User talk:Quiddity/Archive 9

This is an archive of past discussions about User:Quiddity. 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 5

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Archive 7

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Main Page proposal

Transcluded discussion

Note. This is a transcluded, three-way conference call. And no, I don't know Kelvin Sampson! ;-)

Quiddity and jc37,

I'm just thinking out loud here. Are you all interested in trying to put together a serious Main Page redesign proposal that actually has a snowball's chance of getting implemented? My current proposals are deliberately out there in a concept car sort of way - just to look at some possibilities. Obviously, this proposal would have to be very conservative with just a tweak here and there, and not breaking any of David Levy's rules. It's just a thought. Let me know what you think. RichardF (talk) 15:26, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to help, but I'm very busy this week. Will try to keep an eye on anything and give any feedback I can. Will have more time a week Tuesday. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll be happy to help. The question is, where do we start? : )

For me, I think we should list the various components which would be deemed "wanted", and work from there, paring down, and figuring out layout.

But I'm open to most any kind of discussion format : ) - jc37 20:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The 2 tweaks I've liked so far, are the dates added to "In the news" (e.g.) and the brief intro paragraph (e.g.). -- Quiddity (talk) 19:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I really shouldn't do much on this until the weekend either ;-) I noticed some talk about getting consensus, but I doubt there really is any. The closest thing the redesign probably should pay close attention to is David Levy's post I linked above. I'll start a "RichardF3" we can tear up with a to-do list on the talk page. RichardF (talk) 00:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I was about to suggest the portals browse section should include all the sections on Portal:Contents/Types TOC, until I noticed that Carlaude singlehandedly refactored the classification system to eliminate "Philosophy and thinking," create "Religion and Philosophy" and put thinking under "People and self," at least sometimes. I'm tired of this kind of crap, so I'm not sure how much energy I'll put into this activity. So far we have two concrete suggestions from Quiddity. I think the new Types TOC diminishes the Contents pages, but I won't put any any energy into disputing it. You all decide what you want to do. RichardF (talk) 23:40, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted the user, asking them to discuss the edits, per WP:BRD.

That aside, to continue this discussion : )

Anyway, I still think we can come up with a list of "userful links", as a start.

The main page seems to best work when it has a concise introduction; a few links for navigating the encyclopedia; a few links for navigating the community; a few examples of exemplary material (WP:FC); showing the "usefulness" of the content (news, and DYK); and links to sister projects.

So from here, it's mostly a question of what the specific links (and FC) should be, and the "layout" of the page. - jc37 00:36, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the sentiment jc37, but check out all the changes Carlaude made. They affect the layout template and all the related sections on all the Contents subpages. It wasn't a simple change.

I added do's & don'ts on User talk:RichardF/Main Page3 for layout, content & palette. Do you want to add anything specific to that? RichardF (talk) 00:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, I had missed the other edits. I've reverted, and left a note on their talk page. I would welcome a suggestion as to an appropriate venue for further discussion regarding those changes.

And as for page3, I'm "mired" again, but I will look them over later. : ) - jc37 03:38, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Quiddity, The Transhumanist and I probably had the lion's share of the involvement in the current design. Most of the discussions are at Portal talk:Contents. The Transhumanist moved some related discussions to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Contents. As I already mentioned, I'm just not into another go-around with a Contents TOC redesign. Besides this latest editor, who appears to have a Christianity agenda, I don't know who is. RichardF (talk) 11:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, my proposal to use a complete twelve-item set of portal links is at this diff. RichardF (talk) 12:42, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Even in terms of "twelve portal links," I can debate with myself what "the twelfth link" should be. Eleven links would be the same, with one spot up for grabs. My personal preference, based on defunct WikiCharts usage reports I've seen, is what's listed above, Sports. The purist version of using the established Contents TOC would be Reference. Going with the current main page, it would be All portals. RichardF (talk) 14:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, here are some stats from http://stats.grok.se for May/June (#X is overall page rank in Feb, if in top 1,000).

Reference: 2,879
Arts: 143,700 #844
Biography: 147,322 #761
Culture: 6,794
Geography: 114,564

Health: 1,854
History: 201,402 #466
Math: 139,073

Philosophy: 11,268
Religion: 4,816
Science: 205,695 #427

Society: 58,978
Sports: 160
Technology: 111,369
All portals: 291,540 #262

Of course, already being on the Main Page is a big advantage! :-) RichardF (talk) 19:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, okay, the "All portals" version probably makes the most sense for a 12 portal layout! :-) RichardF (talk) 03:11, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Disambig editing template idea

I'm a big fan of the idea you presented here and here. Is the ball still rolling forward on that? If not, is there anything I can do to help get it rolling again? — Swpb^{τ • c} 19:12, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I've passed the gentle nudge along to the appropriate person. Thanks for reminding me :) -- Quiddity 19:28, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Disambig js

Howdy. I'm looking for assistance or advice, on moving the proposal at MediaWiki talk:Common.js#Disambig editintro forward. RockMFR was assisting before, but said he doesn't have time to get back to it. (I picked you randomly, as a frequent editor of the js page itself ;) Thanks :) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:42, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but I think I'd rather not...there's enough for me to do already, and I've already upset quite a few people lately with controversial edits. I'd suggest thoroughly testing using your monobook.js and then doing an editprotected request on MediaWiki talk:Common.js/edit.js when you're confident that the script is bug-free. If you'd like any advice on how to go forward, I could at least point you in the right direction. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi. The script (User:RockMFR/disambigeditintro.js) is thoroughly tested. The header-template shows up as intended when I edit any page tagged with one of the Disambiguation Templates, and doesn't show up on article pages that happen to include the word "disambiguation" (such as Word sense disambiguation).

My only questions are about how it should be implemented (because I'm not very familiar with the workings of the MW-namespace or page-protection):

1. Is it better to fully/semi-protect the header-template (Template:Disambig editintro), or would it be better to move it into the MediaWiki namespace (e.g. to MediaWiki:Disambig editintro)? Its use seems to be comparable to MediaWiki:Talkpagetext.

2. Should I request that the script be added to MediaWiki:Common.js or to MediaWiki:Common.js/edit.js?

Thanks again :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

If you want the header template to be semiprotected, leave it in the template namespace. If you think it should always be fully protected, then it would probably be better in the MediaWiki namespace.

Scripts related to editing and editing only should be placed into MediaWiki:Common.js/edit.js. That way, the script is only downloaded if the user tries to edit a page, so pages load faster for ordinary readers that don't need the scripts.

Glad to help :-) —Remember the dot ^(talk) 16:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Disambig editintro vs set index articles

Quiddity: I have responded to your message at my talk page. (And no worries, there are several simple solutions.)

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Unintentional spamming

You wrote here that your monobook converts ISBNs to Amazon.com links. I'm sorry, but as an independent bookseller, this makes me sick to my stomach. I also feel that it is grossly inappropriate, since it privileges one rich and powerful vendor above others within the body of Wikipedia, a violation of our WP:NPOV policy. Could you please address this? --Orange Mike | Talk 14:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

(See below for post-epiphany update)

Good morning to you, too! Le Guin is such a wonderful author. "The Author of the Acacia Seeds" is one of my most reread and recommended-to-others stories.

I don't buy anything through amazon; I use their service for viewing the sample "search inside" pages, and other things that their huge metadata repository allows (finding related titles, book cover images, total page numbers for citations, checking that the ISBN given is for the 1st edition printed, checking publication dates, etc etc). I buy books from my local (non-big-box) bookstores, or local 2ndhand stores, or local indy comic store, or through abebooks, or take them out from one of my local library branches. Similarly, I search for musician information at allmusic.com, but order/buy from my local indy music store...
The script is taken from Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Set Book Source. There are at least 350 editors using it; though any of those might be set to redirect to somewhere other than amazon (as the script's instructions explain, any url from Wikipedia:Book sources is a valid target).

If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh! Having reread your message a few times now, I've realized that you mis-interpreted my original statement. You thought I had a monobook script that edited-converted-and-saved ISBNs into direct-amazon links, within articles. That would indeed be inappropriate!

The script just redirects my personal clicks on "ISBN ....." links into [whatever target, amazon in my case] links, to save me having to scroll down the huge list at Wikipedia:Book sources each time. Nothing gets changed in the articles themselves. (I've edited my original reply (above), as part of this reply's edit, to avoid further confusion). Hope that clears it up. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: Mysidacea

No, I was most likely wrong. It's just that when someone adds links to the same domain to many articles in quick succession, I tend to get suspicious. I didn't realize that he was linking to a university's website. Thanks for letting me know. J.delanoy ^gabs _adds 14:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Fryslan

You might consider joining WikiProject Friesland for we allways need more participants. We can always use someone to help us to cope with vandalism on our articles or to create templates, upload images. No real knowledge is required. Just more members is what we need and a more international participant list would be great. -The Bold Guy- (talk) 18:10, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for responding

Gosh this wiki wotsit is more complex than it looks. Your suggestion didn't include the tag I was looking for - which I think was 'expand' I really wanted a full list of tags - but then maybe if I found one I'd wish I hadn't... Hope this is an ok place to respond,- please delete if not —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.2.101.220 (talk) 27 September 2008

Fuckerware party

Page (redirect) was restored as per your request. I checked the ghits you mentioned and they are there. Term is new to me indeed. -- Alexf⁴² 23:00, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Note to self. discussion at User talk:Alexf#Deleted party article. -- Quiddity (talk) 01:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Shiny

		What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
		A disambiguation page edit introduction is the best idea I have ever seen implemented on Wikipedia. Well done! Neelix (talk) 12:42, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

hidden or collapsable sections

I agree with the responses at WP:VPP#When to use hidden/collapsible sections; did that cover it? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I've asked some further questions there. -- Quiddity (talk) 01:57, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Amon Tobin Discography

The subpage you created looks good, thanks for helping out! --Sebquantic (talk) 21:18, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Categories for problem articles

Did they get rid of the tag categories?

I can't find any.

Makes sense if they did, 'cuz you can still find tagged articles with "What links here".

The Transhumanist 22:34, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I had a feeling you'd know. :) Thank you. The Transhumanist 00:57, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Rejoice!

	The Barnstar of Loyal Service
	For precious tips on the more sophisticated features of the great Firefox, and the derived benefits for me and, indirectly, Wikipedia, I award you this token of my gratitude. May you always reserve your best advice for me. Waltham, The Duke of 07:59, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

...for the userpage fix. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 17:00, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

On deletion

Hi,

In the first TfD for {{{About lists of countries and territories}}, you accused me of taking "deliberately misleading" action. In the second, you have argued that lack of discussion means that the nom is "rude" and that this is somehow grounds for a speedy close. I'm not sure where in our deletion policy you read that discussion is mandatory, but it isn't - there isn't anything to discuss regarding this template which isn't covered in the text of the deletion nomination. If I've done something to offend you which would warrant twice being accused of acting in bad faith then I'd like to know.

I've replied to your comment on the template talk, for what it's worth. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:37, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi. No, I've got no beef with you personally, we've interacted elsewhere just fine. However, I believe that not seeking input at a talkpage first is (in many but not all instances) a bad habit. Especially when the first TfD was only weeks ago, and there were two editors who asked for a "keep but discuss".

It also would have been polite/helpful to notify myself and dbachmann.

However, everyone else who is participating in the TfD (editors who appear to be actual active editors of the lists in question...) seem to support the deletion, so I'll strike my (apparently policy-unsupported) speedy-close request, and notify dbachmann myself.

(The first action, of restyling the template to be an ambox, was based on your misunderstanding of the nature of amboxes. That you summarized your edit as: "put some lipstick on this WP:SELF-violating pig prior to TfD" seemed to me like a "purposefully-misleading action". (I didn't say "deliberately", and there is a significant difference between those two words.) In hindsight, that was a poor interpretation, because you simply didn't know that the content was inappropriate for an ambox, so my apologies for that.) Anyway, back to the template itself... -- Quiddity (talk) 19:10, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

FA graph

See my reply with a first example on my Talk page here. 84user (talk) 14:41, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your careful consideration at my successful RfA. "Patient, polite, and helpful" was generous and appreciated. Please let me know on my talk page if you have any suggestions for me. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 17:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Amon Tobin

Hi, Quiddity. All of my recent edits to Amon Tobin were just following the GA review of Amon Tobin, which can be found here. The reason I removed the sentence was because the reference for the claim did not back it up. However, good idea adding it to Chaos Theory article! Hopefully this is sorted out. Rtyq2 (talk) 17:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, Quiddity. Thanks for clarifying your edit. I really appreciate it. Excuse my possible incoherence also (I'm brain dead from studying for finals).

From what I can see on WP:BLP, multiple references are usually only necessary when the information written is considered highly controversial (e.g. if Tobin were accused of a crime). The two references are not necessary to cite that the Kronos Quartet and Sarah Pagé contributed to the making of Foley Room. From what I read out of both references, there isn't any information in either webpage that is not mentioned elsewhere in the Amon Tobin article (e.g. the "ants eating grass" is summarized in the sentence "...the samples came from a wide range of sources including motorbikes, tigers, insects..."). However, I did find some information in the deleted reference that we can use to cite information that did not have a reference. So, in a way, you opened my eyes to something I missed in the review process. Therefore, the deleted reference will be put back in the article; it will just be put in a different place, if that's okay with you.

Again, thank you for clarifying your edit. If you have any more questions or comments, feel free to leave me another message. Take care and I hope you feel better soon! – Ms. Sarita ^Confer 20:52, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

*gasp* You gave me my first barnstar! How unexpected and humbling! Thank you very much for your appreciation of the work done on the article. – Ms. Sarita ^Confer 21:23, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

		The Original Barnstar
		For all of your hard work on improving the Amon Tobin article. – Ms. Sarita ^Confer 03:47, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Tobin

Congratulations on the GA rating! I just wanted to thank you and Rtyq2 for all the work on it. --Sebquantic (talk) 17:48, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

foundation-l: What is on the back of the logo?

Hello! I don't have access to foundation-l and for various reasons I won't go into probably won't, but I saw your comment about this thread. I wonder if you could do me the favour of mentioning the table I put on m:Talk:Errors_in_the_Wikipedia_logo#Proposed revised characters in that thread? It would be nice to see what people think of these suggestions. I'm trying to build a 3D model in POV-Ray off-and-on, but have gotten tied up with other things. I'll bring it up when/if I get finished. :-) Thank you! --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 07:28, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi. My apologies, but I'm not going to do that. I have a hard enough time getting listened to on the mailing lists without being a middle-man! It should be easy enough for you to sign up for a throwaway email account (gmail, hotmail, etc) to post anything you like to foundation-l. Sorry, and good luck. After getting two requests, I've done so :) -- Quiddity (talk) 21:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, thanks! I've been considering doing something like that anyway for unrelated reasons but, well, there are complications. :-) But thanks anyway! --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 08:18, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Greetings Quiddity, thank you for notifying me about the discussion on this topic! I wish I were not so busy and could contribute additional time, but I have too much to do right now to try and go back to 3d modeling. :( But it's kind of neat to see a graphic I made long ago uploaded into the wiki archive by someone else and being captioned as "An early attempt at deciphering the symbols on the ball. Several of these guesses were correct." :) I noticed people were debating the topology but I think we did work it out, no one seemed to take note on the discussion list of the youtube video of our findings, which came to 58 pieces. We studied that pretty well, as well as a physical puzzle globe sold as a product for feasibility... so I hope that work does not go to waste. I'm not on that mailing list so if you think it's worth pointing people to the prior blender artist discussion I'd appreciate it. I'm happy to be kept in the loop but it seems to be in good hands—a lot of the same ideas are being independently invented (using the back for dead/obscure languages, making the ball physically realizable). The one thing I'd like to remind people of is the concept of thinking of the Wikipedia logo very abstractly--to get mindshare on the idea of puzzle globes in general rather than a specific color scheme or number of pieces. If WikiMedia were a corporation interested in branding, you would say that a puzzle globe with letters should make people think of wikis no matter the context; I'd try as hard as possible to own that pattern. In fact, I suggested that print editions might model their version of the logo after the IBM selectric typewriter ball. In any case, thank you again for the heads up, I'm woefully neglectful of my wiki duties this year. Metaeducation (talk) 21:05, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Muslimgauze

Hello Quiddity, First, sorry if I am doing this incorrectly, I am still a bit of a Wikipedia virgin. Second, thanks for your outreach and offers of help. The Muslimgauze entry process, along with my entry skills, are works-in-progress. There are several things I want to cobble together for the entry, among them to dig out earlier material such as previous entries, pictures and images of live show posters. I am not sure why they were removed in the first place but I believe they should go up. Where would I look? Thanks and advance apologies for any protocol violations. I. Khider (talk) 16:25, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Replied at your talkpage. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Greetings Quiddity,

It is my impression, that after registering and contributing to Wikipedia that I would be granted the privilege to upload images and sound. I have yet to be granted this, can you tell me when? Also, I have looked at the some of the posts about Muslimgauze show posters and live performance images. I know the person who runs the Arabbox site and it seems he came across a 'fair use' protocol snafu. I know the original poster designers and those who actually took the photos of Bryn playing live and have been granted permission to use them, by the creators. I am also close to a more polished draft on the Muslimgauze Wikipedia entry which I will post in the next week or two.

With regards to use of an image, I am of the belief that an image can be used to substantiate a written claim. For instance, if I say Bryn played aboard the Motorschiff Stubnitz--a photo of a live performance helps substantiate the claim. If I say Muslimgauze played live in Japan, a poster proclaiming a live Muslimgauze performance also helps substantiate that claim. The well-written 'Elliott Smith' Wikipedia entry seems to follow this pattern. A claim is made he performed at the awards ceremony, and an image of his performance at the awards ceremony is shown as proof. Someone proposed that an image can only be used in Wikipedia to be 'critically discussed'. That seems counter-intuitive to the way things like newspapers, magazines, news broadcasts, encyclopedias et al work. Images are not solely used in these mediums to be critically discussed. That's my take and it would be great to hear from you. I. Khider (talk) 04:11, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I'm really not a good person to ask about images. I'd suggest asking User talk:Pinkville, or at the general image helpdesk: Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. (Just to partially clarify, I meant that fair-use images sometimes need to be critically discussed, to warrant inclusion in certain articles. But I'm not at all sure about that.) See Wikipedia:Image use policy (and more at Help:Contents/Images and media) for the official explanations.

As for uploading, you should be able to now. (autoconfirmed users can upload images at Wikipedia:Upload. Are you having problems doing so? -- Quiddity (talk) 23:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello again, Quiddity,

I am now trying to do internal links for Muslimgauze albums but have some trouble. Take 'Hebron Massacre'--how do I get the link to distinguish the album from the event?I tried but seemed to have screwed up.I. Khider (talk) 22:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

You can pipe the link, with a disambiguating word, like so:

[[Hebron Massacre (album)|Hebron Massacre]], which with title-italics looks like: Hebron Massacre

(The pipe character is usually shift+\ (backslash), underneath the backspace key.)

See Wikipedia:Cheatsheet for basic formatting instructions (and links to more).

Hope that helps. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

background

Hello Quiddity,

Thank you very much for your help--I will try to apply it and it should work. Thanks also for your patience. As you can tell, I am a tad frustrated trying to understand how Wikipedia works and get apprehensive over protocol issues. Thanks to you I think the Wikipedia entry is looking better each day and one step closer to that coveted 'Feature Article status'. I will approach Pinkville about the images. I think I am getting I am *starting* to get the hang of things. I. Khider (talk) 00:49, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

No worries at all :)

I've been here 3 years and am still learning constantly.

Don't worry about making mistakes: it's the standard way to learn things...! The worst that can happen is someone reverts your edits, or deletes an uploaded image too rapidly - Everything can be un-done or re-done. A core recommendation/adage of Wikipedia is WP:Be bold (and it's many corollaries, such as WP:There is no deadline). A community of ~15,000 or so people(¹) makes for a lot of fascinating complexities... :) For a good overview of some of the ideas behind the site - and why it does (and sometimes doesn't) work - read the first and last (or more) of the links in this navbox: {{Wikipedia principles}}. Or the aggressively-concise version at Wikipedia:Trifecta.

Just as a casual tip, I'd recommending adding any templates or links you find helpful to your userpage, e.g. {{Style}} or {{Wikipedia policies and guidelines}} or copy any of the handful currently lower on my userpage (User:Quiddity#navboxen). I'd also recommend removing your plaintext email address, simply to cut down on the number of text-scanning-scripts coming through google/yahoo/etc that search for raw addresses for spamming. Add it to your site-preferences instead (preferences link at top of page; email link appears near end of sidebar).

Happy to help. (Though if you get addicted to this place as I am, then you have to pass on the help in years to come ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 02:07, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello Quidity,

I wanted to add an instruments section the Muslimgauze entry but for some reason it is not showing up. I mean, my entry is there in HTML, but nothing surfaces when I hit 'save'. What do I do? Also--I tried to do an external link to the Epitonic site at the end of the page--but it came out wrong despite following the previous entry styles. And finally, can you post the link on how to upload images? For some reason it still will not let me and I can't find my 'autoconfirm' anywhere. Thanks!I. Khider (talk) 17:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi.

Sometimes saves don't show up properly (usually if one doesn't preview first), because of browser cache issues. Basically, press ctrl-F5 to do a complete refresh of all the pages content. See Wikipedia:Bypass your cache for explanation and further details.

Epitonic: The code for external links is: [url name]

You had: [url], name

I've fixed that one.

For uploading images, if the image is fair-use, upload it via the instructions at Wikipedia:Upload; if the image is distributed under a free license, upload it at commons (so that all the WikiMedia projects can use it). If you have any problems, ask at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions (I've tried to avoid learning all the intricacies of our image system).

Hope that helps. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Hey Quidity,

We got a vandal on the loose and an anonymous user who claims the entry is partial. I have yet to see the user cite specifics so I will dismiss it.I. Khider (talk) 05:14, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

John Simon

Hi Quiddity. I'm wondering if you could help me out on the John Simon article that's being vandalized repeatedly by 'Mhseattle'. Briefly, I cleaned up the article incorporating the best of past contributions while removing unsourced POV statements and personal research (in the main, contributions by 'Mhseattle' under an IP address). Pertinent past contributions were excised outright by Mhseattle and replaced by his own essay that, on top of it, doesn't use Wiki markup or syntax. I left a note on the Simon Talk Page suggesting he keep the present page and simply contribute his views using Wiki Guidelines - to no avail. He continues to replace the entire page with his own essay. What's the best procedure here as I have no interest in an edit war and no time for endless reverts? Best --Jumbolino (talk)--Jumbolino 12:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I've given him a {{welcomepov}} template, and will watch the article. He's not actually vandalizing anything, he's just not adhering to our standards when he adds information. (See WP:NEWBIES and WP:AGF). No rush, no damage is permanent :) -- Quiddity (talk) 20:05, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Get well soon

Sorry to hear you've been sick.

I hope you have a speedy recovery.

By the way, thank you for the heads up on the topic outline discussion thread.

The Transhumanist 03:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Confused

I noticed you participated at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_46#Custom_edit_messages. I read that and WP:Editnotice, and they don't seem to be right. When not logged in, I had no trouble editing User:Dank55/Editnotice, even though User:Dank55/Editnotice.css says "off". Is there a way to stop others from editing User:Dank55/Editnotice and User_talk:Dank55/Editnotice by fiddling with .css or .js files, without protecting the pages? (Watchlisting) - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 00:30, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Tra's comments at Wikipedia:VPT#Editnotice may be helpful. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 03:01, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

EoL template broken

Hey Quidd, EoL changed their URL structure, and the {{eol}} isn't working as of now. I left a comment on the template talk. StevePrutz (talk) 15:28, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Re: lopado...pterygon

I was wondering if that description was in a good enough state that I could copy and paste it to the project pages of both of those links?

Apparently not! People have pasted it into both articles before; it was refactored to the list currently visible in the wp article and deleted in the wikt one.

Is it lopa or lepa? (Encyclopetey pointed to perseus.tufts as a source for lepa..)

It's λοπαδο- (lopado-) in Liddell & Scott's lexicon. It's λεπαδο- (lepado-) in the source that produced the English translation cited in the wiktionary article for the English version of the word, and in the source that led to this translation (where the translation begins 'oysters-saltfish-skate-sharks'-heads...'). λεπαδο- (lepado-) would be from λεπάς (lepas), which L&S translate as 'limpet', or 'oyster' in the aforementioned translation. Given that the dish probably never had a real referent, I'm sure there's a lot of variation in the surviving texts.

Lastly, I was wondering if this is an example of an Agglutinative language in action, or if there was a better way of describing its construction?

Technically this is agglutination but in my experience usually when agglutination is referred to it's in reference to how a language inflects. I would use this more as an example of the language's readiness to form compounds. —Muke Tever talk 00:26, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Browserbar

I don't know, probably a copy and paste error while I was creating the documentation sub pages. I'll fix it.

--Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 20:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Camptown Races

Going through my Watch list today I see you corrected an edit I made misreading "Billy Murray" for "Bill Murray". Thanks for catching it. Wikiuser100 (talk) 23:30, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

No prob! Thanks for the thought :) -- Quiddity (talk) 03:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

LibraryThing percents

Thanks for your help on the LibraryThing page. For the record, the 40% by Abe is no longer true (or if true, is secret!). As the various article say, I still have a majority (ie., > 50%). The other two are not disclosed, but must add up to less than 50%. Cheers. 67.244.245.2 (talk) 02:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC) — Ah, that was me. Lectiodifficilior (talk) 02:14, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

No prob. Happy to help you. I liked the site when I tried it a few years ago :) I'm also still watching the talkpage there, if you need any more help. Or here, if you need something else. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:59, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

External links on page Richard Scarry

About a week ago I did created a blog with some accurate facts about Richard Scarry, which was obtain out of the book, The Busy, Busy World of Richard Scarry written by Walter Retan and Ole Risom and did put a link on the Richard Scarry page to this site, which I belief you have taken of. Why did I not put this information directly on wikipedia? I wanted to have control over it without other people modifying it! This page is not a promotional page! At this stage I could not find any term of wikipedia that forbid my action, but if there is one please tell me.It do contain an ad by Google AdScence, but so do many other links. And by the way I don't gain out of it because for some reason they run the wrong type of advertisements so I am thinking about it to take it of. Why did I put the link in wikipedia? Well if you write something you want other people to read it? So why did you take it of? --Christiaan Lategan (talk) 05:17, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I will reply at your talkpage. -- Quiddity (talk) 07:30, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Escapio

Hi, I have updated some a couple more sources for the article. This reuters is valid source of information and should be kept in high regard. There is diffculty obtaining English language sources as they are based in Germany. Thanks,

Mmacintyre (talk) 10:52, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Replied at your talkpage. (Note: new threads go at the bottom of talkpages) -- Quiddity (talk) 17:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

A question about roads

Quiddity, you reverted my edit of the Chevy Chase (disambiguation) page, stating: "(roads really need article first, and no external links in dab pages)".

Please, I do need to understand why, as you say, a road needs an article first, and also what does a "dab page" mean? (I never came across that term before, and cannot find it) In this case, I thought the coincidence of a road and a golf club --both fairly conspicuous-- having the name of an actor, was amusing. --Thanks, --AVM (talk) 02:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello. My apologies for using the unclear acronym. Here's the full explanation of my thoughts. "Dab" is just a shortened form of "disambig", or Wikipedia:Disambiguation. Disambig pages have a style all of their own, and are intended purely as an index for articles with overlapping names within the Wiki. Whilst redlinks are allowed, they are still need to follow from the potential for a future article. In this case, the redlink's existence would depend upon the potential for a future article about the road itself. My snap judgment was that articles about roads are rare, and I might be wrong; Check up at [ummm, click click click] Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Streets#Notability guidelines.

The other part was the style and link. Dab entries are meant to be as short as possible, only long enough to clarify the target of the entry from the rest of the entries on the page - often no description is required beyond the article/link title itself. We never use external links (or references/citations) in dab pages. See WP:MOSDAB for the rest :) Hope that helps. Ask if not. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:01, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

EOL template

Hi, the EOL website appears to have changed their site structure from /taxa/ to /pages/ - could you update the template you made to reflect that? For example, I wanted to add the exemplar page of the Tokay gecko to its Wikipedia page, but the number, 794412, wouldn't work with the /taxa/ system. I'd do it myself, but was wary of breaking old links. Thanks! -kslays (talk • contribs) 18:58, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Currently asking for help at Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Encyclopedia_of_Life_url_updates. Thanks. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:54, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Question for you there :-) [[Sam Korn]] ^(smoddy) 21:03, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

And done. [[Sam Korn]] ^(smoddy) 10:27, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Sole primary-sourced information

Hi Quiddity. A problem with subjects with single primary-sources is that by definition, they are almost certainly non-notable. Now I'm not saying I'd speedy or prod nominate them, but I probably wouldn't defend such topics at an AfD. Bongo matic 01:51, 3 April 2009 (UTC) I'll watch here—no need for {{tb}} or reply on my talk page.

Hi. I completely agree, as far as articles go. Lists are another animal though. Further up that discussion, I had pointed out that items within a list do not need to satisfy WP:N individually. See Wikipedia:Categories,_lists,_and_navigation_templates#Lists and Wikipedia:Lists#Listed_items and Wikipedia:Lists_(stand-alone_lists)#Lead_and_selection_criteria and Wikipedia:Lists_(stand-alone_lists)#Appropriate_topics_for_lists and WP:NNC to satiate the wikilawyers ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 02:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, thank you!

Wow - thank you so much for the infobox on the Anthropology page! It's like magic. I am just so impressed and happy. Made my whole week!Levalley (talk) 21:54, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, thanks for reminding both me and SLRubenstein to fill in the box for the edit comments. I find it really hard to recover things I've written once SLR has reverted, but I'm learning to cut and paste the relevant parts somewhere I can find them. I'll check out your comments on the Project page. You're very patient!--Levalley (talk) 23:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

meta:Eventualism makes the world go 'round. (I've been here 4 years - I'd have gone nuts long ago if not for a pinch of patience). -- Quiddity (talk) 00:14, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Portal:Featured content/Lists needs a maintainer

Regarding the message you left at WT:FL, what exactly needs doing to get it up-to-date? I'm happy to take on the maintenance of the page, but what exactly needs to be done? I looked at the source code for the page and saw the numbers 1-168 and page titles; do they just need to be checked against the current Featured lists? How many pages should be included? Not all 1300, surely?

Also, does anything need adding to each article? How does the portal manage to only display a few lines of text and six table entries? Matthewedwards : Chat 02:59, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Essentially, I'm not sure. I think it used to use <includeonly> and <onlyinclude> tags within the lists themselves (which was problematic, as people would remove them by accident, or include too much content). I'd recommend asking admin User:Circeus, as from the history he is the most recent active updater. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:21, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

(feel free to copy this to the WT:FL thread, if you'd like to keep discussion there)

thanks

ofr pointing out that weird goof, to me. I do not know what happened but would never have corrected it had you not taken time to call it to my attention. I appreciate that. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:08, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Noprob. I've been enjoying reading some of your threads with Levalley. As I said at your talk, let me know if I can help, and I'd appreciate some feedback on the template (at its talk or the anthro projecttalk). :) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:13, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Books and Portals

Hi, there's a new toy out there I'm sure you'll love! Would you care to share some of your thoughts at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Selected Books? :-) Regards, RichardF (talk) 19:34, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility

On April 17, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Dravecky (talk) 00:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Neil Young

Hi this is random and sorry if this violates Wikipedia ettiquete to ask, but I saw you modified the Dead Man soundtrack page (Neil Young) saying that the main theme was available on some promo CD. Was just wondering if you knew more about this CD or what it's called. I am guessing it's pretty rare but I wouldn't know where to find more info on such a thing.

Thanks! MDuchek (talk) 21:53, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I didnt actually add it originally (that was here), I just replaced it a couple of times when anon editors deleted it and other info.

But, I just found a mention at Neil Young's Rare & Unreleased Songs, so there's two potential leads for you :) Let me know if you find a copy, I'd love to hear it. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:16, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I have found a few references to it. It must be exceedingly rare. I am not a huge NY fan, but I have some of his stuff and think that song is pretty cool. I see he's releasing his archives vol. 1 soon, and maybe this will be on the next volume? MDuchek (talk) 15:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Help on reading if a RfC has consensus

I'm contacting yourself and some other uninvolved editors to see if you would be willng to read through an RfC at the Article Rescue Squad. It will be far from the most glamourous use of your time but it will help us see if we have reached a decision on this issue. I think the discussion has died down and concensus has been reached but another user has posited I'm misreading this. For the moment I've left my comments in the "Motion to close" and collapsed template in place but if others agree there is no consensus I'm fine removing or reworking them. The discussion itself isn't too brutal and the comments have stayed reasonably well organized so it shouldn't take long. Please read the RfC and discussion and offer your take in the "Motion to close" section. Thank you! -- Banjeboi 13:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Grumpy without tea

Best UBX I've ever seen! :) Viriditas (talk) 03:01, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the heads up

Whenever we post a bunch of notices or banners, there's always someone who targets a page or two. Not bad though, considering we posted them on hundreds of pages - part of an effort to increase awareness of and involvement in the development of the outlines.

By the way, the Category:Lists of topics by country is now cleaned up (split into indexes and outlines).

The Transhumanist 03:01, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Jazz standards

Hi! I've reorganized List of jazz standards (basically, split it in four) and changed the table format into a bullet format with some info on each tune. Since you participated in the merger discussion earlier, I thought you might want to check out the articles and give some feedback on the split (and possibly how to improve the articles). I've explained my changes in detail here. The text format I'm proposing is demonstrated at List of jazz standards (before 1930). I'd like to get some feedback on the proposed format before changing the other articles as well. You can compare the current version with the old version, which was in table format. Thanks for your time! Jafeluv (talk) 15:33, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Dab

I've replied to his gripe at WP:VPP#"Outlines".

The Transhumanist 23:13, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello Q, any insights on this for curiosity's sake?

I recently placed a {{stuck}} tag at the beginning of a VP proposal thread that was going absolutely nowhere re: changing the tab text for the "History" tab at the top of all articles, and got reverted. Here's the diff. I'm thinking that to avoid stragglers dropping by an obviously dead discussion that really can be discussed in other venues or needs clarification on the issues involved i.e. GFDL, a "stuck" tag works. What is your interpretation of the correct use for the "stuck" tag, isn't the thread in question a good candidate for it's use? DISCLAIMER: I am not fighting the fact that the tag was deleted, am not planning to refer to your opinion to replace it, or have anything else, even a strong opinion on the subject, to add to the thread. I just wonder what you see as an appropriate general interpretation of the template's suggested use. Sswonk (talk) 11:56, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd guess the template was originally developed for something like the helpdesk, or referencedesk. Hmm, maybe not. Looking at the whatlinkshere for it it seems to come from the wikiquette alerts page. (History is displayed in order of earliest page-creation (afaik)). It was only used (or at least preserved) a couple of times in vpump archives.

I see it so rarely, I wouldn't know when to use it without investigation (or template:resolved). I'd extrapolate that its use is ambiguous to lots of editors, and so perhaps whomever removed it though it was being used as - a way to prolong the discussion? (Whereas you could instead have been marking it for a summation of why the idea fell flat - as a concise explanation for the future archived thread. Or, you could have been doing it the way you explained above.). Multi-perspective is tricky.

Regarding the poll itself, it wasn't the right place, and would need much better investigation prior to making a proposal, for example comparing what all the sister-projects and interlanguage wikis use.

Personally, I like "page history".

Hopefully, it's one of the problems that the usability study will address and solve and implement, with rapidity. (ha!) The 4 tabs, representing 6 unique destinations, is a messy concept all around.

[unrelatedly, I stumbled upon the first few edits to the foundation's lawyer's usertalkpage [3], [4], [5], [6], which was worth a grin] -- Quiddity (talk) 20:37, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's an example that fits the tag, thank you for the perspective. By the way, I liked the links and please consider the content in the link provided here "grin reciprocation". "Reeks with condensation", indeed. Sswonk (talk) 18:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Ben Steinbauer & "Winnebago Man"

Hi Quiddity,

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. It's kinda weird, I can't find much info on production dates, etc, either. I might put a note up on the talk page...

Cheers. --— Hugh 08:17, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

talkheader

Yes, there is no consensus. So we ccan agree to disagree. Jezhotwells (talk) 09:11, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Color scheme

I tell you what, I invite you to propose three colors for Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy so everything matches, talk page, templates, etcetera. At some point in the future I would like to have each task force its own consistent color scheme also. Be well. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 02:40, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Glossaries

Howdy. 2 separate issues.

Do you have a person you'd suggest (or could ask), to do some AWB talkpage tagging with the {{WikiProject Glossaries}} banner, of the articles in Category:Glossaries and Portal:Contents/List of glossaries. (and perhaps make a list of any that don't appear in both? I'm not sure how subcategories should be worked in or accounted though...)

Also, some of these are coming up for deletion again (eg List of Internet-related terminology), and it'd be nice to get some of these issues ironed out, or new thoughts arrived at that don't waste(as in kill) the information. (So many discussions, so little consensus, so hard to remember where it all is, and what all the pertinent points are...:( Any ideas? -- Quiddity (talk) 02:03, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, at a glance, Category:Lists of terms seems to be a mix of indexes, and topic lists, and glossaries. I'll stare at this later, if you don't first. Wine and a sunny porch are calling... -- Quiddity (talk) 02:13, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

AWB - FYI, I created WP:AWB/Tasks for placing tasks when you have nobody specific to ask (or when they are all busy). There are several AWB'ers on the OOK Advanced Wikitools Workgroup (though the name is unofficial), and I'll gladly put your requests at the front of our task queue.

By the way, don't you have AWB? It processes a list of 300 to 360 pages in about an hour on a good connection (Comcast). The lists you make can be saved, so you can chop off the done part and resume a task later. Makes it easy to split up tasks amongst short sessions.

If you get a bot account, you can let AWB run in the background on many task types.

Good idea about the banner - putting the banner on the glossaries' talk pages is a good first step to protecting them from arbitrary or misguided deletion. I've augmented the banner with an intro similar to the one on {{WikiProject Outline of knowledge}}, describing glossaries and providing links to relevant guideline pages.

Writing a Wikipedia:Glossaries guideline would help even more, and a link to it could be provided in the WikiProject banner's intro. All the pertinent points should be gathered to a single guideline.

A major discussion on the usefulness of Glossaries and how moving them to Wiktionary kills them (a key point) can be found at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 22#Glossaries.

To make a list of glossaries that don't appear in the cats, you can use Google to do site-specific searches of Wikipedia. Be sure to select "in the title of the page" in the "Where your keywords show up" slot" under the "Date, usage rights, numeric range, and more" link on the advanced search page. The terms to search for (in separate searches) would be "terminology", "terms", "jargon", "slang", and "vocabulary". This type of task is pretty hard to delegate. I think you are on your own on this one. Once you have a list, and have whittled out the non-glossaries, I'll be glad to put it on my AWB task queue.

Category:Lists of terms is redundant. But it is small, so you shouldn't have much trouble with it. :)

I hope the above comments help.

The Transhumanist 03:52, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: Glossaries aren't mentioned at all in WP:NOT. And in WP:NOTDIC, they are only mentioned way down in the "Wikipedia is not a usage guide" section. Better placement on those pages of the glossaries exception would certainly help.

Nukebot

I've found that when delegating AWB tasks the instructions must be precise or you are more likely to get unpredictable results (which tends to be bad considering the tasks usually involve hundreds of pages).

I've posted your AWB task to User talk:NuclearWarfare#AWB task - for the glossary WikiProject.

The Transhumanist 04:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Much thanks for all that. (I don't have AWB because I use ubuntu linux. AWB is windows-only). -- Quiddity (talk) 05:30, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi Quiddity...

Since we've blasted so many messages out there announcing the outlines (with many more announcements to follow), I finally broke down and added all the outlines to my watchlist.

Wow. I was blind but now I see!

There's definitely more activity (and more vandalism too) on the outlines these days.

The upsurge seems to correspond with our mass posts, though I'll need to delve deeper into the histories for each page to be certain.

The banner {{Outline of knowledge coverage}} attracted more attention to these than I thought it would.

I'm not sure I can keep up!

Look at Outline of forestry, for example. It's shaping up nicely. But it feels weird looking at an outline I don't recognize!

And then there's Outline of anarchism, which has been around for awhile. I didn't even create that one. Not too many of these though. Yet...

...More mass posts coming up.

The Transhumanist 23:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Vector

Do you think "they" are ever going to try to make Vector the default?

The Transhumanist 16:58, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd guess not, this year. After that, psychohistory cannot predict ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:02, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

A task for you to look over

I've posted a task for User talk:Thehelpfulone, and I was wondering if you'd like to take a look at it to see if there's an easier way to go about it.

User_talk:Thehelpfulone#RE: Oops - move request

The Transhumanist 19:59, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

'Fraid I don't know any mass-editing/collating tricks that would help. I'll keep an eye on Portal:Contents/Index and Wikipedia:WikiProject Index though! -- Quiddity (talk) 20:10, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Traffic drives improvement

The outlines aren't complete, but they are complete enough to be useful to readers. And what good is a table of contents hidden in the back? Tables of contents are most useful in the front.

The hatnote issue is very similar to adding the "Contents" link to the sidebar. And you opposed that too, on the grounds that the system wasn't ready to be displayed.

Shenme captured the essence of the situation very well:

A 'normal' wiki usually doesn't have a core structure, and so people don't expect it, but Wikipedia has quite a lot of material, and various ways of organizing it. Having a link in the sidebar to the contents page will help people to discover what organization there is. (whether perfect or not a separate topic). And, actually, pointing people to the contents page and getting their resulting comments will improve the page. Don't wait for the improvements first... Shenme 04:47, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The OOK needs editors for each of its pages, and for the essential pages it's missing. Relying on a small team to finish all of this will take decades. (Do the math). I've been on this project for almost 4 years already!

So, if hatnotes will benefit readers while attracting editors to these pages, then that looks like a pretty damn good solution to me.

The Transhumanist 23:40, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Where to point naysayers

There are basically two reasons why there's opposition at all. 1) It is coming from those who favor another type of page and don't see why we have both, and 2) many of them appear to be unaware of the full definition of "outline".

For the first problem, I've written Wikipedia:Why do we have outlines in addition to...?.

For the second, I've started writing User:The Transhumanist/Outline. But it isn't ready to point just anybody to it yet, because most of it is still a skeleton. We need to point editors to it to help finish it!

Our biggest problem is a lack of a comprehensive description of outlines to point readers to. Virtually every discussion belies a fundamental lack of knowledge of the nature and function of topic outlines, reverse outlines, and subject outlines (including outlines of knowledge).

Once the article is completed and moved to article space, the word "outline" can be linkified in the last line of each outline article's lead section. And a link can be posted in every discussion that arises.

The more people we educate about outlines, the easier the project will become.

The Transhumanist 03:34, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: The funny thing is, that Wikipedia isn't even close to the state of the art of outlining. Maybe 2% utilization of the available technology, and that's being generous. I've had to restrain myself from using outliner jargon, as nobody around here would understand what I was talking about. :( Wikipedia's page format could easily be parsed for outliner-style processing and presentation (outliners go waaaaay beyond what I've been doing here). It's the processing part that has the most potential. It would at least triple the productivity of editors, and that's being conservative. It would also give more navigation power to readers, on all types of pages, not just the outlines - dynamic (live) outline prosentation formats (which require a client or outlining program to display, regardless of the underlying file format) are much more powerful than static outline presentation formats (static views such as Wikipedia's articles, in both regular and edit mode). Oh well. -TT

Midnight mumbles: I'd suggest saying something at Talk:Outline and Talk:Outliner. Anyone watching there would be perfect candidates for feedback and assistance. Also, some potentially useful links can be found at Special:WhatLinksHere/Outline. Further reply in the morning :) -- Quiddity (talk) 08:37, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Also: Add lots of "what he said" from me, for the things Arnoutf is suggesting and saying, at Wikipedia talk:Outlines and User talk:Arnoutf#Please re-evaluate. -- Quiddity (talk) 09:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I understand the bias (refine first, then display), I just don't agree with it. First comes the traffic, then comes the quality. Shenme pegged it. As for more community involvement with the design, you'll get that once it hits critical mass. But that can't happen without traffic.

We can't move forward fast right now anyways. We need to let the dust settle. Though I agree with you that placing hatnotes on the outlines that are ready doesn't pose a big risk. I'll shoot you over a list to look over.

Hmmm. Talk:Outliner. Not a bad idea!

Nice reorg of the technology section. The Transhumanist 23:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Big science

What's wrong with Outline of Big Science?

The Transhumanist 23:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

That's one where it seems non-useful to have a separate outline at this time. It's so short, and so is the article Big Science, that they'd be better off merged.

Also, I couldn't determine which heading it belonged under ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 05:48, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Noahveil

First of all, thank you for putting back my link on the Tom Robbins page. There were many such links on wikipedia but other editors have had knee-jerk reactions and removed them without actually checking them out. Like you said, just because a link may appear to have a COI doesn't automatically make it spam if it's got good information pertaining to the subject of the page.

That link has been taken down twice now by editors who simply decided I was a spammer and ruthlessly went through the entire Wikipedia removing every single link I ever made, first by irishguy and now by Raven in Orbit. Many of the links had no COI whatever, links to articles by other people that just happen to be hosted on my site.

Please, I need somebody rational to talk to about this. Just as my Tom Robbins article is of value to people looking up Tom Robbins, so too are my articles about Andy Kaufman, Michael Nesmith, Godfrey Reggio, Jonathan Demme, and many others, all deleted by Raven in Orbit, the same one who deleted the Tom Robbins article, all declared SPAM for no other reason than they came from me.

Believe me, I understand "no original research" and COI, but these were all articles previously printed by the LA Weekly, Daily Variety, Movieline Magazine, and the WGA. I'm not a spammer, even though the articles happen to have been written by me. If I wanted, I could go into the articles themselves and edit in what I know, but my writing style isn't really a neat fit, so I thought it was more proper to simply add links at the bottom.

Do I simply need to find third parties to add those links? Some of those deletes make absolutely no sense. I'm the editor of the Los Angeles Free Press. I put up a link to the Los Angeles Free Press on the Los Angeles Free Press page. Raven in Orbit took it down, calling the link SPAM. Now people looking up the Los Angeles Free Press won't find a link to the Los Angeles Free Press. Madness.

Any advice or help would be appreciated.

Noahveil (talk) 19:45, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Replied at User talk:Noahveil/Archive 1#Reply from Quiddity and below.

See also User talk:Delicious carbuncle/Archive 2#every link to my site banned.

User:Noahveil

See User talk:Gb/Archive 15#Blocking after 1 warning for start and reply.

Thank you for your message - I think it's probably helpful to start when their contributions start.

November 2005 - a bunch of contributions, 99% of which were to add links to www.disinformationtoday.com and articles by User:Noahveil himself.

February 2007 - exactly the same thing again. 45 or so links to his website added in about an hour. Nothing else - no constructive contributions whatsoever. All these links are to a blog, and thus not a reliable source per WP:EL.

January 2008 he edits under an IP (User_talk:71.102.70.171) reinserting deleted external links to the same site on Sweeney Todd. He'd was warned on that IP address about adding inappropriate external links. There may well be other IPs which he's been editing under - I've identified at least by looking at Veinor's link count for 13 February 2007 where you'll see 44 links to dareland.com, of which 40 were added under Noahveil, but 4 under User:4.246.248.148.

26th March this year - a few more under the Noahveil account. 29th March, a couple more, ending with Lee Strasberg. He was warned by Delicious Carbuncle who subsequently reported the account to AIV where I then blocked. I initially blocked indefinitely, then tweaked it down to 48 hours.

Was the block punitive? Not really - preventative, if anything. It stopped him doing what he'd been doing and brought his attention to the relevant policies.

Could more, or stronger, warnings have been given? Of course - but the same could almost certainly be true of any block. From both a superficial and an in-depth look, however, it's clear that at that time User:Noahveil had only one intent - to add links to his website, in breach of any number of policies. He'd been warned in January 2008 - whilst I concede that the subsequent warning in March wasn't followed by any activity, he hadn't actually shown any intent to change his activities between January and March - WP:Block goes on to say that warnings are not a prerequisite for blocking, and that users who have been made aware of a policy (as he had) and have had a reasonable opportunity to adjust their behaviour (as he had) may not require further warning.

As for him being a poor newcomer, well, I don't really subscribe to that (and I'm not sure what trend you're talking about - he's only been blocked once). He's not a newcomer, as he's been around for years. His sole intent, during that time, has been to include as many links to his own website as possible (there's even one hiding away behind his entry in a list of personalities linked to the station KROQ-FM). If he's entered into meaningful discourse with you about participating constructively in the encyclopaedia, then that's all good, and actually (in my view) justifies my block to a large degree - if not blocked, would he have done so? Or would he just have ignored the warnings and carried on as before.

Thanks for the reminder to assume good faith, incidentally, although I'm not sure where the link provided was supposed to take me! As you touch on, the obligation is not a carte blanche one - it is to assume good faith in the absence of evidence to the contrary. I had sufficient evidence to the contrary, in my book. _GB^T/C 12:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Delicious carbuncle#Lewis Arquette

Please respond to User:Noahveil's question, if you wouldn't mind helping him again here. Oh, and when are you going to bring up that misleading edit summary issue with him? Regards. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:53, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the heads-up.

Re: the misleading edit summary, I imagine he simply clicked the "undo" link, and then adapted the auto-summary to something that looked correct (but in this case, wasn't). I don't believe it is worth hassling him over - he is aware that his edits are being scrutinized by others now, and back in February he had very little experience with the more arcane aspects of Wikipedia. Hope that satisfies you :) -- Quiddity (talk) 21:49, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a nice theory, but if you look at the actual edit, there's no way that could have happened. As well as undoing the previous change, he simultaneously added material. And as has been pointed out before by someone else, the user's inexperience with WP is due to the fact that it's a four year old SPA for adding links to his own site. You appear to have taken him under your wing -- for whatever reason -- so I'm not going to pursue this unless I see something egregious, but no, I'm not satisfied. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

When you click "undo", it presents the edit form, ready for editing. He could have also copied the summary from a different revision and altered that.

I find your attitude towards this dissatisfying. You are refusing to see the evidence from an outsiders point of view: This edit by you, on 29 March 2008, was the first personal message that we can definitely assume Noahveil saw, since November 2005 when he was welcomed.

Please take a look through this thread, where I've tried to explain why good faith is a complex thing, that we have to make an effort to assume (vandals often become good contributors, some even become admins eventually). If you don't give someone a chance to learn from their mistakes, noone benefits. "People are the most important resource there is, for Wikipedia; not frightening anyone off forever, is the 2nd most important job we have, as ideal Wikipedians (after writing an encyclopedia)." -- Quiddity (talk) 00:20, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the demonstration - I accept that your version of events is plausible. In fact, my assumption that the user undid a misspelling and inserted his web site turns out to be completely backwards, on closer inspection. The user undid the removal of his website and corrected the misspelling while he was in there. I don't disagree with your general premise that SPAs or outright vandals can become useful contributors, but in this particular case I am doubtful of it ever happening, even with your guidance. (Occasional spelling corrections notwithstanding.) I wish you well in your efforts. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:06, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Badagnani

Re: Badagnani

I've gone to what I feel are extreme lengths to work with Badagnani. I've found that my efforts to do so are futile, as many others have. Now, I'm simply documenting some of his more blatant attempts to disrupt my work on Wikipedia.

Meanwhile, I'm following WP:BATTLE and working with others who do the same. I would hope that you'd be one of those editors.

I know I can rub some editors the wrong way. However, I'm happy to explain my self, or refactor my comments when asked. I tend to stick close to policy and guidelines when there's a dispute, which annoys some people. That does not mean that I ignore or disagree with WP:IAR, only that I want good reasons for doing so. The more policies and guidelines I'm asked to ignore, the better the reasons should be. --Ronz (talk) 23:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

That's very reasonable, thank you for that. I'm happy to engage in a friendly collaboration on an article or three - it's the demands of immediacy that tend to get under my (and I think B's) skin.

I realize that some editors stand in very different perspectives with regards to how prominent external links should ever be allowed to get in Wikipedia. A few extreme people want to create a whole new tab next to article-discussion-history to fill with their personally-disliked aspect of some Wikipedian item - navboxes, infoboxes, external links, pullquotes, image galleries, portal links, wiktionary links, categories and hidden categories, are all hated-to-disliked (on a spectrum of course) by a large handful of editors each. We also all apply different measures/guidelines with different levels of strictness. From the above, I think you completely get that, and I feel much better now :)

Regarding Badagnani, I'm really not sure. Frankly, with the few strong-characters I have tried to advise, it has either backfired on me (they thought that I was coming off as lecturing and inflexible, when I was trying my damndest to be friendly and explicit and helpful) or has just been ignored. I'm a bit burnt out on helping those who can't adapt to our fastmoderngeeky ways, or methods of dialogue, or the minutae/critical-subdetails of policy coverage. [I pick up injured animals too, it's a terrible habit - half of them bite.] He does do a hell of a lot of good stub writing though, and the bulk of his (recent) edits seem to be overwhelmingly positive. I've asked at the ANI thread what the worst actual problems are, outside of polite-cantankerousness and impatience-with-the-impatience-of-others. Whenever someone makes a friendly inquiry on a talkpage, he seems to react well - but if someone just deletes things and he doesn't understand why, then he kneejerk reverts and starts a bad cycle.

He definitely needs to stop repeating things but I have no idea how to phrase that politely, and I'd guess he won't until he feels that the issues have been addressed. (eg. the accusations of (and original acts of) stalking with the few EL editors is essentially shrug-worthy, though a bit rude, in both directions. You know all this [I don't think he does], but I understand how your ability to check up on no-doubt-about-it-spammers (which most of you folks whom I get in grumbles with at EL, are incredibly good and useful at) leads you to investigate people with good-intentions-but-a-few-bad-habits). We need an faq for dealing with these archetypes... *sigh* -- Quiddity (talk) 00:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see "we can't let those Korean nationalists inject their bias" as "polite cantankerousness". Maybe I'm just really burned because of how much he insulted me, and I really like that you're pointing out the good in his contributions, Quiddity, but I'm not seeing how we get somewhere workable. What has to happen? I'm interested in solutions, not sighs, because without them, he's going to wear through the community's patience very soon. What do we do to save this guy? Seriously. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:28, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Please reinterpret any fault in my understanding, but I'm really not sure how "racist" he was. Is it racist to mention that someone might have a patriotic/nationalistic bias? He didn't caricature or insult in any way, did he? You are completely correct that it is not relevant to the article content, and that we should "comment on content not contributors", but saying that someone has a Korean Nationalistic PointOfView doesn't seem all that bad? He was pointing out that the other contributor's viewpoint may not be inline with NPOV. Which would be understandable, on an article about dog meat, being edited by a mostly anglo-western audience...

I'm just not sure that the terms "racism" or "racist" apply at all.(?) "Accusations of bias" is the only way I can really consider it. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can maintain a working environment where criticizing another editors' contributions in terms of their nationality is accepted. I think that allowing that kind of shit (and I choose the word "shit" quite carefully) is anathema to collaborative work. If Badagnani cannot understand that such remarks are completely unacceptable, then how can you expect others to work collaboratively with him? -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:48, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Badagnani again

In your comment [7] you take a shot at me by assuming bad faith:s "Some people just delete everything that offends them and let others sort out what should have remained." See WP:AGF and WP:BATTLE. I'd appreciate it if you removed or refactored this, given you've not discussed it with me in any way.

As we both know Badagnani's behavior is not dependent upon any group of editors behaving a certain way to him. He responds aggressively to all dispute resolution methods, quickly if not immediately assuming bad faith of anyone who disagrees with him.

You wrote, "I don't think he is any more likely to stop being offended when people delete his work without attempting a query first, than the people doing the deleting are likely to start checking each instance thoroughly themselves." I think this is a straw man argument. It doesn't appear to matter how or why others change content, or identify it as problematic. I'd like to see diffs showing that sometimes he behaves civilly. If editors identified material first, new in advance somehow that Badagnani would be offended if it were changed, then contacted him on his talk page, I still think he would respond inappropriately. He simply doesn't appear to understand Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and becomes extremely defensive when he has is put in a position where anyone else would simply discuss the relevant policies and guidelines relevant to the situation. --Ronz (talk) 20:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

It's an RFC/UC, isn't the whole point to point out mistakes in user conduct and action? I consider deleting information without checking and considering it first, to be a mistake. I'm sure you had faith that you were doing what is best for Wikipedia, but I don't consider such an Immediatist attitude to be helpful (except in the case of BLPs, where expediency is often the best course).

From a handful of pages it is obvious you and GraYoshi were trailing him around. Yes, you were correcting many mistakes he had made, and only some of them were subjective calls, but you were definitely trailing him around. I'd be defensive and react badly if I'd never been wikistalked before, too.

Has he ever been polite? Here are a few examples of perfectly pleasant talkpage interactions and requests: Talk:Bánh#.22Dumplings.22_and_.22Desserts.22, Talk:Cor_anglais#Enlgish_Horn, Talk:Shahe_fen#Romanization, Talk:Korean_cuisine#History of Dog Meat, Talk:Assam_tea#Significant_changes_to_article, Talk:Âu_Việt#Source. In fact the only instances of unfriendly interaction on article talkpages in the last 250 pages (of which I randomly checked 50 or so) are when GraYoshi or yourself enter the picture Talk:Wolfberry#Potential_sources Talk:Ice-cream_headache#Photo, Talk:Spare_ribs#In_American_cuisine. There, he gets terse and defensive. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry I wasted your time. If you're unable to follow WP:AGF and WP:BATTLE, then I think this is futile. Anyone can make anyone else look bad by simply assuming bad faith and demanding that others do more for Wikipedia. --Ronz (talk) 21:52, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not trying to break AGF or BATTLE. I've rephrased it at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Badagnani#Outside_view_by_Quiddity. Is that what you wanted? If not, how would you suggest I phrase it?

I believe that you made a subjective error of judgement, and I pointed it out as an example at the RFC. Should I have done so at your talkpage first? It's subjective, which I acknowledge, so I'm not insulting or attacking you in anyway, as far as I can see. Different wikiphilosophies are what led to the antagonism, so they seem relevant. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

Looking at the links you provided, Badagnani is polite when asking about situations or when he's getting his way. He's not so civil in other discussions on some of those very same talk pages when that is not the case. --Ronz (talk) 23:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

To clarify, did you check any of those links at List of pipe organ builders? What was the thought process that led you to completely delete an entire list of professional organ builder organizations, and label it all in a single dismissive statement as "linkspam"? Do you understand how that might irritate an article's editors? -- Quiddity (talk) 23:05, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I should have used two edits, one for the links in the article, another for the external links. I looked at the edits of one ip spammer that added most (all?) of the links to the article. When I saw that the external links section appeared from the titles to be just links to related organizations plus some obvious linkspam, I removed them as well, per WP:EL, WP:SPAM, and WP:NOTLINK. Appropriate external links for such an article would be lists of pipe organ builders. If you'll look at my edit history, I've made hundreds of nearly identical edits. I usually use the edit summary, "removed section per WP:EL, WP:SPAM, WP:NOTLINK" or a variation on that. --Ronz (talk) 00:42, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Did you look at the links you restored? What was your thought process for adding them back? --Ronz (talk) 00:42, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

My thoughts were thus:

If I arrived at the list as a reader, I might want to find out further information about people who build pipe organs. If I arrived as an editor, I might want to have some links to prominent and reliable professional organizations who have biographies and histories of the builders and their art (for confirming dates, adding context, etc).

Some of them provide current information, some provide historic information. We don't have an article on pipe organ builders that it might have been appropriate to move the list to. [Some of the ELs I examined, some I just glanced at - I should have done a more thorough job of it too.]

As a relatively uninterested reader, the first question I did wonder was how our list of notable builders compared in size to the total number of builders - the external links helped answer that (for example we have articles on 4 notable builders in Canada, and the ISO directory lists 7, with at least 3 on both. In Germany, 14 vs 75.). If I knew anything more about pipe organs, other than the few pages referencing them in the (superb) book Cryptonomicon, I might have other questions that the links could answer (such as - what is needed to be a "certified" pipe organ builder?[8]).

As for the links within the body of the list, I checked that they were all still alive, and agreed with your decision that if they weren't notable enough to have an article yet, then the links were simply commercial-linkspam creating a mere directory - hence I left them deleted.

Finally, I strongly believe they should remain within the article, but I'll have to leave that for someone who cares about pipe organ builders to do. I'm much happier with our leaving a copy on the talkpage, than having them deleted altogether.

In wikiphilosophy terms, I'm much less bothered by who added a link, and more concerned with whether the link is potentially useful. For example, the person who keeps adding this link for the past few days, is utterly in the wrong, primarily because the link provides no useful information at all, and only secondarily because they are "spamming" it, and only secondarily because it is commercial.

Hope that is all relatively clearly explained, and not too controversial :) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:16, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

That's your choice, and it's a very helpful approach to take. I saw the editing by the ip, cleaned up that spamming, and cleaned up other links at the same time. I deal with so much of this spamming that I try to be very quick and non-controvesial about it. --Ronz (talk) 18:22, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Of course, this has nothing to do with Badagnani.

As it's plain to see, Badagnani uses the same generic, overblown phrases again and again, but is unable or unwilling to discuss policies in any detail. As you can see in your own interactions with him, he won't even give a simple yes or no. Instead, he looks for someone else to blame, or just uses grandiose exaggerations about what a good editor he is and how his viewpoint is for the good of all Wikipedia. --Ronz (talk) 16:30, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

You said "I try to be very quick and non-controvesial about it." I think you are trying to be too quick in some of these cases. Haste makes waste. (Wasting editors' time, and wasting relevant information by just deleting it.)

As for Badagnani, yes, he seems to be ignoring the help/advice offered by myself and GTBacchus. Some people just don't know when to back down. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

RfCs

If "RFC/UC's are structured and used as unpleasant witchhunts," then it's true because people are unwilling to use them in a positive way. I'm glad you contributed to Badagnani's RfC, and I'm sorry if you think it was less than helpful. RfC/UC's could be a lot better if people like you contributed to them. The best way to stop a witchhunt is to show up, and not hunt witches. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:49, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. And an emphatic thank you for continuing to persevere with the ANI thread and elsewhere. (I lol'd back then). I'll try to continue to chime in if I have anything productive to offer. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:00, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Courtesy notice

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on List of gamelan ensembles in the United States . Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. --Ronz (talk) 19:04, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I am not reverting to the same instance, and I am not doing so without explanation. I am fixing your mistaken deletions, and providing details when quizzed. Your templating of me is not friendly, and is not relevant in this situation. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

On a related note, I've started another ANI report Badagnani, discussing his recent edit-warring with you: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#More_edit-warring_by_Badagnani --Ronz (talk) 22:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Please focus on content rather than editors

Re: [9], I think refactoring to depersonalize would be a good idea.

Also, am I misunderstanding or are you comparing official websites to Billboard news articles? --Ronz (talk) 19:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Done - thanks for requesting.

I'm comparing primary sources to primary sources. More at the article talkpage. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:26, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

What sources in List of number-one albums of 2008 (U.S.) do you consider primary, the Billboard articles? --Ronz (talk) 00:35, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Anything linking to an official site that the article is about, and more. So, everything that links to www.stuy.edu at Stuyvesant High School, and everything that links to www.billboard.com at List of number-one albums of 2008 (U.S.), and everything that links to an interview with a creator in any of our articles. All are WP:PRIMARY sources. Official company faqs, album liner notes, game manuals, country census', news agency surveys, etc. Selfpublished and primary. We use them throughout Wikipedia - the thing we have to make sure of, is that nobody is using them to add Original Research, or anything controversial (puffery, crankery, misinformation, etc). -- Quiddity (talk) 01:08, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. You're comparing reliable, primary sources to self-published sources. --Ronz (talk) 17:54, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

How are you differentiating http://www.stuy.edu/about/history.php from http://cfa.lmu.edu/programs/music/ensembles.htm?

Different aspects of each page are "reliable", and both are "self-published". Eg we wouldn't take their word that Stuyvesant "has representatives from virtually every nation in the world and one can find a native speaker of most of the languages of the world." but the rest of the information is clear and probably reliable. Similarly, we wouldn't copy LMU's word that their chorus is "some of the most stunning choral music at the collegiate level", but the facts and figures given are probably reliable. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:14, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

http://www.stuy.edu/about/history.php and http://cfa.lmu.edu/programs/music/ensembles.htm are both self-published sources. We do have a strict guideline as to how such sources can be used. http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/esearch/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003700470 and similar links are not, nor are they primary sources. Dlabtot (talk) 19:23, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
The policy says: "Primary sources ... include ... historical documents such as diaries, census results, video or transcripts of surveillance, public hearings, trials, or interviews; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires; original philosophical works; religious scripture; published notes of laboratory and field experiments or observations written by the person(s) who conducted or observed the experiments; and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs." We use primary sources as references throughout Wikipedia.

The examples in question, at List of gamelan ensembles in the United States‎ are not being misused and are not unreliable for the simple facts they are intended to confirm, and hence don't need the tagging of {{Self-published inline}} throughout. It makes as little sense as tagging the Stuyvesant school references with the same tag. Or the royalsociety.org references at Michael Faraday Prize. Or the juniper.net references at List of acquisitions by Juniper Networks. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:12, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

" The policy you quoted shows Billboard is not an example of a primary source. Thank you for that. You don't seem to be even making an argument that the self-published sources are not self-published, merely that that should not be tagged as such. I must admit that I find your reasoning to be incomprehensible. Dlabtot (talk) 20:29, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Primary: The Billboard.com link is basing its data on "according to Nielsen SoundScan" data. Billboard is owned by Nielsen Company. I think that makes it fairly close to primary? It's definitely the "official" site, which is the other term that keeps getting interchangeably used in these threads.

You've correctly identified the Nielsen SoundScan data as the primary source. Good job. Dlabtot (talk) 02:20, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

And, the relevant context, that Billboard is basically the same company as (or a division of) Nielsen. Do you agree that this adds nuance to the pure primary/secondary dichotomy? There is always context, it must be considered in all cases. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:38, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Selfpub: They are obviously self-published, nobody ever claimed they were not. I'm trying to point out that we use self-published sources throughout Wikipedia. That's why the policy starts off with "Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves ..." [emphasis in original]. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:35, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Removed link

This removed link does indeed verify that this ensemble is one of the official world music ensembles at the university. Please be careful. Badagnani (talk) 07:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Not just the Javanese-ness but the official name as well as its position as one of the official ensembles of the world music department. I've just written to the director asking for the gamelan's Javanese name and date of establishment. Badagnani (talk) 07:44, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. Also, I'm finished for the night. -- Quiddity (talk) 07:47, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:BATTLE

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:Badagnani__reported_by_User:Ronz_.28Result:_.29

Re: [10] Quiddity, please respect WP:BATTLE, "Wikipedia is a volunteer community, and does not require its users to give any more time and effort than they wish. Focus on improving the encyclopedia itself, rather than demanding more from other users." Thanks! --Ronz (talk) 16:21, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

What part of "does not require its users to give any more time and effort than they wish" don't you understand? --Ronz (talk) 20:55, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The part where it applies to me, but not to you?

Please note, I am not defending Badagnani's edits, I agree that he could be a better editor - I am instead, pointing out where you could be a better editor yourself, and giving suggestions as to how. Dispute resolution takes ALL editors involved into account.

You keep asking for outside opinions, so we keep giving them.

Everyone has room for improvement, not just Badagnani. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:50, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

"so we keep giving them" If you could do so in a manner that followed WP:TALK, WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, WP:NPA, etc, it would be another matter. When you cannot, you're just making the situation worse. --Ronz (talk) 22:44, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I try very hard to keep my writing civil, and to avoid hyperbole. When a discussion is centered on wikiquette and editor-behaviour problems, it is extremely difficult to use purely-positive language.

I believe you have the best intentions for Wikipedia, though I think you gave up on Badagnani a while ago. I cannot say this strongly enough: Listen to the advice at the WP:AN3 thread, and avoid interacting with Badagnani - you are not the person who will improve his editing skills. (And if you have any influence with Grayoshi, it would be helpful if he stopped wikihounding Badagnani, too.) -- Quiddity (talk) 05:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Your continued use of WP:HOUND references is improper and uncivil. I'm happy to explain if needed. --Ronz (talk) 16:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I explained above, that I understand how your spam-fighting skills have led you to investigate Badagnani's contributions in detail. However, he is not a vandal/spammer/bad-faith contributor, and the three of you are having trouble communicating with each other: Hence, continuing to pursue his edits across Wikipedia can be considered as wikihounding.

You are no longer following him to new articles (afaik), but Grayoshi clearly is, as shown by Oculi at the AN3 thread.

Please do explain your perspective. I always value that. Perspectives are subjective, and it always helps to understand how other people differ from ourselves. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:12, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

"Hence, continuing to pursue his edits across Wikipedia can be considered as wikihounding." I completely disagree. This conclusion of yours conflicts with WP:HOUND. --Ronz (talk) 18:56, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that your and Grayoshi's intentions are to fix problems, which is a very good thing; but because you all cannot communicate successfully with each other, continuing to pursue Badagnani across articles can be interpreted as a form of harassment: "The intended outcome may be to make editing Wikipedia unpleasant for the target, to undermine them, to frighten them, or to discourage them from editing entirely." [emphasis added].

I completely agree that he has various problems, from bad sourcing to OWN; but because of your history together it is not going to be possible for you to be the one to correct his faults. This is what I and the 2 admins at the AN3 thread are trying to get across. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:18, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

This is one of the big disagreements. Just because Badagnani acts with hostility to acceptable editing does not mean that editors should stop making acceptable edits. "The important component of wiki-hounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing, or to the project generally, for no overriding reason."

"because of your history together it is not going to be possible for you to be the one to correct his faults" You're making two incorrect assumptions here, but I don't want to get distracted from the above. --Ronz (talk) 19:33, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

It's been over a week since I made the comments above. Are we done here? --Ronz (talk) 21:01, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I assumed you wanted to ask more questions, due to the thread you started below this. I was waiting for you :)

To reply to the unasked question: The other big disagreements seem to be whether or not all the editing was acceptable or not.

Some of it, like removing Badagnani's invisible  comments (mentioned below), could be considered as aggressive nitpicking (or whatever description you prefer. from "unfriendly" to "tendencious").
Some of it, needs to be considered as a subjective opinion on all our parts. Various editors are disagreeing on which external links can be considered useful, and/or whether they can be considered useable according to our varied guidelines. These are legitimate fine-line/grey-area disagreements. Nobody is clearly in the "right" or "wrong", they just have different perspectives (as can be seen by the numbers of editors taking each side in these scattered disputes).
And then finally, there are Badagnani's unquestionably bad habits, that were being acceptably corrected, like his using a link to a flickr photo, as a ref'd citation.

If we could separate the complaints about the first 2 points, from the complaints about the 3rd point (and just discuss these ones, for now), I think everything could be more easily communicated by all of us.

Aside from that, was there a specific question you wanted answered, or were leading up to? -- Quiddity (talk) 02:09, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I'm unclear or you're just ignoring, "Just because Badagnani acts with hostility to acceptable editing does not mean that editors should stop making acceptable edits." "The important component of wiki-hounding is disruption to another user's own enjoyment of editing, or to the project generally, for no overriding reason." --Ronz (talk) 20:17, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Am I being unclear? The entire reply above, was directly addressing those statements. In grossly condensed form: Some of the editing that Badagnani was reacting with hostility to, was not acceptable editing - Some of the 'corrections' were being made for no overriding reason (or no more than nitpicking). Some of the 'acceptable edits' were subjective.

I'm not sure how to write it any more clearly. Please ask about anything you find specifically unclear or confusing, from my 02:09, 28 May reply. Or explain what kind of result you hope to see result from our conversation? Or ask something specific?? -- Quiddity (talk) 20:42, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

OK. Please note that "acceptable editing" isn't mentioned in WP:HOUND. Badagnani assumes bad faith of others. Please do not support his bad faith assumptions by using WP:HOUND as an attack against others. --Ronz (talk) 01:59, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Badagnani's articles

Trying to start a new topic here, in the hope that we can have a civil discussion. To start, would you agree that he does not understand how to properly verify information in articles with reliable sources? --Ronz (talk) 22:50, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, He sometimes uses poor sources (unreliable or otherwise).

As a related question: Do you agree that not all sentences need sources? And to clarify: Do you agree that articles can exist happily in different stages of development? (This is primarily in regards to David Oei's article, though the ramifications are everywhere. From Language to Special:Random) -- Quiddity (talk) 05:17, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Am I supposed to take these questions seriously? --Ronz (talk) 16:21, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes.

You didn't answer any of the questions about David Oei at the AN3 thread, so I'm trying to clarify where you stand on these matters. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:12, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

If you have to ask, I'm wasting my time. If you want to refactor, or ask different questions, I'm happy to continue. --Ronz (talk) 18:53, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

If the answer is obvious agreement, then skip my questions. Feel free to continue asking more of your own. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:59, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't recall if it was you or Grayoshi, but someone was edit-warring over Badagnani's hidden comments within articles. I just found WP:HIDDEN, which you should be aware of. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:21, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

As you put it before, are we done here? Or do you have more questions to ask? -- Quiddity (talk) 18:34, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Outline grook

Outlines help you find your passion.
 
   They show subjects in an organized fashion.

The Transhumanist 01:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Ha! Glad you liked him. Hopefully I'll find a superegg someday. -- Quiddity (talk) 03:45, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Query

I just wondered why you have never put yourself forward for adminship? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, mostly because I haven't had a major need for the tools, in the tasks I find myself doing. I'm happy to use the editprotected template when warranted (especially with its implicit double-checking/confirming of decisions).

I'd like a couple of the tools (ability to examine deleted content to see if anything can be rescued, and the page-move fixing powers), but have no interest in the blocking/protecting aspects of janitorship. If a limited set of admin tools were ever given out, as has been discussed a few times, I'd happily apply for that.

I checked out Category:Administrative backlog, but don't see any tasks that I'd be particularly suited for helping with (except maybe "requested moves"), so I'm not sure what I'd state as being my reason for needing admin tools. I mainly just edit articles, and try to mediate some communication/perspective issues.

Plus, self-nominations just attract drama! (or they were the last time I paid attention to RfA...)

You've got me contemplating it though... Hmmm.

Were you thinking of any particular task(s) that I could be of assistance with? -- Quiddity (talk) 22:16, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Per WP:NONEED, having a desperate need for the tools is not necessary - even if you were using them once a week, it would still be beneficial. And I dare say you'd find some things that you could help with. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:10, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

My thanks for the suggestion. Currently, I don't have the time I feel is necessary to dedicate to learning what is expected of me, nor the time to handle any 'dramatic' circumstances that may arise. I'd also like to have more experience working on GA/FA articles before becoming an admin. After much thought, I believe I'll reconsider this in the autumn, when flagged revisions is due to arrive, and there is less sunlight to enjoy :) Again, my thanks for the thought. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:38, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Mixed it up a little

Portal:Contents/Outline of knowledge/Technology and applied sciences

Not sure it fits together quite right.

The Transhumanist 17:37, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks great; much clearer than the bracketed setup. Just need to get those top 3 under a heading. "Applied science" seems to fit, and actually, Applied science looks like the stub of an outline (remove all that sub-subheading structure and the unnecessary {main} templates...). Maybe. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:44, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Chocolate?

Where in the OOK should Outline of chocolate go?

The Transhumanist 18:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Culture and the arts: Cooking.

Looks great. I'm glad I have chocolate cookies here, else madness would ensue. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:44, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

LOL. The Transhumanist 17:56, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Bag of holding

So how many years have you been into D&D?

Still play?

The Transhumanist 18:21, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I played a MUD (shadowdale) for about 6 months back in 1997. Heavily. Fond memories, but never to return (not enough hours in the day to do all the nothing I want, to paraphrase someone).

Aside from that, I just like reading the handbooks (spellbooks, monster manuals, DMguides, quest examples, world backgrounds, etc)!

and I still stumble about in NetHack occasionally.

Oh what I would give for a bag of holding, inside a void, contained within a cartoon hole... -- Quiddity (talk) 18:44, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

And yourself? :) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:46, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I've played in several campaigns. And have run several campaigns. Lasting from several months to several years each.

The Transhumanist 23:19, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Docu sig

You are mentioned in a Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct

You are mentioned in a Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct. The Request for Comment page is here. Cirt (talk) 22:19, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Clarification on your wording

I shouldn't need to do this, but an editor is interpreting this wording you introduced differently from other editors' interpretation: see Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Docu#Signatures. Can you explicitly say what you meant by "at least one of those pages must be linked from your signature"? Sorry to bother you with this. -kotra (talk) 20:13, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

It looks like bugs finally made the POINT he was trying to, and someone updated the guideline's wording. Bloody wikilawyers. I again point to WP:ZEN #17 and heave a sigh.

I'm more interested in why docu refuses to add a link, which he never ever seems to explain. Does his keyboard not have a tilde key and does he not have a mouse? That, or any other rational explanation could somewhat account for it.

But I'm not interested enough to read more than a few paragraphs of that rfc and its talkpage.

Blah. Hopefully it can resolve itself without me?

Personally, I believe user-creativity should be mostly restricted to one's own userspace. Signatures should be default, or very close to default in appearance. -- Quiddity (talk) 03:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree, and can totally understand your reluctance to get involved in the wikilawyering. Thanks for your response in any case. -kotra (talk) 20:34, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Outline collaboration #2: Outline of Gibraltar

This outline is approaching completion.

I added a bunch more links, finding them with the following Google site-specific searches of Wikipedia:

"of" and "Gibraltar"

"in" and "Gibraltar"

"for" and "Gibraltar"

with "Gibraltar" not at the end

(You can use the wikicode for the links above as the basis for new searches - just replace "Gibraltar" with any other country or region name).

Request: please redirect the redlinks! (bluelinking...)

The redlinks need to be bluelinked where possible. The most useful way is to create redirects leading to the material (which is usually included in a section of an article - see Wikipedia:Redirect#Redirects to page sections. That way, when the redirect pages are replaced by the actual articles, the links will already point to the right places.

Please take a crack at it, and bluelink a few.

Thank you.

Good luck.

Have fun.

The Transhumanist 01:05, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: on an unrelated matter, where should the Outline of chocolate be placed on the OOK? -TT

Same place I answered above! Culture and the arts: Cooking.

Done :) -- Quiddity (talk) 01:54, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. (I forgot about that thread above - I rely totally on the message alert feature). The Transhumanist 18:01, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Links to categories

Could you point me to the guidelines on these?

I look forward to your reply on my talk page. The Transhumanist 18:01, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any specific guidance. Personally, I add {{maincat}} whenever it is the only appropriate choice (usually as a sub-section hatnote, e.g. Lists of films#Filmographies), but it has less than 100 uses currently, so is obviously not considered a standard, yet. Rarely, I'll add a link to a category from a SeeAlso section. I'd suggest asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories or Wikipedia:FAQ/Categorization for more input, before applying it widely. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:30, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry about that. I don't support their use, especially in lists (including outlines). Especially when pipes are used to make them look like normal links, they defeat the purpose of redlinks. In lists and outlines, which double as development tools, we need to see the gaps in coverage. And we need editors to be able to click on redlinks to create the missing articles!

You see, I've run into this problem: replacing redlinks with category links. And into this potential problem: a stated preference for category links over list links, though not yet implemented. What's next? See User talk:The Transhumanist#Category links (this link is to an anchor).

The Transhumanist 22:28, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Outlines

I've modified Wikipedia:Outlines#Navboxes slightly.

Let me know if we are on the same wavelength.

The Transhumanist 21:52, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I finally got to whack somebody with a trout!

That was fun. :)

The Transhumanist 23:54, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Please post graphics feedback directly to User talk:Penubag. Thank you.

I've moved you to my new "link only" list.

The Transhumanist 01:07, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Oops

Thank you for removing this.

The country outline instructions were originally written as a message to a user. :)

The Transhumanist 01:14, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Go on

I'd like to encourage you to go ahead with it sooner than autumn (no time like the present) and to allay your fears of drama. Of course, you can never predict what will happen at RfA but I see no reason why it shouldn't be a smooth, constructive and enjoyable experience as my own was.

MSGJ would like to nominate you to become an administrator. Please visit Wikipedia:Requests for adminship to see what this process entails, and then contact MSGJ to accept or decline the nomination. A page will then be created for your nomination at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Quiddity. If you accept the nomination, you must state and sign your acceptance. You may also choose to make a statement and/or answer the optional questions to supplement the information your nominator has given. Once you are satisfied with the page, you may post your nomination for discussion, or request that your nominator do so.

Figured you'd want to see this...

Outline of forestry

The author requested feedback on my talk page. I've posted my observations to the outline's talk page, and thought you might want to comment there.

The Transhumanist 19:46, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Interwiki on Infographics

Hello. My removal of the interwiki wasn't related to the advancement of the article Infographie. When I added the interwiki earlier today, it was obvious for me that Information graphics / infographics in English and Infographie in French were the same topic, when in fact they are not: Infographie is a portmanteau word built from informatique (IT) and not from information; the correct interwiki for Infographie would be Computer graphics, which currently has another (wrong) interwiki (Synthèse d'image).

There is actually quite a mess in interwikis in this field (see user:guillom/sandbox where I started an inventory). The correct interwiki for Information graphics would actually be Graphisme d'information which doesn't exist yet and should be renamed from Infographie de presse. Since I am rewriting the French article on Information graphics from scratch, I figured I'd do some reorganizing (and probably some merging too) before changing the interwikis.

Hope that helps! guillom 20:13, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Please refactor

[11] per WP:TALK, WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, etc. Thanks! --Ronz (talk) 19:49, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Like you said: "Working on Wikipedia requires communication between editors". So - don't advise editors to just ignore other editors... Because that would be contradictory!

Thanks! -- Quiddity (talk) 20:07, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:AGF states:

Assuming good faith is a fundamental principle on Wikipedia. Most people try to help the project, not hurt it. If this were false, a project like Wikipedia would be doomed from the beginning.
When disagreement occurs, explain yourself using talk pages, and give others the opportunity to do the same. Consider whether a dispute stems from different perspectives and look for ways to reach consensus.
When others cast doubt on their own good faith, continue to assume good faith yourself where you can. Be civil and follow dispute resolution processes, rather than attacking editors or edit warring with them.
Be careful about citing this principle too aggressively. An exhortation to "Assume Good Faith" can itself be seen as a breach of this very tenet, since it fails to assume the assumption of good faith if the perceived assumption of bad faith is not clear-cut.

This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of contrary evidence. Assuming good faith does not prohibit discussion and criticism, but instead editors should not attribute the actions being criticised to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice.

I think that Badagnani's RfC/U presents ample evidence to justify advising editors to ignore him when he repeats the misbehavior. I'm happy to reword my advise. --Ronz (talk) 20:30, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Could you point me to...

...any guidelines concerning pages like this: Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of knowledge/List of discussions concerning outlines? The Transhumanist 00:19, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Closest thing would probably be Help:Archiving a talk page. Not sure. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:05, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

"if you'd like to volunteer yourself or another admin..."

Happy-melon would like to nominate you to become an administrator. Please visit Wikipedia:Requests for adminship to see what this process entails, and then contact Happy-melon to accept or decline the nomination. A page will then be created for your nomination at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Quiddity. If you accept the nomination, you must state and sign your acceptance. You may also choose to make a statement and/or answer the optional questions to supplement the information your nominator has given. Once you are satisfied with the page, you may post your nomination for discussion, or request that your nominator do so.

I see that Martin has beaten me to it, but you are definitely a Wikipedia who should not not be an admin. As and when you decide to run, I would be honoured to nom or co-nom you. Happy‑melon 22:46, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Thought you might want to see this

I don't have the energy to answer it.

Wikipedia talk:Content forking#"Outlines"

I can't remember where the consensus on the existence of these resides.

The Transhumanist 18:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

That's from May. Watchlist, and add a brief pointer to a "main thread", wherever that is currently!. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Outline article

The hardest thing I'm working on these days is the WP:WPOOKA. (Hardest because the goal is to reference everything included).

RichardF has provided some interesting feedback.

The Transhumanist 20:34, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(infoboxes)#Dispute over single articles having multiple infoboxes - VOTE!!!

Hi! You might be interested in the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(infoboxes)#Dispute over single articles having multiple infoboxes - VOTE!!!. Thank you. Sswonk (talk) 19:46, 15 July 2009 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})

By all means, delete this thread if not concerned, just an FYI. Sswonk (talk) 19:55, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Quiddity, here's a Q for you...

I'm not sure which subsection is the best for Outline of ancient Rome, on WP:OOK.

Which is best? The Transhumanist 01:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Exactly where you put it. Based on Outline_of_classical_studies#Branches_of_classical_studies, if rationale required. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:05, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you kindly for your message, and for your great interest in my work here at Wikipedia. I will be certain to read the page you recommend to me. Best of luck in your own editing endeavors. Badagnani (talk) 06:45, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Controversial move

Sears Tower or Willis Tower, not sure what it will be once I finish typing, or when you read it: a sysop has unilaterally moved the page from Willis to Sears *in the middle of a requested move discussion* - with consensus and voting in opposition to the move, is this warranted? Sswonk (talk) 19:31, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a look. (And thanks for you curlyquote feedback :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:40, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Quick note

User:Garion96 appears to be one of the anti-infobox people, as is User:Tasoskessaris, who made a really childish "contribution" on the Talk:Phil Spector page. We need people like Garion96 as moderating anti-infobox influences, no lie, but Tasoskessaris just seems off the wall to me. - Denimadept (talk) 07:45, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Word lists

-ism and -holism

The previous AfD (in the banner on the talk page) appears to be for the List of isms, which was AfD'd again in 2007, transwikied to Wikt, and then deleted there because there was already a similar list.

Category:Isms has also been deleted.

Practically the same article is in wikt.

I'm about to be logged off, but I can snag a computer for 4 hours tomorrow. I'll see what I can do then.

The Transhumanist 00:54, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

The problem with these is that they present and focus on the word, rather than on the subject. They are dictdefs.

holism will be easy to fix, since it isn't being deleted.

ism should be copied into user space, and then merged with list of isms in a repurposing of both pages.

The Transhumanist 00:00, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Request for feedback: -graphy

I've renamed it to Glossary of graphies, have cleaned it up a bit, and have added it to Portal:Contents/List of glossaries.

I've posted my rationale to its AfD, and I'm notifying everyone involved there.

Please let me know what else needs to be done to the article in order for it to be saved from deletion.

Thank you.

The Transhumanist 23:25, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks muchly for working on this. I'm not sure what else could be done, and just remembered the whole "glossaries vs word lists" debate. I think wolfkeeper intends on cleaning out all the suffix categories, so I'll try and collect any relevant discussions/points when I get some more time. (I'm still on partial wikibreak) -- Quiddity (talk) 20:55, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry I couldn't save the -ism article. The Transhumanist 02:06, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Common sense eludes me

Below is a copy-paste from a post I made almost two weeks ago to the talk of another editor who appears disinterested, so I thought I would run it by you:

I just noticed an error in a Neil Young related article that needs fixing but I can't decide how to solve the problem with a redlink. In The Jades, the sentence at the end of the first history paragraph reads: "It was there that he met Ken Koblun, later to join him in the Esquires, and there that he formed his first band the Jades." The link is piping to The Squires, incorrect, also wrong in the Jades infobox. So, I wanted to fix it but can't decide on a proper redlink title suggestion, i.e. The Squires (Neil Young), The Squires (Canadian band), The Squires (Manitoba band), etc. There is also a dab page to consider, The Squires (disambiguation). Can you please lend a hand and fix this from your more northern, expert perspective? Thanks – Sswonk (talk) 13:23, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I can't find a guideline so maybe you have a common sense solution? Maybe it should have no link at all, or link to the dab page, which itself has an error at the South Wales based entry? No clue. Sswonk (talk) 19:42, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

In this situation, common sense = "use the most WP:COMMONNAME." If the most common use of "The Squires" applies to something other than the subject of the article currently named that, then the name of the current article should be changed, making the name available for whatever subject represents the most common use of the term. The Transhumanist 20:30, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: Come on and join WP:WPOOK, to help develop the WP:OOK. We don't yet have an Outline of rock music. (Hint hint, wink wink). But I like Outline of rock and roll better. Which title should you use?

Enough with the edits! I've had "you have new messages" banners for the last 10 minutes! :P -- Quiddity (talk) 20:50, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Had an episode of OCD. Sorry. :) The Transhumanist 22:50, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Naming_the_specific_topic_articles is the guideline. Of your suggestions, I'd go with The Squires (Manitoba band). Can always be moved later. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:50, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Glossary of philosophy

M-Z is missing. (The TOC doesn't direct there). There should also probably be a link at the end to the M-Z page. The Transhumanist 20:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It's all there, it just sometimes loads badly, with bits missing or pasted in the wrong order. Might be a browser issue. Will be solved by splitting into 2 or 3. I'd split it if I had time to concentrate, but I don't still. :( -- Quiddity (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for letting me know! I will redo some minor things I did in the same edit. --Skizzik^talk 17:49, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

CfD question

Please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 July 25#Category:Spouses of Massachusetts Governors. Per the objections I and Alansohn have raised, I am wondering if a request for closure and then introduction of the reverse rename as CfD is appropriate? Then I would have questions about how to propose a rename of 35 categories to match the "Spouses of Statename governors" pattern. Would that not be a logistical issue or would HotCat easily handle such a mass rename? Sswonk (talk) 14:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Mass-renames are besthandled by WP:Bot requests once consensus has been established somewhere, (asfarasiknow). I've tried to avoid learning the minutae of categories, and afd procedures, so cannot advise on the rest. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:05, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Please refactor

Re: [12] "You're so destructive when you're in a rush to be right all the time", please remove it. Also, I suggest you review WP:NPA, WP:TALK, WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, WP:EL, and WP:BATTLE. --Ronz (talk) 15:12, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

You reverted me [13] without apparently checking out the source link. And now you've reverted a 3rd time[14] (after the original [15]).
Hopefully you didn't revert simply because you saw my username. I do a lot of checking of deletions, eg yesterday I checked this edit, and saw that it removed useful information, and I had time, so added the information to the article and referenced it. I don't always have time, especially when forced to spend time explaining myself to aggressive editors.
There is a difference between insults/attacks and valid criticisms. Instead of wikilawyering, try to collaborate, and try to understand those who are less immediatist than yourself. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:53, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

There are proper ways of presenting valid criticisms, outlined in the links I provided. Failure to do so makes your criticisms and rationalizations appear to be the very wikilawyering that you're so quick to use as an accusation against others.

I don't see the value in the link, and you've not explained what the supposed value might be. Instead, you appear to want to spend time focusing on me instead, in violation of the policies and guidelines I've mentioned. --Ronz (talk) 16:24, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

While I appreciate your attempting at refactoring [16], "Re-reverting me without checking the content of the link is pointlessly destructive" is inappropriate. Your accusation is baseless, wrong, and once again violates the policies and guidelines I already mentioned. Please remove it. --Ronz (talk) 16:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

You either didn't read the link thoroughly, or you lack competence at comparing articles to potential sources. Please try harder. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:12, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Warning by User:Ronz removed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk)

Butting in here, I've removed that warning as it is not appropriate for the circumstances. That said, I don't think anything productive is going to come from you two continuing this discussion, so I suggest you leave it there. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:28, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

As I've already pointed out, you appear to be ignoring WP:NPA, WP:TALK, WP:AGF, WP:CIVIL, WP:EL, and WP:BATTLE. I forgot to mention WP:RS as well. Please learn to Comment on content, not on the contributor. Repeated personal attacks are considered harassment. Repeated disruption of articles and article talk pages with personal attacks may result in your being blocked. --Ronz (talk) 16:11, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I haven't attacked you. I have criticized an aspect of your editing skills. (and in the past I've criticized your communication skills). If you improved both of those you'd be a better editor, and get in less avoidable arguments. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:43, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense. You have chosen, and still choose to focus on me rather than on the dispute at hand. That in itself violates WP:NPA. Further, you make baseless criticisms, and fail to correct or justify them. That also violates WP:NPA. Finally, you use these supposed criticisms as attacks and as means to try to end disputes. --Ronz (talk) 16:15, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Category listings

(this pertains specifically to the edits around xkcd and the categories it falls under, but is a general question.) Wait wait wait, you mean to tell me that as a rule, inclusion in a subcategory means that you should not include a given entry in the broader category as well? Subcategories uniquely and unambiguously identify their members from both top down and bottom up categorical searching? I don't necessarily KNOW that xkcd is a 2000s comic, or a humor comic. That could make it needlessly difficult to track down via category tree exploration. I also can't find any evidence of a consistent style on the subject across the wiki, so if there is a rule to follow here, could you please point it out? Dinobobicus (talk) 21:39, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I find our category system more than a little bewildering...

I had to check what I was remembering, and these are the bits I found:

Last paragraph at Wikipedia:Categorization#The_category_system
which pointed to Wikipedia:Categorization#Duplicate_categorization_rule

I think this is all meant to be being 'fixed', or at least improved, by whatever work is being done on WP:Category intersection. Like flagged revisions, I look forward to learning about it once it has been implemented. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:28, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I did skim the WP:Category intersection page when I was looking for a standard before, though the first time I missed the part where it mentions subcategory inclusion. I don't hold out much hope for category intersection being completed any time soon though, at least not in a way that doesn't require wiki-wide edits to all categories to bring them in line with a new standard. C'est la vie. Dinobobicus (talk) 04:59, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Are these ready to be linked to via hatnotes?

Reasons will help me tackle any problems.

The Transhumanist 01:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Mostly, these outlines are lacking things, such as indented hierarchical structures (much more informative than plain lists), and navbox templates. (I think we should be promoting the use of templates in these outlines. The geography outline handles it perfectly imo - it avoids redundancy, provides built-in error correction and updates, and verifies to some extent the hierarchy displayed in the outline itself.)

For instance, I opened up the first few links of Outline of meteorology, in tabs, and noticed a slew of navboxes that should be included. However, I'd want to check the individual navboxes themselves, whilst editing the outline (eg {{Weathernav}} had no category). And the wikiproject - Wikipedia:WikiProject Meteorology#Core Articles lists things that aren't mentioned in the outline yet, like climate change.

Images would be nice, too.

As I said before, I consider these as wonderful eggs, but I think you're trying to pass them off as a fully grown chicken farm. The intent is good (to get more editors, so that these eggs do become chickens), but the method is not working perfectly. For example, your hatnote's comment says "... it leads to the page that serves as the table of contents for Wikipedia's overall coverage of this subject" but that simply isn't true. It's the ideal future state, that we are striving to achieve, but at this moment in time, it is not the case. Hence, people are getting irritated, and trying to bring some modesty to the proposal.

Basically, I share Arnoutf's position, that for these to be hatnoted, they need to be of superb quality. (Similar to what WhatamIdoing suggests here) -- Quiddity (talk) 22:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

A {{portal}} box might even be more appropriate than a hatlink. (Once they are of a good/great quality). WP:Hatnotes are generally used for disambiguation (title confusions), not for breadcrumb trails. -- Quiddity (talk) 05:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Quiddity, he's at it again

The Transhumanist 19:02, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't have time to look into glossaries today. I'm in the process of gathering evidence for an RfC on Dbachmann. Checking WP:CIVIL, he's committed each of these in an effort to disrupt OOK-related activity:

Rudeness
Insults and name-calling
Judgmental tone in edit summaries (e.g. "snipped rambling crap") or talk-page posts ("that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen")
Gross profanity or indecent suggestions directed at another contributor
Taunting or baiting; deliberately pushing others to the point of breaching civility even if not seeming to commit such a breach themselves
Ridiculing comments from other editors, rather than making serious criticism of them
Lies, including deliberately asserting false information on a discussion page to mislead one or more editors
Making personal attacks, including but not limited to racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious slurs
Using derogatory language towards other contributors or, in general, referring to groups such as social classes, nationalities, ethnic groups, religious groups, or others in a derogatory manner
Feigned incomprehension, "playing dumb"

He's also being directly disruptive moving OOK-related pages, making misleading edits to guidelines, etc.

Previously, he's used tactics such as venue shopping, etc.

I'm not sure if I should compile these in an offline file, or start an RfC draft that others can help build.

Comments?

The Transhumanist 18:12, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Compile online. Transparency is always good. Make offline notes of anything you're unsure of, to come back to a few days later.

I haven't seen an RfC/U work yet. However...

I would hazard a guess that it is partially because the people try to get every single instance of wrongdoing in there.

I'd recommend leaving out anything that is "arguably" subjective.

I'd strongly recommend not mentioning the policy-wording of "racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious slurs" unless there are some seriously egregious examples, otherwise you will get eye-rolling as a reaction. Hyperbole is your enemy.

You want him to understand your perspective, not to indict him. He is your target audience, as much as any outside commenters are.

Basically: be humble, not outraged. And be concise. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, like this?...

Using derogatory language towards other contributors
referring to a group (members of the WP:WPOOK) in a derogatory manner

You haven't seen an RfC/U work yet? Then maybe this is the wrong course of action. I thought it was the proper protocol for enforcing WP:CIVIL, which states: "A pattern of incivility is disruptive and unacceptable, and may result in blocks if it rises to the level of harassment or egregious personal attacks."

A pattern is definitely shown in his behavior. What is the proper protocol for seeking a block? I'll need to know this in case the pattern continues. The Transhumanist 02:35, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe the 2 or 3 rfc/u that I've seen didnt work partially because they were used in an aggressive way. Hence my suggestions. If you try to write it with friendliness than you might get a different response. (The first rule of "AGF" is that one should never mention "AGF". Just act with it in mind. Actually mentioning it is an implicit "accusation" which sends the whole conversation down the wrong path. Lead by example, not by lecture. Type thing.)

(The other reason the past ones didnt work is that the subjects just went on wikibreak or ignored them. But dab is unlikely to do that.)

It is the proper course of action. (if discussing directly with the editor has already failed. If you haven't already, you could try and start a thread discussing just the incivility problems, at his talkpage. Don't mention any content issues, to prevent confusing the issues.). WP:DR also mentions Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts. After those 2 is mediation cabal.

You need to read WP:BLOCK. Especially if you're running for admin again. Nobody is going to block an administrator for such minor infractions of civility. [from one pointofview..] He is just expressing himself badly, and minorly insultingly, and not learning about the context he is discussing thoroughly. Not not not a blockable offense. You both use hyperbole a lot, and have both gotten into an "attack/defense, us/them" mentality. WP:DR is to help break that, on all sides.

Hope that helps. -- Quiddity (talk) 16:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

more Glossary/word lists

See

I don't think he realizes he's throwing these right back into the AfD lion's mouth.

Similar to:

Index listing of suffix titles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3APrefixIndex&prefix=-&namespace=0

The Transhumanist 23:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm.

The page-moves/titles are something I'm not really sure enough about. I can appreciate the perspective that these aren't "glossaries"; Lists of this type should possibly be renamed instead to match the List of English words containing Q not followed by U naming structure. Maybe ask one of the linguistics wikiprojects, if unsure.

The "Index listing of suffix titles" search is listing mostly redirects though, so don't rely too heavily on the apparent bulk there. (Tangentially: I highly recommend the User:Anomie/linkclassifier.js monobook.js addition. It adds color/style to links that are redirects/articles at afd/disambig/etc. I've also tweaked some of its default colors at the end of my User:Quiddity/monobook.css.)

-- Quiddity (talk) 18:52, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Not-ready-for-prime-time

Which outlines do you think should be moved back to draft space for further development?

The Transhumanist 02:49, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

At a glance: Fiction, Performing arts, Sculpture, Calculus, Vehicles, Automobiles, Automation, Energy storage. (I checked less than 1/4 of them).

Basically, anything that could legitimately (and (some might say) more usefully) be replaced by a good footer-navbox. Or in a few cases just merged into their main article.

Some of the outlines are already odd/interesting merges, eg Buddhism seems to be an outline mixed with a glossary. Which I like.

Some of them just shouldn't exist, like energy storage.

For others, like Automation, I'd take an m:incrementalism approach, and not put them in the "light of day" until they are more than stubs, and until their hierarchical-parent-outlines are much more developed.

I know you think they should all be placed in mainspace, so that they can grow faster - that's a legitimate perspective, but it is extreme eventualism, especially considering what these outlines tout themselves as being. I consider myself a strong eventualist. What I think you need to recognize (and where a few of the Outline disputes are arising when you don't), is that we need to live in harmony with the moderate/strong immediatists. Especially considering what these outlines tout themselves as being.

Hopefully that makes sense. (coffeeeee......) -- Quiddity (talk) 17:29, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll look them over. Thank you. The Transhumanist 18:41, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll see if I can improve Outline of fiction immediately, since it is now a parent. See Outline of James Bond. The Transhumanist 18:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The Bond outline strikes me as a terrible idea. It barely lists an iota more than the templates (or the portal). Looks great, but serves (to me) as a bad example of what outlines do not do better than portals. Nice embedded timelines, but this is one instance I'd say that it would be better to merge improvements to the templates, and use the templates and timelines at the portal.

Unrelatedly, , I'd suggest editing at normal speed whilst running RFA. I've noticed you tend to drop everything else to minimal, when running in the past. It creates the wrong impression. -- Quiddity (talk) 06:34, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Main Page proposal

Transcluded discussion

Disambig editing template idea

Disambig js

Disambig editintro vs set index articles

Unintentional spamming

Re: Mysidacea

WikiProject Fryslan

Thanks for responding

Fuckerware party

Shiny

hidden or collapsable sections

Amon Tobin Discography

Categories for problem articles

Rejoice!

Thanks

On deletion

FA graph

Thanks

Amon Tobin

Tobin

foundation-l: What is on the back of the logo?

Muslimgauze

background

John Simon

Get well soon

Confused

EoL template broken

Re: lopado...pterygon

Browserbar

Camptown Races

LibraryThing percents

External links on page Richard Scarry

Escapio

A question about roads

EOL template

Sole primary-sourced information

Thank you, thank you!

Re: Portal:Featured content/Lists needs a maintainer

thanks

Books and Portals

DYK for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility

Further reading

Neil Young

Help on reading if a RfC has consensus

Grumpy without tea

Thank you for the heads up

Jazz standards

Dab

Hello Q, any insights on this for curiosity's sake?

Ben Steinbauer & "Winnebago Man"

talkheader

Color scheme

Glossaries

Nukebot

Hi Quiddity...

Vector

A task for you to look over

Traffic drives improvement

Where to point naysayers

Big science

Noahveil

User:Noahveil

User talk:Delicious carbuncle#Lewis Arquette

Badagnani

Re: Badagnani

Badagnani again

RfCs

Courtesy notice

Please focus on content rather than editors

Removed link

WP:BATTLE

Badagnani's articles

Outline grook

Query

Mixed it up a little

Chocolate?

Bag of holding

Docu sig

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