User talk:Mschiffler

DYK for Gibe III dam

On October 27, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Gibe III dam, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) 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.

Wikiproject: Did you know? 02:14, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Non-revenue water

Thanks for improving this so promptly—if only all subject-matter experts were as responsive as you, Wikipedia would be in far better shape. - Pointillist (talk) 18:10, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I added a few more references. However, there are still a few statements for which I cannot find a specific reference, but that are based on my own experience and that of colleagues. I am not sure if the tag should stay or go and leave it to you to make that decision.--Mschiffler (talk) 18:14, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Water resources management in Syria for DYK?

Hello, Mschiffler. Once again, thank you for your wikicontribution. I've nominated Water resources management in Syria. A DYK clerk wants more footnotes and citations. If you're interested in seeing this article of yours featured on MainPage as an DYK, please put in more footnotes. Please leave a note here when you're done adding the references. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 04:40, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Water resources management in Syria

On November 12, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Water resources management in Syria, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) 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) 11:15, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar for Non-revenue water citations

		The Citation Barnstar
		Thank you for all your hard work placing inline citations in Non-revenue water. Pointillist (talk) 20:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

BTW, if you can find appropriate images, this article might satisfy the Good article criteria. Would you like to go for that? - Pointillist (talk) 20:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Unfortunately I do not have pictures for which I have the copyright, but I know of pictures of pipe repairs and can encourage the copyright holder to post them. It would also be nice to have pictures of burst pipes overflowing in streets, although such leakage typically accounts for only a small fraction of leaks. Of course one could add pictures of fire hydrants, whose consumption is usually not paid for or metered, or of water meters. I will think about it. Concerning good article reviews, my experience is mixed. Depending on the reviewer, the process is more or less productive. I am happy to work on substance, but not to keen to spend much time on ironing out small details, such as the style of references. However, if others would help I may go for it.--Mschiffler (talk) 21:28, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Berg River Dam

On December 19, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Berg River Dam, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your 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) 03:42, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Berg River Dam

I've just assessed the article for WP:SAFRICA, and was very impressed with it. You should maybe consider getting a quick copy-edit done on it, and then try putting it through the GA process. Good luck! Ron2K (talk) 19:37, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

Hello Mschiffler! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 2 of the articles that you created are tagged as Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. If you were to bring these articles up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current 311 article backlog. Once the articles are adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the list:

1. Nils Brunsson - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
2. Robert A. Baruch Bush - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 21:41, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I created these articles more than a year ago as stubs and have not been watching them. Since then they have been substantially expanded. From my point of view these two articles require not only the adding of sources, but also substantial editing which may become controversial. While I cannot do this work now, I would certainly support if someone else brought the articles up to the standards you mention above.--Mschiffler (talk) 19:33, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Dams in Burma

Saw this popping at DYK, and thought you might be interested. Circéus (talk) 00:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. This looks indeed interesting.--Mschiffler (talk) 21:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Water Supply / Sanitation in India

Hi there,

Sorry if I removed a few references from the article (I thought I re-added them). I was just trying to combat the POV claims that the user Lalit Jagannath has introduced in a lot of India-related articles (i.e. dumping a whole lot of negative information that has no flow in the lede of the article.) Ofcourse, this doesn't actually help the article and instead of making it easier to read makes it harder to read. In addition, since most of it is poorly written it usually needs extensive re-write.

Anyways, happy editing! Vedant (talk) 22:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Vedant, thank you for your edits. However, I did not see any POV claims and no edits by a user called Lalit Jagannath in this article, so I do not see why something that is not there needs to be "combated". While I agree that the lead of the article should be balanced and have a good flow, one should be careful not to overshoot and remove negative information from the lead or to replace it with unreferenced positive information. For example, the information on open defecation that was in an earlier version of the lead section is well referenced and undisputed. However, the information that investment levels in water and sanitation in India are "relatively high" (relative to what?) is not referenced and is, in my view, difficult to substantiate if one compares them with other developing countries on a per capita basis, and probably also as a share of GDP. Only if one compares planned investment levels with past investment levels, that statement would be correct. I suggest that you rephrase that sentence.--Mschiffler (talk) 12:06, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Mschiffler, I've taken a look at the article and your edits and for the most part we are in agreement. I understand that the lede should be balanced and should present a fair assessment of the situation but it seemed like the introduction was just clumping a lot of negative information into the first 4 sentences of the article. I have no objection to the issues of open defecation and sanitation being discussed but I just addressed them in their respective sections. I do agree however that India's investment in this sector seems to be insufficient and low by international standards and that this should be mentioned in the lede as it is a significant bit of information. At the same time however, I think it should be pointed out the significant improvements made in the field (in 1980, rural sanitation coverage was 1%, 4% by 1988 and 22% in 2001). This link by the Indian Planning Commission provides some information on the current situation with regards to water supply and sanitation as well as strategies being taken to improve conditions.Vedant (talk) 06:22, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Vedant. I agree that there was a lot of negative information in the lead section (not from me, by the way). Please go ahead and make further changes as you see fit.--Mschiffler (talk) 12:52, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I found another source that gives a more up to date assessment of the situation but I'm still trying to figure out where it can be integrated into the article. Nevertheless, the source is here.Vedant (talk) 16:39, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I looked at this article and found some new information, although not much. For example, I did not know about the National Rural Drinking Water Programme. I googled it and found the following description of its functions:http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/content/national-rural-drinking-water-programme-movement-towards-ensuring-people%E2%80%99s-drinking-water-se. A summary of this description could go into the section "policy and regulation". Another new (for me) piece of information is about the low share of house connections in rural areas. The article says that the figures in the report by the parliamentary committee are disputed. In such a situation, it is good to go to the primary sources, which the article does not name. A good source for water and sanitation coverage estimates it the Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation by WHO and UNICEF, which - by the way - is the source for the access figures you quote from the WHO Core Health Statistics. The JMP in turn relies on national representative surveys and censuses carried out by national statistical agencies. In the case of India, the latest figures and their sources can be found here. Since the last census in India was apparently carried out in 2001, the more recent data are from (less comprehensive) 2006 demographic and health survey and the 2008 district level health survey. If access figures for rural areas and for different service levels (house connections etc.) should be introduced in the article, I would quote them from there instead from the article on livemint.com. Finally, the article quotes someone as saying "The Union government in the past few years had tried to do lots of innovative things around drinking water to reform the sector." While the article is not specific on this, I believe that the section on innovative approaches in the Wikipedia article provides some specific information on demand-driven approaches in rural water supply instead of traditional supply-driven approaches. So there may not be too much to add there. I may have missed one or two other things that could be of interest. My suggestion would be to start by including information about the functions of the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (irrespective of mudslinging about its performance, which may well be politically motivated) and about rural coverage figures for house connections. One last word:How about if we move this discussion from my talk page to the talk page of the article where it probably fits better?--Mschiffler (talk) 19:31, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in my response. Sure, we can move it to the article's talk page so that more users can engage in collaboration. I'll do some work on integrated the sources you mentioned above into the article. I think that the two most important things to include are the progress and functions of the NRDWP and also the approaches being taken to improve rural water/sanitation coverage in India as they are the biggest areas of concern in the country. Vedant (talk) 02:48, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Admiration

Dear M.Schiffler, here I have expressed my admiration for the article Water resources management in modern Egypt created by you and added a note. Yours, R.J.Oosterbaan (talk) 19:11, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

		The Original Barnstar
		Just seen your recent entry on Dams and hydropower in Ethiopia. All your well documented and concisely written contributions on water resources management policies in various countries are highly appreciated. R.J.Oosterbaan (talk) 18:32, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Water supply and sanitation in Kenya

Materialscientist (talk) 16:03, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Update - NT2 now operational

Thanks for note on the last corrections to the NT2 page. I just noticed - I do remember struggling with the references - thanks for cleaning up. I have again made changes based on the fact that the project is now operational. Let m eknow if any questions arise. One thing is I would advise changing the title to Nam Theun 2 instead of Roman numerals for the number - arabic numbers are used almost exclusively on the Lao dam projects in country. Aidenglen (talk) 06:32, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Water supply and sanitation in Abu Dhabi

— Rlevse • Talk • 06:02, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Update For China's Water Coverage and Sanitary Coverage

Hello, since you are a member of Wiki Project of Water and Sanitary Coverage, I would like to ask you about source, is other source-non-UN source-for water information allowed to post here? I have updated some of them. Thanks! Calvin Lourdes He ^discussion 14:14, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Dear Calvin, thank you for the updates and thanks for your question. There is certainly no restriction in the project to use only UN sources for access figures. The IRC article that you quote is based on figures by the Chinese Ministry of Health. UN figures for access to water supply and sanitation, which are compiled by the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP), are also based on national figures. The latest JMP estimates are not included in the Wikipedia article yet, but can be found in the China reports in the following list:http://www.wssinfo.org/resources/documents.html?type=country_files If there are differences between JMP and national figures it is typically due to differences in the definition of access and/or due to the fact that the JMP relies on multiple sources from different years and then extrapolates a trend line to one specific year to make data comparable across countries (national surveys are not conducted every year in every country). For these reasons I prefer JMP figures over national figures, but there is no obligation to use them. In some cases JMP figures are not up to date and especially in these cases it is quite useful to rely directly on national data that have not been adjusted to allow international comparability. Sorry that this has been a bit long and I hope that, despite some technicalities, I have been able to explain the issue clearly.--Mschiffler (talk) 20:12, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thank you for your vivid information. Calvin Lourdes He ^discussion 03:31, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Upper Harz Water Regale

I enjoyed translating it and hope to visit it soon! Good news about its World Heritage status. Gruß. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:54, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Water supply and sanitation in Burkina Faso

— Rlevse • Talk • 06:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia DC Meetup, October 23

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Autopatrolled

Hello, this is just to let you know that I have granted you the "autopatrolled" permission. This won't affect your editing, it just automatically marks any page you create as patrolled, benefiting new page patrollers. Please remember:

• This permission does not give you any special status or authority
• Submission of inappropriate material may lead to its removal
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• If, for any reason, you decide you do not want the permission, let me know and I can remove it

If you have any questions about the permission, don't hesitate to ask. Otherwise, happy editing! Acalamari 21:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Water supply in Afghanistan

I've nominated this article for DYK; nice work! Nyttend (talk) 05:03, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Nam Theun 2

Thanks for the feedback. I tried updating a few pages yesterday and, with my connection regularly timing out, made several messes. However, I think the page you questioned is accurate:

• Electricité de France International (EDFI) of France (40%), a wholly owned subsidiary of the state-owned French power company Electricité de France (EDF);
• Electricity Generating Public Company (EGCO) of Thailand (35%), a leading owner and operator of independent power plants in Thailand that itself is owned by the state-owned Thai power company EGAT (25.4%) and the Hong Kong-based privately owned international CLP Group (22.4%);
• Government of Laos (25%), represented by Lao Holding State Enterprise (LHSE).[1]

40 + 35 + 25 = 100% The change in shareholding can be referenced at Bangkok Post and International Water-Power Magazine A previous poster has included the shareholding for Egco here and you may be including those figures. You may also have noticed I tried to update the name of the NT2 project, which is found in various forms. The name used by the owner is now the Nam Theun 2 Multi-Purpose Project. (NTPC. Please let me know if any other concerns or queries.Aidenglen (talk) 10:02, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal: Case update

Dear Mschiffler: Hi there! I'd like to let you know that in a Mediation Cabal mediation case that you are involved in, or have some connection with:

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2011-03-22/Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

I've made the following changes:

Unfortunately, no response has yet been received from the anon user (who is not Ncip (talk · contribs)) indicating acceptance of mediation. I'll leave the case open for a little while longer but, if no response is received, mediation regretfully cannot continue. Is the dispute still ongoing? Please indicate what the current status is on the mediation page.

Please have a look at the mediation case page linked to above, and participate in the current stage of the mediation process if you wish. Of course, participation is completely optional, and if you don't want to take part in this mediation at any point, that's totally fine. If you have any questions or concerns relating to this dispute, the mediation, or the Mediation Cabal in general, please do let me know. Thank you very much. Best regards, NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 17:00, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Millennium Dam

Did you know this one is in the Ethiopian works? I saw the project has been in the news recently but didn't know it was in the pipeline. I am going to update it more and try to nominate it at DYK if you want to help.--NortyNort (Holla) 11:23, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to my attention and for creating the article. I had not heard about it before. It seems that it is one of the dams included in EEPCo's 25-year Master Plan, such as Mandaya. I saw that the Egyptians already raised concerns. It would be interesting to know what is the cost estimate for the project and what is the surface area of the reservoir, in order to estimate evaporative losses. There is also no information available so far on the impact on downwstream communities in Ethiopia and S--Mschiffler (talk) 08:33, 15 July 2011 (UTC)udan. I will wait to see if more information becomes available and would then be happy to contribute.--Mschiffler (talk) 12:35, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, well I was able to squeeze enough in to get the article into DYK standards. One source stated that the project was made public on 30 March, a day before the bidding. I don't even think the environmentalists had time to publish much on this one. The Ethiopian government is assuring everyone that they will pay for it ($4.8 billion) and that evaporation will be low - because the dam itself is being built in a steep canyon. I personally question such optimism on the reservoir's surface area, especially with the need for such a large saddle dam and its overall volume.--NortyNort (Holla) 21:34, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Interesting observation on the credibility of the government's statement concerning the small reservoir area. By the way, I do not think that there was any bidding for this dam, which would have required a public advertisement of the dam long before awarding the contract. It seems to me that the contract was awarded on a sole-source basis without bidding (and thus without publicity), just as the other dam building contracts that were awarded over the past years by the Ethiopian government. It would also have been interesting to know if there has at least been an attempt to do some sort of environmental and social impact assessment or if the government has now given up the semblance of caring about these impacts. I am sure we will hear more about this dam over the next months and years.--Mschiffler (talk) 22:49, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, apparently, there was a "study conducted on the project by foreign consultants" I don't think there was bidding as well. The reservoir is supposed to have a volume around 63 billion m3 which is enormous for even a 145m tall dam. I can't imagine evaporation not being a factor. I am interested to see reports on this in the coming months.--NortyNort (Holla) 03:44, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Hey, great expansion, it flows well and explains the subject nicely. I have one question though, do you have references for most of it? Aside from verifiability, it was approved at DYK a few days ago and there is a good chance it will get flagged before reaching the main page w/ uncited paragraphs.--NortyNort (Holla) 07:58, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Good point. I will add a few footnotes, some of which are in other Wikipedia articles to which I have linked from this article, such as the one on the Nile Basin Initiative.--Mschiffler (talk) 13:34, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I was reading an interesting blog about the dam today with some good points. There is also a map of the future reservoir in it. It looks like a self-published map but the location seems plausible. The location on the map is about 10 km from the border at 11°13′03″N 35°04′38″E. The topography in the area supports the location and placing dams close to borders is optimal -- catch as much water before it crosses into the next state. I was going to put these coordinates as the location in the article but wanted to see what you thought.--NortyNort (Holla) 02:27, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for drawing my attention to this blog, which is indeed interesting. The location of the dam looks plausible to me too. But the source of the information remains unclear. Also, I believe that the area of the reservoir, once full, may be larger than shown on the map. As tempting as it may be to include the map in the article, I would not include it at this point. But perhaps you could contact the author of the blog and inquire about the sources he used to compile the map?

Oh, I didn't want to use the map, but just as a supplement source for the coordinates. We know the relative distance and it seems like a good location.--NortyNort (Holla) 13:37, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Millennium Dam

The DYK project (nominate) 12:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Manantali Dam

Hi, just a quick note to let you know that, by an incredible coincidence, we're working on the same dam today :) I hope you don't mind, but I'll borrow a couple of your references for the French article. If you feel like it, feel free to edit there too. Cheers. Bouchecl (talk) 01:34, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, what a coincidence! Feel free to borrow as much as you like. I do not plan to contribute to the French article right now, but I'd be happy to go over it when you are done and perhaps make some further contributions then. The French article also has a good map from the Senegal river basin that will fit nicely in the English article.--Mschiffler (talk) 09:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do as far as the map goes. The map is in SVG format and should be translatable. I'll keep you posted. Bouchecl (talk) 12:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I read the changes that you made to the French article and they really look good. I will use some of what you researched about the history of the dam for the English article. On the social and environmental impact, I may add a bit more to the English article so that it can then be translated for the French article. On the agricultural benefits, the French article so far has nothing on agriculture in Senegal and Mauritania. I already added the map to the English article without translation, since the names of rivers and towns are (almost) the same in English anyway. I may not have much time during the next few days to work on either article, and after that I plan to focus on the English article with perhaps a few small contributions to the French article. Happy editing!--Mschiffler (talk) 20:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Off to dinner. I plan to start again tomorrow morning. Thanks for everything. Bouchecl (talk) 21:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Adding to the Water Source article

Sir, I would appreciate feedback on my work in progress expansion of the water source page, located on my user sandbox page [User:Bryancraven/sandbox] After our discussion I also concluded the gender issues relating to water in developing countries were more appropriate under a general discussion of water sourcing. Bryancraven (talk) 18:36, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Without attempting at being exhaustive, here are a few thoughts based on a glance at the draft in your sandbox:

• The draft looks good with useful information, adequate sources and readable style. Keep up the good work.
• The examples refer mainly to legal texts and strategy documents. However, in developing countries these texts are often not being implemented. In my view, the article would gain by expanding more on empirical evidence and examples which you already have in your draft. In my view, a key issue is that water projects can be significantly improved by involving women. This could be expanded. Is it equally true for urban projects, or only for rural projects? If it is true about planning, how about operation and maintenance? For example, are rural water projects more sustainable if women have a higher representation in water user asociations? Specific empirical evidence concerning these questions could significantly strengthen the draft.
• "In most countries women are the primary stakeholders in the sectors of water and sanitation". Is this really true? Governments, utilities, consulting firms, contractors, donor agencies and civil society are all key stakeholders in the sector and they are usually dominated by men.
• You mention several times sanitation, but you actually do not write about sanitation. This commonly happens, so you are not alone in making this amalgamation. Sanitation is a topic in its own right and should not be subsumed under water supply, unless the specific issues related to sanitation are addressed. I would limit the article to water supply.
• Please avoid jargon such as "gendered involvement in planning", but rather explain what you want to say in other words, such as "participation of women in planning".
• You quote the Second World Water Forum, but you do not quote the Dublin Statement, which is a basic statement concerning water in developing countries. One of its four principles states "Women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water". While this was never really a statement of a fact at all levels of water management, it is an important acknowledgment of the important role that women can and should play in the water sector and probably deserves a place in your article.
• The draft is probably already too long to become a section of the article water supply to which the article water source redirects. I suggest that you continue writing and expanding in the sandbox. Then you could write a lead section - a brief summary - that would go into the article water supply and create a self-standing, longer article on "Gender and water supply".
• You can improve the hyperlinks in the references by placing the title of the work that you quote between brackets, such as in "Gender-Disaggregated Data on Water and Sanitation".

I hope that this helps.--Mschiffler (talk) 23:06, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the review. I will act on those points as I revise the article. I appreciate your perspective on this. I may create the page and post the link sooner than later as I am attempting to complete this for a class assignment. However I will attempt to address this feedback before doing so. Bryancraven (talk) 20:27, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with your assement regarding additional empirical data. As of this point, the institutional sources I have found have a lack of empirical data but merely anecdotal discussion to legitimize their points. I believe this is a consequence of the relatively recent development of the discussion of these issues on a wide scale. Oh and the "stakeholder" line, which was paraphrased from the source, Is meant in the sense that the women are the large stakeholders in the outcome, at a household level.

I will improve the wording to reduce ambiguity. I fixed the link formatting, thank you for that. I am going to include a bit about the Dublin Statement as well as fix the jargon and eliminate the general sanitation discussion. Bryancraven (talk) 22:29, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Leal Bio

Thank you for your excellent comments. They are very helpful. Drinkingwaterdoc (talk) 03:19, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Water Supply & Sanitation in Egypt

Dear Mschiffler, I'm very happy to inform you that I've finished the translation of your 2 articles concerning the Water issues in Egypt. I really appreciate your hard work to do this. Your Articles of Egypt which hold the names; "Water Supply & Sanitation in Egypt" & "Water Resources Management in modern Egypt" are under the community discussion to be Featured. We are revising & discussing your articles right now. We also found some little problems in determining the real names of the Egyptian companies mentioned in your English article & references like;

• the Alexandria Water General Authority (AWGA)
• the General Organization for Greater Cairo Water Supply (GOGCWS);
• the Suez Canal Authority (SCA);
• the General Organization for Potable Water (GOPW)
• the General Organization for Greater Cairo Sanitary Drainage (GOGCSD)
• the Alexandria General Organization for Sanitary Drainage (AGOSD)
• the General Organization for Sewerage and Sanitary Drainage (GOSSD).
• the Cairo and Alexandria Potable Water Organisation (CAPWO)
• The National Organisation for Potable Water and Sanitary Drainage (NOPWASD)
• The Holding Company for Water and Wastewater (HCWW) companies include:
• The General Organization for Greater Cairo Water Supply (GOGCWS)
• The Cairo General Organization for Sewerage and Drainage (CGOSD)
• The Alexandria Water Company, AWCO
• The Alexandria Sewer and Drainage Company (ASDCO)

1. As you know, there are too many companies in Egypt which hold similar names. We appreciate if you find the real Arabic names for those company.

By the way, I've changed the Arabic title of the article as you requested. Regards, Kamal Osama Elgazzar (talk) 10:30, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Dear Kamal, Thank you so much for translating the two articles into Arabic. This is very much appreciated. Concerning the Arabic names of the various institutions mentioned in the article, I can only tell you two names of two of them:

• هيئة قناة السويس Suez Canal Authority
• الشركة القابضة لمياه الشرب والصرف الصحي Holding Company for Water and Wastewater

Some of the other institutions do not exist any more, and not all of those that still exist do have a website that would allow to check the names. Thank you also for submitting them as possible featured articles. I am curious to know the outcome of the community discussion and I hope the discussion will contribute to further improve them.--Mschiffler (talk) 18:35, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Water wells Request

Dear Mschiffler, Thanks for your reply. I've just noticed that you replied here & not on my talk page. As regard the names of such companies & associations. I've solved the problem & dealt with them. Now, I've got some voices for featuring the 2 articles. I hope I'm done soon! I would like to ask you if you have any concern with water wells. For some countries like Egypt, We are asking for solutions because our aquifers now become salined & the sea water intrusions have influenced too many! Hope that you help me writing on this subject or finding solutions! --Kamal Osama Elgazzar (talk) 14:47, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback deployment

Hey Mschiffler; I'm dropping you this note because you've used the article feedback tool in the last month or so. On Thursday and Friday the tool will be down for a major deployment; it should be up by Saturday, failing anything going wrong, and by Monday if something does :). Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:27, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

You are invited to the "All Things GW" editathon on Saturday, April 20

The "All Things GW" editathon on Saturday, April 20, 2013 from 12:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. is a rare chance to go behind the scenes in the University Archives of the GW Libraries and use their unique resources to research and update Wikipedia pages related to The George Washington University and the Foggy Bottom neighborhood. Did you miss our last D.C. history editathon? This is your is your chance to come edit with wiki-friends using different great collection! The event includes a behind-the-scenes tour of the University Archives and a show-and-tell of some of its most interesting treasures, snacks, and the editathon.

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Talk in Water supply and sanitation in Turkey

Hey there, looks like you were adding in commentary to the Water supply and sanitation in Turkey with this edit. There is no need to note the last major change to the article, nor notify the reader that they are free to update it. If you wanted to notify the reader that the information is out of date, and that it needs to be updated, you should use the update template with the syntax {{update|date=July 2013}}. Cheers — MusikAnimal ^talk 15:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I've noticed you've added such commentary to a number of articles. This makes me feel like you may have read this as being some sort of standard... which I find hard to believe. First off, this is not a "template". Temples are transcluded or substituted, see Help:Template. Do you have a reference to a WP essay on this behaviour? To me it seems very redundant. Thanks — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:08, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi MusikAnimal. Thank you for stating your opinion on the subject of the hatnotes in this and other articles, although I would have appreciated if you had first raised the issue before removing the hatnote. Please let me explain the purpose of the hatnotes and why this purpose is unfortunately not served by the alternative that you suggest. In my experience, readers of the type of articles that I have co-authored - so called water sector profiles - are very interested in knowing when the articles were written. The term "out of date" is subjective and thus not very helpful - does it mean that the information in the article is six months old or six years old? The reader is left wondering. Most readers do not look at the talk page or at the page history, and even if they did the common question "In what year the article was last substantially updated" cannot be answered. Also it helps me and other editors to quickly identify those among the more than 50 sector profiles that are in need of updating. Granted, this last purpose could also be served by placing the hatnote on the talk page, but this would not fulfill the purpose mentioned above. I hope that this helps you to understand why these hatnotes are actually not redundant, although it may appear so at first sight.--Mschiffler (talk) 18:04, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Gotcha, well first off I apologize for not inquiring about this before making the good faith revert. You can see that refrained from doing so in the other articles. This practice you are using is clearly not wrong, but I feel it may conflict with some of our conventions. We want to keep articles consistent, as outlined in the manual of style, and I don't see this type of notice in other articles. While I can see why it could be useful, it first off is not proper use of a hatenote, which should be used to help locate other articles the reader may be seeking (see WP:HAT). The real problem I see, however, is it would take persistent and tedious monitoring to update this notice when there is another major revision. It certainly cannot be assumed the editor will do this. That sounds more like a feature request, where such information can be automated, as opposed to some sort of robotic editing. In addition, I feel noting that the user is free to update it is implied, as is the nature of Wikipedia itself. The update template I mentioned (which should be timestamped) would be used only to tag sections or articles that are outdated, meaning the information may not be as relevant anymore, and could possibly threaten its credibility. I thought maybe this is what you were going after. I hope you understand I am not here dismiss your viewpoint and hope we can find a consensus peacefully. Also sorry for the overuse of links to essays... =P — MusikAnimal ^talk 19:18, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your constructive reply. I can also see where you are coming from. You are right that other articles do not have this type of notice. You are also right that the guideline WP:HAT does not include my intended purpose in its definition of the purpose of hatnotes. Of course, guidelines allow for exceptions and for me the question is if an exception is warranted in this case. I should perhaps also clarify that I am the main editor of almost all articles on which I placed the hatnotes, that I keep all these articles on my watchlist, that I check my watchlist regularly and that I update all hatnotes I have placed on articles regularly. This work cannot be further automated, because it requires judgement by someone familiar with Wikipedia and with the subject matter. In any case, an automation is not necessary, at least as long as I am on Wikipedia, which I have been for six years and plan to do in the future. I agree with you that the part telling the readers that they are welcome to edit the article may be redundant, although I have met many people who are not aware that anyone can edit articles on Wikipedia. I do not want to dismiss your viewpoint and would be interested to hear your thoughts.--Mschiffler (talk) 17:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello again. I was merely patrolling recent changes as I do, saw your notice, and to me it just felt weird, unconventional and ambiguous; It initially sounded like commentary, which should be reserved for talk pages (talk in article is a common good faith revert). While I still feel this notice you are using is not good practice, I can't say it's inherently wrong. It's not like they are widespread, but as you said, limited to a handful of articles that you regularly patrol. At any rate, you have a long history here on Wikipedia, are clearly very valuable as a contributor, and I certainly don't want to question that. For this reason, I'll back out and leave it up to you. Perhaps ask other editors if you are still unsure. I appreciate your cooperation and good discourse on this matter, and want to make sure you know that I meant no harm to begin with. WP:HATs off to ya for your hard work =P Cheers — MusikAnimal ^talk 00:02, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, MusikAnimal, for your understanding and for your good discourse. I will now reinstate the hatnote to the Turkey article to make it consistent with the hatnotes for the other water sector profiles. I will leave out the remark that users are free to update articles and will gradually take out that remark from the other hatnotes for sector profiles as well. If other users should raise the same concern about a hatnote in one of the other articles I believe that this discussion will be a good point of reference.--Mschiffler (talk) 07:24, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

July 2013

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "()"s. If you have, don't worry, just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• sid=68410|accessdate=7 June 2013|newspaper=Egyptian State Information Service|date=2 June 2013}} (link was dead and story could not be found on the ESIS website on July, 2, 2013, but a quote can be

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 21:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I just fixed it.--Mschiffler (talk) 22:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Water supply and sanitation in India

The edit you just made here[1], i would like to tell you, that i removed only those texts that are pushing POV, for example, the starting text which said that "no major city in India is known to have a continuous water supply", and it's given source[2] including no such information at all, after that someone wrote *72% which is actually the amount of the population that lives in villages, means just different topic, and it wasn't sourced anyway. Then after that, a source that said "700,000 dies from diarrhea" that's the worldwide estimate, the source didn't worked either, so removed. The rest were just opinion of the editors around, nothing serious or legible. Bladesmulti (talk) 17:09, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

My response is on the Talk Page of Bladesmulti.--Mschiffler (talk) 21:31, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

That was week ago, i am not involved in any edit war. Well, the sources you provided are correct, but they are really old now. If you see sources like[3],[4], so mentioning that no cities in India have continuous water supply would be misleading. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:03, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Just checked your edits, and yes, it's fine now :) Bladesmulti (talk) 04:29, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Jordan Valley Authority

Hi Mschiffler,

I just created the page Jordan Valley Authority with some small snippets of information, and I saw that the page was mentioned on Water supply and sanitation in Jordan, which you regularly seem to be working on. I have no understanding of water firms, suppy, sanitation etcetera. But I thought the Jordan Valley Authority might interest you, as from what I've read it seems important for the Jordan Valley and the water supply in Jordan in general. And you seem to an expert on the topic. Crispulop (talk) 22:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for creating the new page and letting me know about it. JVA is an important institution and deserves its own page, although I am not sure I am going to expand it or not. The page Water supply and sanitation in Jordan is focused on drinking water supply and sanitation, while JVA was created primarily to develop irrigation and is today exclusively focused on irrigation. Geographically its scope has always been limited to the Jordan Valley. It thus has never been responsible for urban water supply all over Jordan. You may want to check if the source you quote, the book by Haddadin, really says that. On a different note, there usually is a distinction between three water-related topics: Water resources management, drinking water supply and sanitation, and irrigation. Ideally there would be an article on each topic for each country, and for other countries - such as Mexico - there are articles on each topic on Wikipedia. An article "Irrigation in Jordan" would provide useful context for the JVA article.--Mschiffler (talk) 09:56, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the swift response and suggestions. I will try to improve the article on JVA in the coming weeks. The current sources, both by Haddadin, I only found while searching for information on Omar Abdallah Dakhqan, a former president of the JVA. So I am sure I'm able to find better content on the JVA itself. Thank you for telling me about the three different water-related topics, I will keep that in mind. Crispulop (talk) 08:43, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

the Persian Gulf

Hi, Mschiffler. Referring to one of your edits regarding the name of the Persian Gulf, you changed it to "gulf" in the hope of peace between Persians and Arabs on this page! I have corrected it back to the correct name, for a number of reasons. Firstly, every geographic feature on this planet has a name. You cannot just refer to "mountain" hoping that people will guess which one you're talking about! Just imagine similar situations, with the news of a ship sinking in "the sea", leaving everyone scratching their heads wondering which sea. Are the Saudis piping water all the way from the Gulf of Mexico? Who's to know, if you're not specific? Secondly, the UN has been clear and explicit in the fact that using the term "the Gulf" is incorrect (probably for the reason mentioned earlier). And thirdly, if the Americans woke up one day and decided to rename the Gulf of Mexico to, say, the "gulf of Mississippi" or something like that just for the heck of it, would you, Mscchiffler, then go ahead and change all Wikipedia pages to read "the Gulf"? I could go on, but I think I've probably bored you enough :) Let me know if there's any point in the above that you do not agree with. Yours, Kamran the Great (talk) 21:25, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

First, I appreciate that you discuss this here instead of simply changing the article. You are right that the Persian Gulf is the name used commonly used in the English language for the Gulf we are talking about. However, in the context of an article on Saudi Arabia, in my view, there is no doubt which Gulf is meant. This is why my humble suggestion is to use the term "the Gulf" in this article without any intention - nor hope - to resolve this naming debate in general.--Mschiffler (talk) 21:32, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Mschiffler ... thanks for your response. I don't see you disagreeing with anything I said :). So I guess we are in agreement with the United Nations that "the Gulf" is not a correct term to use. And may I also add that the Persian gulf is not the name "commonly used"; it is, simply, the correct and only name to be used. So, in more informal terms : "we're good?" :-) Kamran the Great (talk) 02:01, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

In the meantime, the page has been reverted back and forth again by Bassamji and yourself. You are thus engaged in an edit war. An edit war can go on for a long time. Such behavior, although common, never resolves the underlying dispute. However, there are a number of dispute resolution mechanisms on Wikipedia that you and Bassamji may want to consider. As a first step, I suggest that you invite Bassamji to read our discussion on the talk page and to contribute to the discussion. How does that sound?--Mschiffler (talk) 19:41, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good ... I did try communicating with Bassamjj, but couldn't get anything on his/her talk page. something about a block of some sort? Any suggestions how I can make communication. In case you haven't guessed already, I'm not an experienced Wikipedian !! Thanks, Kamran the Great (talk) 20:10, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

The talk page of Bassamjj is empty. I will ask him on his talk page to join the discussion on this page. He may actually know less about Wikipedia than you do. If you need help, I will be there for both of you.--Mschiffler (talk) 22:11, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks and have a nice day! Kamran the Great (talk) 02:52, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Updated at Water supply and sanitation in India

Just clarifying, if you have doubt, just go through this link, and search about India, for year "2011", and tick mark on "total improved" both water and sanitation. And then also mark "units" + "absolute (x1000 people)" + "relative(% population)".. And see, the stats. Bladesmulti (talk) 11:51, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Egypt

Dear Mschiffler, I've translated 2 of your articles & featured them after adding & revising the info inside.(Water resources management in modern Egypt, Water supply and sanitation in Egypt)... Thank you so much for your great efforts. Keep it up.--Kamal Osama Elgazzar (talk) 18:36, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

You are welcome! And thank you very much for the translations. This is much appreciated.--Mschiffler (talk) 21:32, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of Condominial sewerage for deletion

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Historical Water Level Change in Lake Turkana

Hi Mschiffler, I had deleted text from the Gilgel Gibe III Dam article because the citation used to support it was broken, therefore making the text original research. When restoring the text you argued that the broken link didn't justify removing the content, but didn't provide a new link or source for the information, leaving it unsourced (or falsely sourced).

The text is also problematic from a content perspective: it appears in a section titled "impact on Lake Turkana," and in that context supports the assertion that the Dam's impact will be minimal, or somehow within the range of ordinary variation. Without a source this text is highly inappropriate, and even with a source, I would question the value of demonstrating high lake levels in the past, when the Dam will obviously lower, not raise Lake Turkana's water levels. -Darouet (talk) 21:09, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

I've removed the text and replaced it with text found on the website that was supposed to be linked, while trying to fix the reference. Let me know if you're able to access the links? -Darouet (talk) 21:22, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

The content is sourced. Please look at the graph at this link under Section D1. I believe you should first have made an effort to find the original source before removing the text. Your allegation that content was added without a source is simply wrong. I also doubt your interpretation that the text "supports the assertion that the Dam's impact will be minimal". Changes of this magnitude are likely to have had large environmental impacts. The relevant question to me is if information on the historic lake level fluctuations is relevant in a section that discusses the impact of current and future changes in the level of the lake. My answer is yes, although I would prefer to have more information on the environmental impact of historical flucutations to avoid that others may interpret the facts the way you have. But, in my view, this lack of information about historical environmental impacts does not justify the removal of the text.--Mschiffler (talk) 16:52, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

It wasn't sourced until I found and corrected the link. I did see the graph you described, but it isn't discussed by the source text. There is a voluminous scientific literature on Lake Turkana that you can access if you'd like to include more information on historical lake levels.

As to the relevance of historical lake level fluctuations, drops in lake level are especially significant since this is what will happen when Gibe III has been built. -Darouet (talk) 20:36, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

It was sourced. Apparently the URL changed over the last years after the content and the source were added to the article. This was perhaps part of a restructuring of the ILEC website. As you probably know, such restructurings of websites are common. The usual way to deal with a broken link in a source to a Wikipedia article is to mark it as broken, or (preferably) to find a new link to the same content. You are entirely free to add more detailed information from the scientific literature on the subject. But this is not a response to my argument why historic lake levels should be part of the article. If your suggestion to add even more content on historic lake levels is an implicit acknowledgment that historic lake levels provide useful context for present changes in lake levels, I suggest that you begin by restoring the basic content that you deleted.--Mschiffler (talk) 22:28, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not going to add a long rambling original research commentary purporting to describe the Dam's Impact on Lake Turkana, which is the section you added the text to, when the source has no information on that impact whatsoever. -Darouet (talk) 23:28, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Look, I've gone through your contributions to the article on the Dam and see that your contributions have been great. So I apologize for being a little combative: I was just annoyed that you re-added the content without even bothering to find the source. I understand that you were also upset that I removed the content without trying to find the link myself. It's true that the links for these websites often change.

Right now, the linked site doesn't describe anything related to the impact of the Dam on Lake Turkana, but it does show that in recent history, lake levels have been substantially higher. I'm certainly not opposed to having this information somewhere in the article. But the information shouldn't falsely suggest to readers that the Dam's construction will have minimum impact on the lake beyond normal historical fluctuations, because the source cited doesn't say anything of the kind. -Darouet (talk) 23:59, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Re: Adding translation from Hebrew in reference in the article on water supply and sanitation in Israel

I didn't have time, maybe I'll clean up the refs later today. Speaking of which, if you have time, please think about restructuring the entire article—it's quite a mess and very difficult to read. It's better if someone interested/knowledgeable in water supply does this. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 08:10, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

You are right, the article needs some work, but that will require much more time than adding a translation. :-) Hope you will find the time to do it.--Mschiffler (talk) 19:44, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Reference errors on 20 September

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Water friend

Is it possible to convey the message that unsourced copy and paste additions is not a good thing....in fact copy and pasting content all over without verifying the content (actually reading the sources) is simply not a good idea. -- Moxy (talk) 13:52, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I fully agree. What is it that you expect me to do? Should I contact the user who pasted the content? And did you convey the message directly to him/her?--Mschiffler (talk) 07:53, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

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A cup of coffee for you!

Your series on water supply and sanitation by country is awesome. You put a great effort into that WikiProject and the entire concept was a great idea. What a collection and what influence. I am doing a health project with India and the foundation you set with this article series is very helpful for me. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:41, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Glad you like it. And yes, it was a huge effort! I am pleased to read that the foundation is helpful for your health project in India. Is it a Wikipedia project, or a real-life project?--Mschiffler (talk) 20:56, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

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A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	excellent overview Pharling (talk) 07:24, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. Out of curiosity, since I have not done much lately on Wikipedia, but did a lot preiously, what is the Barnstar now exactly for? Mschiffler (talk) 11:52, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

August 2022

Your edit to Abu Salim prison has been removed in whole or in part, as it appears to have added copyrighted material to Wikipedia without evidence of permission from the copyright holder. If you are the copyright holder, please read Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials for more information on uploading your material to Wikipedia. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted material, including text or images from print publications or from other websites, without an appropriate and verifiable license. All such contributions will be deleted. You may use external websites or publications as a source of information, but not as a source of content, such as sentences or images—you must write using your own words. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously, and persistent violators of our copyright policy will be blocked from editing. See Wikipedia:Copying text from other sources for more information. — Diannaa (talk) 20:13, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

It is important to detect legal risks from copyright violations and I do appreciate your effort in identifying them, since some of them can have serious implications. The material you refer to are reports from Amnesty International and from a Libyan Human Rights organization. There is no legal risks that Wikipedia may be sued by these organizations. In that context, the wording above is, with all due respect to your concerns, inappropriate. I wish you had taken the time to phrase it differently. Nevertheless, I appreciate that you took the effort to paraphrase the content. Unfortunately, one important piece of information got lost in the process. I will now paraphrase it to take into account your concerns and I will be careful to paraphrase content in the future. Mschiffler (talk) 20:49, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Mschiffler and thanks for your response. I did take the time to paraphrase where I could, but with circa 53 reports that needed to be assessed today, even the 45 minutes I did spend on the article seemed like a lot. Sorry if I made some cuts too deeply and removed important points. I would like too to point out that we don't base copyright decisions as to what we think we can get away with, but have to go by what we are actually allowed to do under copyright law and the copyright policy of this website. I reviewed your talk page archives and based on what I found there, I made the decision to use the template {{uw-copyright}}, which is where the wording of my first message comes from. — Diannaa (talk) 22:25, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi Diannaa, I now re-read the copyright discussion from 2009 that you refer to. I had forgotten what Moonriddengirl wrote at the time about how strict US copyright law is and what that the WP policy says. I now understand why you chose to use the template. There was just one case where, in my view, you cut too deep into the substance. This is the promise by Senussi to accept the prisoners' demands, a promise that was broken the next day when the massacre occurred. I inserted the relevant information, paraphrasing it appropriately. Mschiffler (talk) 18:56, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to do that. — Diannaa (talk) 19:00, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

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Good article reassessment for Water supply and sanitation in Colombia

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