC here)

None at present

Good Article candidates (here)

None at present

Most visited pages

For a list of the Project's most visited pages, see Wikipedia:WikiProject London Transport/Favourite pages

Gallery

This month's gallery of images (selected by Portal:London Transport)

If you want to unsubscribe from this newsletter or, if you are visiting this user page and want to sign-up, then please visit this page. You may also like to provide your opinions on this newsletter by visiting The Metropolitan's feedback page or the project's discussion page. Any other issues with this, don't be afraid to drop a line at Simply south's talkpage.


Wikipedia ads	file info – #137

Simply south...... having large explosions for 5 years 22:53, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I feel like a groupie

But I just met Iridescent. How cool is that? Well, maybe a bit less cool than that he met me, but you get the point. Malleus Fatuorum 21:18, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Makes two of us then Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:24, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Your name did come up in conversation. In a nice way, of course. And I believe I'm now in a position to reveal that Iridescent is either a male or a female. Malleus Fatuorum 21:41, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Beats driving dog-tired down the A1 :( Still, hearing Eddie Mitchell swearing live on 606 woke me up :) Parrot of Doom 23:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

There was a bloody tube strike in London when we met up...which made for interesting travel....Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:50, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I saw your post ..

... on the Civility AC talk page - great to see you back. I think what you wrote is absolutely fantastic, and well stated. I do hope the post was a consideration of returning to a more full time role here, as your wisdom could surely be appreciated by many. Either way, it was great to see you, and I hope all is well in your real life. — Ched : ? 16:52, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I have to say, we really could have used you on the Committee in this case. If nothing else, it might have been interesting to see whether I still would have been solo dissent on one or two things or whether I might at least have had company. Hope all is well. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:24, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

What NYB said. Jclemens (talk) 00:17, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't log in a lot, but I still read a lot. And you're still on my watchlist that I never check, Iri., but I checked today, and Ched's post intrigued me so I found what you wrote, and I found it to be rather brilliant. I didn't realize you'd disappeared for most of the winter. Good to see your input and be once again reminded of how remarkably clearly you are able to communicate within a difficult medium (the interwebs). So anyway, just saying. And back to IP I go. :-) Keeper | 76 18:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not back; not only do I not have time, but the more I see of Wikipedia from the vantage point of a semi-detached observer, the more certain I am that the trends I was pointing out a couple of years ago—an obsession with strict compliance over common sense, the increasing domination of policy-wonks, an accelerating decline in the number of editors actually active in content work of any kind, entrenched US west coast and south-east English cultural bias, and simultaneous (and contradictory) unhealthy fixations on the concepts of "anyone can edit" to the point where respected users argue for the unblocking of some of Wikipedia's most disruptive nutjobs because "anyone can edit" and of "disruption warrants blocking" to the point where generally non-problematic users are either blocked from editing or hounded off the site owing to minor breaches of etiquette or personal grudges—have come to dominate the internal workings of Wikipedia to the point where it's becoming impossible to get anything done unless one's a member of one or another privileged clique who'll circle the wagons for you. (Ched, you might want to think long and hard about exactly why you're pushing so hard for the return of Rlevse—who in terms of "time and effort taken to clean up afterwards" is arguably the most disruptive user in Wikipedia's history, and who left such a mess that the cleanup effort is still incomplete 18 months later—but you're not arguing for the return of Ottava, Mattisse, Peter Damian, Kohs, Mbz1 and many more, all of whom were considerably more productive and certainly no more disruptive.)

As all four of you presumably know, I've believed for a long time that Wikipedia's internal systems have failed and that the most pressing action for Arbcom to take is to oversee its own dismantling and replacement with formal and separated structures for dispute resolution and policymaking. Watching the Civility Enforcement mess—where Arbcom ended up painting themselves into a corner in which they were forced to create policy post facto, and then the same people who created the policy had to rule on who had breached said policy despite the fact that it hadn't existed at the time—just drives home how dysfunctional the current system is. (Plus, despite the pseudo-legalese and the best efforts of three of the Arbs to be genuinely impartial, the current system is almost entirely personality driven. As Malleus can confirm, when the list of "arbitrators active on the case" was announced I correctly told him what the findings would be along with voting numbers, based purely on what I know of the interpersonal relationships of the current arbitrators; all the three months of discussion was just window-dressing to give the foregone conclusion some legitimacy. No system should work like this.) While I may make the very occasional reappearance, I don't really see the point in dedicating substantial time to a system which is willfully ripping itself apart.

@Brad—your comments here are thoughtful, but they're missing a very important point. The strict enforcement of "banned means banned" doesn't actually work; the reason it appears to work is that those admins who do enforce it are flat-track bullies. The two highest profile cases of banned users who made significant contributions using sock accounts and then saw those articles deleted thanks to the strict enforcement of WP:CSD#G5 both wrote in low-traffic areas, where the deletion of the articles had no particular impact on Wikipedia. If you (or anyone) genuinely believes that "edits made by banned users must be reverted and any page created by them should be deleted" (which is not what WP:Banning policy actually says), then head on over to Boeing 747 (most of which was written by Dereks1x socks post-ban), and remove everything added by socks. If you're willing to delete River of Renewal: Myth and History in the Klamath Basin but not to stubbify Boeing 747, you need to ask yourself why. – iridescent 14:02, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

You did indeed predict the result spot on. As you say, the case was just three months of window dressing. Malleus Fatuorum 14:14, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Might have been an intimate understanding of the issues and then making an assumption that most sober eyes might see it the same way.....or maybe I'll just take off my rose-coloured glasses now. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

All that aside, I really worry that the dilemma of COI blows civility out of the....oh bleh. Thanks for the link on the cleanup effort as I think some summary at the end would be good. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah. And I got to this page thanks to the recently banned user Mbz1 [7], heh. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 19:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

As an experiment in government, Wikipedia is very young. These things need a couple of hundred years to bed in. I do wonder how different it would have been if it had been presented in a different way (with fixed rules for example). I am minded that it actually would have been more productive, as most editors would continue to edit under any vaguely rational set of rules - workplaces and academic institutions get by with plenty of arbitrary rules, and few people expend significant energy getting them changed unless they have a major impact. A few years ago, I worked somewhere that suffered a series of fire alarms from incendiary toast incidents. Faced with a call out bill from the Fire Brigade, management sent someone round to remove all the toasters from the kitchens. In real life, the majority of people don't get drawn into extensive, ongoing arguments about that kind of stuff - a little water cooler whinging, and it's over as far as getting anything changed goes. Wikipedia's mistake was to hold out the prospect that anything could be changed, meaning that nothing can ever be done without heavy collateral damage from people who feel they weren't personally invited to submit their 100kb. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:07, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- - "workplaces and academic institutions get by with plenty of arbitrary rules, and few people expend significant energy getting them changed unless they have a major impact." The options are limited except in exceptional circumstances (pdf, Lomax (1976) "Workers Councils" Socialist Register) resistance to the rules of workplaces and academia is in the final analysis futile. And between 1940 and 1980, in the conditions of full employment, where labour was valued, a toaster was a perfect reason for an eighteen months drawn out shit fight; because any cause was a decent reason for an eighteen months drawn out shit fight with people forcing foreign structures of conduct onto the people who did the work. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:26, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Not having set-in-stone rules was what got the system started; if Wikipedia had had firm rules in the early days, it would have ended up like Citizendium with a mob of petty tyrants preventing anything getting done. Something Jimmy Wales does deserve full credit for is a willingness to sit back and let things take their course, even when he wants to intervene. However, this openness has now become a millstone around Wikipedia's neck; at some point around 2007 "anyone can edit" came to mean "everyone is of equal value". Thus, Wikipedia has reached the point where (for instance) two of Wikipedia's most highly regarded editors are flinging shit at each other like a pair of bored gibbons owing to a minor spat over who notified whom regarding a potential copyright violation in a WikiCup entry; where another two people who should know a lot better are tossing insults back and forth over whether to retain a one-line substub on a deeply obscure specialist magazine; where brand-new accounts can harangue long-term editors to the point of resignation; and where nobody feels they have the authority to tell them all to knock it off, because "anyone can edit". The more I see of Wikipedia, the more I think it would make sense to raise the autoconfirmed cutoff from three days to three months.

I agree that "Wikipedia's mistake was to hold out the prospect that anything could be changed", but that's only half the story; Wikipedia's real mistake was to give the impression that, since everyone is of equal value, any given editor's personal prejudices were of equal value to those of anyone else, and thus not only "anything can be changed", but anything should be changed. The constant references to WP:FIVE as if it had been carried down from Mount Sinai on stone tablets by Larry Sanger—as opposed to being an essay User:Neutrality knocked off one day about how they thought Wikipedia ought to be run—don't help either, since new users seeing it assume (reasonably) that it describes how Wikipedia works, not how some people feel it ought to work, and get shocked and upset when they see established users failing to follow it. – iridescent 15:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree with many, though not all of the concerns Iridescent has expressed here and over the years. (Another way of putting things, I think, is that the Wikipedia editor base or community has very weak skills of prioritization.) I just wish (1) I could write about the site's issues as clearly as Iridescent does, (2) that I had a clearer idea than I do about how to address them, and (3) that the issues weren't continuing to drive some of our most thoughtful editors away from the site. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:25, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Good luck with that part about editors being driven off. As go MastCell and Iri, go most of us. I, for one, have had all I can take of being shat upon by abusive admins and arbs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I've been where you are now many times Sandy, and if NYB really doesn't know how to tackle the problems here then I say shame on him; it's bloody obvious what's gone wrong here, and it starts with the administrators and their dumbass enforcement of Wikipedia's dumbass pillars. And so far from recognising that blindingly obvious truth are ArbCom that they consider it proper to stifle any criticism of the admin corps at WT:RFA by topic banning me, and effectively disenfranchising me. One might have thought that even a lawyer could see the dangers inherent in such an approach to dealing with criticism. Malleus Fatuorum 18:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

You may have been here many times, Malleus, but I was there first :) And in spite of that, I was hopeful that things would change after FeloniousMonk was desysopped, so I spent four stupid years working hours every day in what with hindsight amounted to feeding the very "reward culture" that is part of the problem, knowing all too well what I knew all the way back to the days before I was FAC delegate, when an admin cabal could go after me: if you are an admin or are perceived to have power on Wikipedia, you will not know what it's really like in here, as long as you are "protected" you won't find out how abusive admins with double standards can be. But there is some very good news here: NYB has learned how to say nothing in fewer words than it used to take him (said with all due affection, because I do believe he tries :) :) And again with all due affection, NYB-- if you had to edit in the trenches with the rest of us, I think you'd much more quickly get some very clear ideas of how to address these problems. When you all look at admin abuse, it's not enough to look at just abuse of the tools: they abuse just as well with threats to use the tools, and by smearing regular editors with impunity whenever they damn well feel like it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:19, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Once again, Iridescent set a very good and principled example by giving up the tools for a year and doing exactly that, editing like a regular user. I invite NYB to follow that example; it may clarify his thoughts. Malleus Fatuorum 19:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

...but he'll still be NYB, just as iridescent was iridescent when he was not an admin.....I am not sure that is the way to go. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I am sure. Try editing articles as opposed to pontificating, find out what it's really like in the trenches. Malleus Fatuorum 20:14, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand that comment, Cas ... it took 'em six years to beat me down to a place of no hope. He would still be NYB for a while, yes, it takes a while to have it beaten the hell out of you-- so, where do you think you would be today (in terms of having any hope) if you faced an MDD FAC every single day you edited? Even when you tried to just go do your own work and stay out of other people's way. If that person were still hounding you, every where you went, every thing you did, and nobody helped. Etc ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

He wouldn't be the same NYB for very long, guaranteed. Malleus Fatuorum 20:27, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what an "MDD FAC" is, but it sounds painful. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

It was. And those who need to know, do. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok McBride, you're a clever cookie, I'll give you 24 hours and see if you can figure it out. Use your deductive skills. :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:28, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

There's probably a very good reason why Casliber goes off to a quiet corner of Wikipedia to work on his mushrooms. I'm sometimes jealous of editors whose articles get 30 page views a day, and one edit a year. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:58, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Not sure if anyone is still reading here, but for what it's worth, I "was NYB" before I became an administrator and arbitrator. You have a cause/effect reversal there: it's more that I was selected for those roles, for good or ill, because of the way I spoke and acted on-wiki, rather than that I started speaking and acting a certain way because of the roles I found myself in. That being said, I can see that my spending too much time doing those things might have made my aggravating on-wiki mannerisms worse than they started as.

As for knowing the problems of Wikipedia, I do know a good deal about many of them. I can't solve them all myself, though, as sometimes seems to be expected of me: first of all, I find myself in disagreement with large segments of the community on various issues, and second of all, I don't have enough time in the day to deal with all the things that ought to be improved. Much of it, in my mind, still comes down to misplaced priorities. More on this sometimes when I have time to write an essay about it, and still more time to cut the length of the essay down from the first draft to something people might actually read. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

WMF

Re: "While I may make the very occasional reappearance, I don't really see the point in dedicating substantial time to a system which is willfully ripping itself apart."

You chose to run for adminship (and you're still an admin here). You chose to run for ArbCom. Most editors don't do this. Most editors quietly and peacefully edit articles.

The more the Wikimedia Foundation grows and expands, the less I like it. But it's not as though I came here to Wikipedia to work for the Wikimedia Foundation (or Jimmy Wales or anyone else), so it doesn't really matter, does it? Wikipedia is about the content; as someone once said, without the content, Wikipedia would just be Facebook for ugly people. ;-) There's a difference between being involved in the inane, political bullshit and editing articles or uploading images or doing other types of content work.

Simply, I don't accept your premise that dedicating time (substantial or not) to this project is a bad idea. Like nearly anything else, it's simply a matter of how you choose to spend your time. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I was kinda following you .. until ... ummm, we are working for the WMF now. Like it or not, and it does affect us. In my area of editing, we are getting killed by their efforts to recruit students who are editing and damaging medical articles-- quantity over quality, and that is precisely what is making Wikipedia least enjoyable for me right now. Cleaning up copyvio and POV and all manner of crap after editors who are doing it for a grade and won't stick around. The rest is little stuff. Medical topics that are damaging children's health and welfare is not "inane, political bullshit", and we have no equivalent of a BLP policy to protect them. Novice editors can plop in all the primary-sourced, dangerous POV they want, and there's little an individual can do about it. In the medical realm, Wikipedia has gotten too dangerous to walk away from. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

"Wikipedia has gotten too dangerous to walk away from". That's a very interesting perspective, and returning to NYB one of the things he has to come to terms with is his long-term advocacy of pre-teen administrators. Which has contributed to the mess we're in today. Give up the tools for a year, see what damage your spawn has done. Malleus Fatuorum 21:31, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit conflict, to Sandy: I know we've talked about this quite a bit, but maybe it's time to develop a BLP-equivalent policy dealing with medical content. There's ample evidence that Wikipedia's medical content is widely read, and the potential for real-life harm dwarfs that associated with BLP violations. But there are no real protections for people who go to the mat for quality (or at least not-actively-dangerous) medical content. If we could tap into even a fraction of the self-righteousness that's grown up around BLP issues and harness it in the interest of heading off potentially dangerous medical content, Wikipedia would be a better place. MastCell ^Talk 21:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, it sounds as though you're making arguments to continue editing, not stop. I think we agree there.

If the Wikimedia Foundation is making a mess, tell them to clean it up. :-) I'm not sure why the burden would be on anyone but them or why anyone else would volunteer to fix their mess. They're paying people to do that recruiting. If it's resulting in damage to the encyclopedia, it absolutely should be stopped, using whatever tools necessary. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

But it won't be, because the WMF's focus is on quantity, not quality. Malleus Fatuorum 21:41, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

MZM, you're not getting it-- I guess I'm not explaining well. The WMF won't fix it-- for starters, they don't care to, and for seconds, they wouldn't know how to even if they were willing. I'm not talking about trivial medical topics: I'm talking about complicated neuroimmunology and medical sources that even those well versed in the topic have a hard time working with. It's not "damage to the encyclopedia" that worries me-- it is damage to the health of real people caused by POV and inaccurate medical information on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is widely read-- POV warriors and advocates know how to use it to push quackery, often dangerously so. We have adequate medical sourcing ~~policy~~ guidelines (WP:MEDRS), but when POV warriors chunk in primary sources, we can't revert as we can with the protection we have on BLPS. So the time it takes to keep the articles medically accurate is a burden. We need a policy for medical articles that is the equivalent of our BLP policy, that gives MEDRS some teeth. WMF's solution is to recruit new editors who chunk in more copyvio and primary sources, because they have an agenda, are unknowledgeable in general, or don't understand primary vs secondary sources. In the neuropysch realm, just about every new editor who shows up has a POV agenda. Now, that's just one piece of what I deal with in daily editing-- on top of the admin abuse even when I'm minding my own business. I've also got one admin who follows me around and is convinced every word I write is about her, and periodically shows up to "warn" me ... and there's more. I wonder if anyone who isn't really in the trenches of article editing can understand the daily toll. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

WMF has been able to implement whatever half-thought-out "experiment" they like, based on the assumption that there is plenty of free labor to fix things if they go wrong. So far their assumption has been roundly confirmed. As long as folks continue enabling WMF by cleaning up their messes, they have no incentive to stop making messes. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:46, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a good point, or at least half of one, because I remain unconvinced that they recognise the messes they create, far less the effort required to clear them up. Malleus Fatuorum 22:58, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

agree about MEDRS - we've got the guideline, it's a matter of making editors more aware of it. Maybe a piece in the signpost? Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:31, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it needs a different emphasis, at least in the introduction. If you read BLP, it's very forceful about accuracy and sourcing etc. in its opening, it reads very differently than MEDRS. Put a little urgency into the policy, and then urge administrators to enforce it more forcefully. There's no Siegenthaler incident to put it into everyone's mind, so that'll have to be done the hard way. Nathan^T 02:10, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

The real problem is that most new editors never even read the page, so how it's written might not help much. I've been dealing for three days with one editor who won't respond on user talk or article talk, but keeps on chunking in primary sources with POV text that is contradicted by secondary reviews. And I've been dealing for one year with another advocate whom I have educated about MEDRS, who simply created a POV fork with primary sources to avoid having to source correctly. Admins don't typically get involved or even always understand content disputes. GA and DYK regularly promote medical articles that don't comply with MEDRS, and the lack of awareness is everywhere. Nobody reads The Signpost (the last time they bashed me, their readership was about half of what my talk page gets). In short: it can't be enforced more forcefully unless we have a policy similar to BLP, where we can shoot poorly sourced medical information on sight. It reads differently because it's a sourcing guideline, not a policy like BLP. Because it's a guideline, and because there are times when judicious use of primary sources is indicated, we have no policy akin to BLP that allows us to enforce strictly, so we have to spend hours, days and weeks dealing with advocates or axe grinders or the merely unaware who use primary sources to support POV. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:37, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Forgive my passing comment, but I would strongly support the idea of promoting WP:MEDRS to policy and giving it the same enforcement "teeth" as WP:BLP. You make a convincing argument, Sandy. Bad medical information is just as bad, if not worse, than libelous material on living persons. Both have the potential to do immediate harm to innocent people. What's the best way to go about making this happen? –Grondemar 02:44, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't really know how to answer that, Grondemar; I'm not that well versed in how to get a guideline elevated to policy, but I do know it ain't easy. All of the medical editors "in the trenches" have agreed for years that we need this, but I just skimmed the TimidGuy arbcase and see that MEDRS was an issue there, and I see some alarming issues in that case. The numbers of knowledgeable medical editors are declining as we give up in despair (eg MastCell, me, Eubulides is gone, and we're just stretched too thin), while the number of POV warriors and advocates who want to use primary sources incorrectly grows all the time. I witnessed one case at FAC where an editor who realized an article was going to have to have some primary-sourced POV removed and replaced with secondary review sources if she wanted the article promoted FA, so she withdrew the FAC nomination (you can get your google hits with POV without the FA star). There may be some opposition to strengthening of MEDRS, so I don't know how to launch a policy proposal effectively. And I'm not even sure how it would be written, because there are some cases when primary sources are appropriate. And most admins can't or don't know how to enforce MEDRS, in fact, don't know how to distinguish a primary study from a secondary review. The best person for this job is User:Colin, but most medical editors these days are just ... exhausted. We've had to deal with the whole malformed student editor recruitments for a year ... I am glad you cared enough to ask, though. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:54, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I've assumed that BLP and to a lesser extent MEDRS were to reduce legal risk, given non-US libel laws etc. Since individual journal articles can cost as much as a CD, CopyVios alone could be a significant legal risk. No hope of requires MEDRS → Semiprotected I guess. RDBrown (talk) 00:19, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, the notion of reducing legal risk was no part of the issue when we were putting together MEDRS-- the site-wide disclaimer already covers that. It was to deal with quackery, and to date, we are still unable to deal effectively with quackery. The TimidGuy arbcase is much alarming on that score. If I'm reading the proposed decision page correctly, we are unbanning a user who doesn't use MEDRS, and sanctioning a user who respected policy because he made the mistake of writing to Jimbo. Doesn't bode well, but I have learned never ever to appeal to authority when I have confidential info, since that mistake made by Will BeBack apparently trumps the content issues of non-MEDRS compliance on TM by TimidGuy. I could be reading it wrong, but that's what I'm seeing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:56, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Sandy, I don't do much editing on medical topics, but like Grondemar I would strongly support an effort to promote MEDRS to policy status alongside BLP for the reasons you've given here and elsewhere. If there's ever a serious effort to do that, please let me know, I would like to help. 28bytes (talk) 01:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, 28; it is such a relief to know others see this problem. I've spent a good portion of this week dealing with a non-MEDRS compliant POV situation on an article where children's health has been jeopardized for years by quackery, and independent editors have not been helpful, because they don't seem to even understand MEDRS (which is why I worry about TM on the TimidGuy case). Someone started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Status of this page, but I really don't think it's as simple as just promoting that page to policy; tweaks will be needed, and the discussion will be arduous, so it needs to be focused and organized. User:Colin is really the guru on that page, so others are probably holding off until he weighs in. That seems to be the starting place, so you may watchlist that page. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:35, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

No, their worst fears have been confirmed, namely that the clueless old curmudgeons fight them! It took me a while to find out what the WP:ACTRIAL that Sue mentioned here was about. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 01:47, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Apparently I missed that proposal. So, if I'm understanding you, the community agreed on something in a widely supported poll that would help us deal with the problems mentioned above, but WMF refused to uphold what the community had agreed upon? Is that how it went, or am I missing something? So, what did Sue Gardner have to say? (I'm hoping you'll save me from watching that whole dreadful presentation again.) At the same time, the WMF recruits students without ample supervision and based on no community input or feedback, with results that make us all miserable. What the heck. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:16, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

She basically said that the community was well meaning but clueless on that issue. I have impression that it was one of the key events that led to the writing of WP:You don't own Wikipedia. The n+1 discussion on quality vs. quantity / editors vs. content is now taking place on WP:VPP#Reminder-- Delete votes hurt writers' feelings, by the way. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 13:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion on that issue is continuing here, with spillover to the general topic of WMF's regard for the community (or lack thereof). Note especially the proposal for an RFC on relations between WMF and en.wp. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:54, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Geeeeeez, I've just read through everything linked by ASCII and Short Brigade. Who knew. This is far worse than I thought-- I didn't realize so much of the Wikipedia was up in arms over this, and I thought it was only affecting us medical folk. What is going on with WMF is most discouraging in terms of editor retention: they don't seem to understand that their efforts to attract new editors are seriously chasing out knowledgeable editors. So, where is the editor retention in chasing out editors who know what the hell they're doing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:31, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Arbcom reform

(to Iridescent, waaaay back above) You are probably the best person to actually propose such reforms. While I grant that you don't have the time, those of us currently trying to do the committee's day-to-day work are hamstrung by that workload. Even assuming that actual membership on the committee doesn't impose a myopic outlook on its structure and problems, the workload is both a split in attention and loyalty. What you have that no one else has (except the sitting committee and recently retired arbs like Coren and John Vandenberg) is an insider's view of what the workload actually entails. On that basis, I think you have the best combination of credibility and support, if you can find the time to put a proposal together. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 03:47, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Main page appearance: London Necropolis Company

This is a note to let the main editors of London Necropolis Company know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on February 29, 2012. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 29, 2012. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director Raul654 (talk · contribs) or his delegate Dabomb87 (talk · contribs), or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/instructions. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. The blurb as it stands now is below:

The London Necropolis Company (LNC) was a cemetery operator established by Act of Parliament in 1852 in reaction to the crisis caused by the closure of London's graveyards in 1851. The LNC intended to establish a single cemetery large enough to accommodate all of London's future burials. The company bought a large tract of land in Brookwood, Surrey, and converted a portion of it into Brookwood Cemetery. A dedicated railway line, the London Necropolis Railway, linked the new cemetery to the city. The LNC had anticipated handling between 10,000–50,000 burials per year, but the number never rose above 4,100 per year. The LNC remained solvent by selling surplus parts of its land, but as the land had been chosen in the first place for its remoteness, sales were low. After an 1884 ruling that cremation was lawful in England the LNC took advantage of its proximity to Woking Crematorium by providing transport for bodies and mourners on its railway line and after 1910 by interring ashes in a dedicated columbarium. Although it was never as successful as planned, the LNC was influential on both the funeral industry and the development of the area around Woking, and Brookwood Cemetery remains the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom. (more...)

UcuchaBot (talk) 23:01, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Sonnets

People reading this who are interested in Wikipedia's coverage of literary subjects might like to weigh in on the topic of what to do about Petrarch's and Shakespeare's Sonnets (AfD discussion) at its discussion. Uncle G (talk) 23:24, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

The Metropolitan - March

Issue 39: March 2012

Previous edition · Next edition

London Transport News

March

London's utility bosses agree action plan for less disruptive roadworks
Tube set to post most reliable performance figures for a decade
Spiderweb reduces theft on London transport by 14 per cent

February

Contractors shortlisted to save tens of millions of pounds through new joint highway works
Read it and bin it, newspapers can cause Tube delays
Crime continues to fall on London's bus network
First passengers jump aboard the new bus for London
Mayor brings London's rail industry together to get set for the London 2012 Games
Freight operators and their customers urged to prepare for London 2012 Games with launch of new campaign
Crystal Palace improvement work to begin
New online process announced for London Service Permits
Mayor steps up HGV safety campaign to benefit cyclists and pedestrians
New card to make travel easier for people with hidden disabilities
Art on the Underground launches Canary Wharf Screen at Tube station
Cycling grants to help communities ride to the 2012 Games
Blackfriars Underground station reopens to cater for influx of passengers
Work begins to cool the platforms at two major central London stations
War on fare dodgers increases as penalty charges go up this weekend
Less than one month to go until Barclays Cycle Hire goes east
Changes to travel around Paddington Station due to Crossrail works
Incident response on the Tube to be boosted under 'Blue Light' trial
London Tramlink upgrade continues
TfL confirms priority junctions for cycle safety review

Project News

Articles

Baker Street and Waterloo Railway is on track to be Today's Featured Article on the Main Page on 10th March, the 106th anniversary of the line's opening
British Airways underwent a successful Good Article Reassessment
Metropolitan Railway has been promoted to Good Article

Requests

If you want to post a request for help with an article, finding a photograph or seeking reference material, contact the editor

Things to do

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Cleanup : Lists of articles needing cleanup
Expand : These top 10 favourite articles to Good Article: J. P. Morgan · Heathrow Airport · River Thames · London Bridge · London Underground · London Bridge (Lake Havasu City) · Gatwick Airport · London Congestion Charge · Tube map · Tower Bridge These top importance articles to Good Article: 7 July 2005 London bombings · Buses in London · Crossrail · London Passenger Transport Board · London Transport (brand) · London Transport Museum · Transport for London · Transport in London
Photo : Upload your non-copyrighted London transportation images to Wikimedia Commons
Stubs : Improve a stub article
Update : London low emission zone, London congestion charge
Other :
- Suggest: A Did You Know...? fact here or an Anniversary fact here.
- Patrol: Recent changes
- Join: Become a member of WikiProject London Transport or encourage others

Membership

Number of participants is 81
Recent Activity of Project participants

Editorial

Editor: Simply south
Guest Editor for March: David Cane
We hope you like the new fresher look, styled to coordinate with the Portal page
All suggestions for improvements to the newsletter are welcome at feedback page or Simply south

Best Articles

Gallery

Selected by DavidCane


Wikipedia ads	file info – #137

If you want to unsubscribe from this newsletter or, if you are visiting this user page and want to sign-up, then please visit this page. You may also like to provide your opinions on this newsletter by visiting The Metropolitan's feedback page or the project's discussion page. Any other issues with this, don't be afraid to drop a line at Simply south's talkpage.

Just in case you stop by.--DavidCane (talk) 20:53, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Deceased User:Kbthompson

This deceased user's page is protected. It has two red-links on it that are attracting unwanted bots to his talk page. Would you kindly delete the redlinks? They are:

Template:UKLP and
Next month's portal test page

Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:21, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

(TPS) Iridescent hasn't edited since 24 February so may not see your request; I've removed the redlinks myself. Nev1 (talk) 15:38, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, and thanks! Please come back, Iridescent! :-) -- Ssilvers (talk) 00:16, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

April Metro

Issue 40: April 2012

Previous edition · Next edition

London Transport News

April

New entrance to West Croydon station provides better access for all
All the world's poets on the Tube
Major resurfacing works to take place along Victoria Embankment across Easter Bank Holiday weekend
Temporary changes to bus services during London 2012 Games test event in Woolwich.
Capital's rogue limousines targeted
Out-of-hours deliveries to be encouraged during London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
MUMS-to-be travelling by Tube can get a baby on board badge so passengers know they may need to sit down

March

London Underground publishes latest performance figures
Improvement works to begin at Bow roundabout
Work continues in London Bridge Station area
Limited edition Oyster cards commemorate a summer of celebration
DfT announces funding which will see 70 additional hybrid buses on London's streets
Mercedes-Benz initiative to help London cabbies deliver cleaner air
Wretch 32 and Stooshe take to YouTube in support of latest road safety campaign
UK's leading personal safety charity backs TfL's real-time bus information service
Mayor announces innovative technology is helping traffic flow more smoothly and cut disruption
Mayor welcomes improvements to key piers in time for the 2012 Games
First electric charge points installed at Games venue to support 2012 Games fleet and leave green legacy
Plans for London 2012 Games transport legacy unveiled
Mayor gets green light to levy hefty charges on utilities who dig up London's busiest roads from June 2012
Victoria Coach Station celebrates its 80th birthday
Excellence and bravery recognised at London Bus Awards
'Stop. Think. Live.' - Transport for London urges teenagers not to get distracted on the roads
TfL sets out London 2012 Games road event plans
Major eastern expansion of Mayor's flagship Barclays Cycle Hire scheme goes live
Top London attractions announce Games-time 'after work' offers to encourage Londoners to re-time their commute
Hammersmith Flyover work to restore full traffic use continues apace
Report on air quality indicates no significant impacts expected during London 2012 Games
London's utility bosses agree action plan for less disruptive roadworks
Tube set to post most reliable performance figures for a decade
Spiderweb reduces theft on London transport by 14 per cent

Project News

Articles

1910 London to Manchester air race, appeared as Today's Featured Article on the Main Page on 9th March
Baker Street and Waterloo Railway appeared as Today's Featured Article on the Main Page on 10th March, the 106th anniversary of the line's opening
British Airways underwent a successful Good Article Reassessment
Metropolitan Railway has been promoted to Good Article
The Good Article History of British Airways was added to the project
Herne Hill railway station and Bow Back Rivers are currently Good Article candidates

Project discussions

Within the project, discussions included how two project articles appeared on TFA in quick succession and an RfC on inclusion of particular viewpoint on future lengthening of certain trainsets on British Rail Class 458
Within other related projects, a relevant discussion included was on canal bridges

Requests

If you want to post a request for help with an article, finding a photograph or seeking reference material, contact the editor

Things to do

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Cleanup : Lists of articles needing cleanup
Expand : These top 10 favourite articles to Good Article: J. P. Morgan · Heathrow Airport · River Thames · London Bridge · London Underground · London Bridge (Lake Havasu City) · Gatwick Airport · London Congestion Charge · Tube map · Tower Bridge These top importance articles to Good Article: 7 July 2005 London bombings · Buses in London · Crossrail · London Passenger Transport Board · London Transport (brand) · London Transport Museum · Transport for London · Transport in London
Photo : Upload your non-copyrighted London transportation images to Wikimedia Commons
Stubs : Improve a stub article
Update : London low emission zone, London congestion charge
Other :
- Suggest: A Did You Know...? fact here or an Anniversary fact here.
- Patrol: Recent changes
- Join: Become a member of WikiProject London Transport or encourage others

Membership

Number of participants is 82. Welcome Alarics (talk · contribs)
Recent Activity of Project participants

Editorial

Editor: Simply south
Special thanks to DavidCane for the new, simpler, fresher look
We hope you like the new fresher look, styled to coordinate with the Portal page
All suggestions for improvements to the newsletter are welcome at feedback page or Simply south

Best Articles

Featured articles (34)

1910 London to Manchester air race • Albert Bridge, London • Aldwych tube station • Albert Stanley, 1st Baron Ashfield • Baker Street and Waterloo Railway • Battersea Bridge • Brill Tramway • Brill railway station • Central London Railway • Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway • Chelsea Bridge • City and South London Railway • Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway • Great Western Railway War Memorial • Green Park tube station • Herne Hill railway station • Charles Holden • London Necropolis Company • London and North Western Railway War Memorial • Marchioness disaster • Metropolitan Railway • Moorgate tube crash • RAF Northolt • Frank Pick • Sinking of SS Princess Alice • Quainton Road railway station • Richmond Bridge, London • Underground Electric Railways Company of London • Vauxhall Bridge • Waddesdon Road railway station • Wandsworth Bridge • Westcott railway station • Wood Siding railway station • Wotton railway station (Brill Tramway)

Featured lists (6)

List of former and unopened London Underground stations • List of London Underground stations • List of London Monopoly locations • List of works by Charles Holden • London station group • Timeline of the London Underground

Featured topics (2)

Brill Tramway • Underground Electric Railways Company of London

Good articles (111)

A1 in London • M25 motorway • A215 road • Acton Town tube station • Angel tube station • Arnos Grove tube station • William Henry Barlow • Becontree tube station • Blackfriars station • Blackwall Tunnel • BOAC Flight 712 • Bond Street • Boston Manor tube station • Bow Back Rivers • Bow Street • Infrastructure of the Brill Tramway • British Airways • British Rail Class 700 • Broad Street railway station (England) • Cannon Street station • Charing Cross railway station • Chesham branch • Chiswick Bridge • City Thameslink railway station • Coventry Street • 2016 Croydon tram derailment • Dartford Crossing • Denmark Street • District Railway • Down Street tube station • Earl's Court tube station • East Finchley tube station • Elephant & Castle tube station • Embankment tube station • Euston Road • Euston railway station • Euston tube station • Fenchurch Street railway station • Finchley Central tube station • Fleet Street • Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet • Gants Hill tube station • Gloucester Road tube station • Great Marlborough Street • Hammersmith & City line • Hammerton's Ferry • High Speed 1 • Highgate tube station • History of British Airways • Holborn Viaduct railway station • Holborn tube station • Hounslow West tube station • Kennington tube station • Kensington (Olympia) station • Kilburn tube station • King's Cross Thameslink railway station • King's Cross St Pancras tube station • Leicester Square • Murder of Deborah Linsley • Liverpool Street station • London Bridge station • London Country North East • London King's Cross railway station • London Necropolis Railway • London Necropolis railway station • London Paddington station • London Ringways • London Underground departmental stock • London Victoria station • London Waterloo station • M11 link road protest • Marylebone station • Moorgate station • Morden tube station • Newbury Park tube station • North Circular Road • Northern line extension to Battersea • Northumberland Avenue • Old Kent Road • Old Street station • Oxford Circus • Oxford Circus tube station • Oxford Street • Paddington tube station (Bakerloo, Circle and District lines) • Paddington tube station (Circle and Hammersmith & City lines) • Pall Mall, London • Park Lane • Charles Pearson • Pentonville Road • Piccadilly • Piccadilly line • Pimlico tube station • Regent Street • St Pancras railway station • South Circular Road, London • South Kensington tube station • Strand, London • Tillingbourne Bus Company • Trafalgar Square • Upminster Bridge tube station • Vauxhall station • Victoria line • Vine Street, London • Warren Street tube station • Waterloo East railway station • Westminster tube station • Westway (London) • Whitechapel Road • Whitehall • Wimbledon and Sutton Railway • Woolwich Ferry

Good topics (1)

Wikipedia:Good topics/List of London Monopoly locations

Featured Portal (1)
Portal:London Transport

Good articles (111)

A1 in London • M25 motorway • A215 road • Acton Town tube station • Angel tube station • Arnos Grove tube station • William Henry Barlow • Becontree tube station • Blackfriars station • Blackwall Tunnel • BOAC Flight 712 • Bond Street • Boston Manor tube station • Bow Back Rivers • Bow Street • Infrastructure of the Brill Tramway • British Airways • British Rail Class 700 • Broad Street railway station (England) • Cannon Street station • Charing Cross railway station • Chesham branch • Chiswick Bridge • City Thameslink railway station • Coventry Street • 2016 Croydon tram derailment • Dartford Crossing • Denmark Street • District Railway • Down Street tube station • Earl's Court tube station • East Finchley tube station • Elephant & Castle tube station • Embankment tube station • Euston Road • Euston railway station • Euston tube station • Fenchurch Street railway station • Finchley Central tube station • Fleet Street • Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet • Gants Hill tube station • Gloucester Road tube station • Great Marlborough Street • Hammersmith & City line • Hammerton's Ferry • High Speed 1 • Highgate tube station • History of British Airways • Holborn Viaduct railway station • Holborn tube station • Hounslow West tube station • Kennington tube station • Kensington (Olympia) station • Kilburn tube station • King's Cross Thameslink railway station • King's Cross St Pancras tube station • Leicester Square • Murder of Deborah Linsley • Liverpool Street station • London Bridge station • London Country North East • London King's Cross railway station • London Necropolis Railway • London Necropolis railway station • London Paddington station • London Ringways • London Underground departmental stock • London Victoria station • London Waterloo station • M11 link road protest • Marylebone station • Moorgate station • Morden tube station • Newbury Park tube station • North Circular Road • Northern line extension to Battersea • Northumberland Avenue • Old Kent Road • Old Street station • Oxford Circus • Oxford Circus tube station • Oxford Street • Paddington tube station (Bakerloo, Circle and District lines) • Paddington tube station (Circle and Hammersmith & City lines) • Pall Mall, London • Park Lane • Charles Pearson • Pentonville Road • Piccadilly • Piccadilly line • Pimlico tube station • Regent Street • St Pancras railway station • South Circular Road, London • South Kensington tube station • Strand, London • Tillingbourne Bus Company • Trafalgar Square • Upminster Bridge tube station • Vauxhall station • Victoria line • Vine Street, London • Warren Street tube station • Waterloo East railway station • Westminster tube station • Westway (London) • Whitechapel Road • Whitehall • Wimbledon and Sutton Railway • Woolwich Ferry

Promotions or Assessments

Recently Promoted Featured Articles, Lists or Topics - Recently Assessed Good Articles

History of British Airways

- Featured Article and Good Article candidates -

Gallery

Selected by Portal:London


Wikipedia ads	file info – #137

If you want to unsubscribe from this newsletter or, if you are visiting this user page and want to sign-up, then please visit this page. You may also like to provide your opinions on this newsletter by visiting The Metropolitan's feedback page or the project's discussion page. Any other issues with this, don't be afraid to drop a line at Simply south's talkpage.

Simply south...... going on editing sprees for just 6 years (as of 28/03/2006) 21:32, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Main page appearance: Biddenden Maids

This is a note to let the main editors of Biddenden Maids know that the article will be appearing as today's featured article on April 8, 2012. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 8, 2012. If you prefer that the article appear as TFA on a different date, or not at all, please ask featured article director Raul654 (talk · contribs) or his delegate Dabomb87 (talk · contribs), or start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests. If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/instructions. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. The blurb as it stands now is below:

The Biddenden Maids, Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst, were conjoined twins supposedly born in the village of Biddenden, Kent, in the year 1100. It is claimed that they were joined at both the shoulder and the hip, and that on their death they bequeathed land to the village. The income from this land was used to pay for a gift of food and drink to the poor every Easter. Since at least 1775 this has included hard biscuits imprinted with an image of two conjoined women, known as "Biddenden Cakes". Some historians dismissed the story as a folk myth, claiming that the image on the cakes had originally represented two poor women and that the story of the conjoined twins was invented to account for it. Despite doubts as to its authenticity, in the 19th century the legend became increasingly popular and the village of Biddenden was thronged with rowdy visitors every Easter. In 1907 the land supposedly bequeathed by the twins was sold. The income from the sale allowed the annual distribution of gifts to expand in scale, providing the widows and pensioners of Biddenden with cheese, bread and tea at Easter and with cash payments at Christmas. Biddenden cakes continue to be given to the poor of Biddenden each Easter Monday, and are sold as souvenirs to visitors. (more...)

UcuchaBot (talk) 23:01, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution survey

Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite

Hello Iridescent. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released.

Please click HERE to participate.
Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts.

You are receiving this invitation because you have had some activity in dispute resolution over the past year. For more information, please see the associated research page. Steven Zhang ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 23:21, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Probably not really appropriate to me. Although I was on Arbcom, that's very much the place to go when DR hasn't worked. Thus, my view is necessarily jaundiced as dispute resolution only ever came to my attention when it failed. – iridescent 12:44, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Troubles

One of the best things we ever did was get you on ArbCom; the insight alone was worth it, even if it became a burden for you. Anyway, your reference to the Troubles case jogged my memory on something. I will email you ... not sure if I have your current email. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:45, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Have temporarily reenabled the "email this user" button, which goes to the only account I still check.

I wouldn't wish Arbcom on anyone; through nobody's fault, what was meant to be a dispute-resolution body has degenerated into a lightning rod for all the most corrosive and dysfunctional aspects of Wikipedia. If you'll forgive a Moniesque bursting into showtunes, Those who are fools are swallowed up whole, and those who are not become what they should not become, changed – in short, they go bad sums it up pretty well; if one set out to design a mechanism for bringing out the worst in fundamentally decent people, one couldn't do much better than Wikipedia's laughably-named dispute resolution processes. Even if Wikipedia survives the next couple of years in its current form* I'll be very surprised if Arbcom survives with it; at the moment what credibility remains is driven by residual respect for Brad and Roger (even amongst those who disagree with them). Once they go, there's a very real chance it will become the Holy Roman Emperor of the internet, and sit there churning out judgments and proclamations which everyone else ignores. If I were Sue Gardner, I'd be seriously considering formally killing "consensus" and hiring a paid editorial board to take over both editorial policy and dispute resolution. – iridescent 17:14, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

*No longer a given; Qwiki has big money and big names behind it, and if they manage to develop an editing interface that doesn't suck, they could easily become the Facebook to Wikipedia's Myspace.

You've got my mail, from my new gmail Wiki address, but old friends are advised to respond on my old account, which I read more regularly :) I dunno there, good analysis, except that I'd also fire Sue Gardner :) :) Convince me otherwise. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:19, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

May Metro

Issue 41: May 2012

Previous edition · Next edition

London Transport News

May

Emergency gas works cause temporary diversion of route 50
From Tuesday 8 May some long term, but temporary, changes will be made to local traffic arrangements in the North Woolwich area to enable Crossrail works to take place, some lasting 18 months

April

TfL's High Court injunction prevents Addison Lee from instructing its drivers to use bus lanes
Shortlisted bidders for the Bank Station Capacity Upgrade project announced
Londoners urged to plan ahead for Games-time travel as full and final Tube and rail 'hotspot' data released
Private hire vehicle drivers could be liable to personal criminal prosecution if they break traffic regulations, including by driving in bus lanes
New strengthening cables installed within Hammersmith Flyover
New entrance to West Croydon station provides better access for all
All the world's poets on the Tube
Major resurfacing works to take place along Victoria Embankment across Easter Bank Holiday weekend
Temporary changes to bus services during London 2012 Games test event in Woolwich.
Capital's rogue limousines targeted
Out-of-hours deliveries to be encouraged during London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games
MUMS-to-be travelling by Tube can get a baby on board badge so passengers know they may need to sit down

Project News

Articles

1910 London to Manchester air race, appeared as Today's Featured Article on the Main Page on 9th March
Baker Street and Waterloo Railway appeared as Today's Featured Article on the Main Page on 10th March, the 106th anniversary of the line's opening
List of London Underground stations appeared as Today's Featured List on the Main Page on 30th April
British Airways underwent a successful Good Article Reassessment
Metropolitan Railway has been promoted to Good Article
The Good Article History of British Airways was added to the project
Herne Hill railway station and Bow Back Rivers have been promoted to Good Articles, Herne Hill has subsequently been nominated as a Featured Article Candidate

Project discussions

Within the project, discussions included how two project articles appeared on TFA in quick succession, a RfC on inclusion of particular viewpoint on future lengthening of certain trainsets on British Rail Class 458 and assessment of London Underground's electric locomotives
Within other related projects, a relevant discussion included was on canal bridges and speeds of trains and rail routes

Requests

If you want to post a request for help with an article, finding a photograph or seeking reference material, contact the editor

Things to do

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Cleanup : Lists of articles needing cleanup
Expand : These top 10 favourite articles to Good Article: J. P. Morgan · Heathrow Airport · River Thames · London Bridge · London Underground · London Bridge (Lake Havasu City) · Gatwick Airport · London Congestion Charge · Tube map · Tower Bridge These top importance articles to Good Article: 7 July 2005 London bombings · Buses in London · Crossrail · London Passenger Transport Board · London Transport (brand) · London Transport Museum · Transport for London · Transport in London
Photo : Upload your non-copyrighted London transportation images to Wikimedia Commons
Stubs : Improve a stub article
Update : London low emission zone, London congestion charge
Other :
- Suggest: A Did You Know...? fact here or an Anniversary fact here.
- Patrol: Recent changes
- Join: Become a member of WikiProject London Transport or encourage others

Membership

Number of participants is 82.
Recent Activity of Project participants

Editorial

Editor: Simply south
Special thanks to DavidCane for the new, simpler, fresher look
We hope you like the new fresher look, styled to coordinate with the Portal page
All suggestions for improvements to the newsletter are welcome at feedback page or Simply south

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