User talk:Ritchie333/Archive 112

September
Dahlias in Walsdorf;
	"Que?"; I think we're fresh out of Walsdorfs

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Ritchie333. 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 105

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Monster Girl Doctor

Excuse me but my edit to Monster Girl Doctor was in fact constructive as I was correcting misspellings by changing to the official localization meaning the rollback itself that was not constructive. Please undo CLCStudent's rollback and make sure any further revisions actually based on said official localization. 2600:4040:40A3:A800:D54D:89BA:7DC4:7A1A (talk) 23:30, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

I have no idea who's right and who's wrong but I'll assume you're correct. As you have left a note on the talk page, if CLCStudent carries on edit-warring without discussing on the talk page he can be blocked for disruption if required. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:22, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Medical Hypothesis, Discovery & Innovation in Ophthalmology

No consensus, really? There's a lot of comment by a COI editor, but a volume of comments does not make an argument to keep. No sources show any notability in there. There are trivial things from "Possesses an ISSN", "Claims to be indexe in Scopus" (but isn't), and a lot of WP:OR about it's citation trends. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Only three people took part in the near month-long discussion, including your brief suggestion to merge or redirect, which was not commented on by anyone else. That's just not enough participation to be able to make a decision one way or the other. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 08:59, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

A little help needed with "honourary" sources

Hi there! I would need help with a source for the Piccadilly line in the last paragraph of "Modernisation, World War II and Victoria line" section. I unfortunately am unable to find such a source for this interesting information except on blog websites, such as in people's replies in Haringey Online. Since you edited the Victoria line article and a major contributor, I was wondering if you have it. Thank you very much <3 Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 16:15, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

@Vincent60030: I have an excellent source, Mike Horne's The Piccadilly Line. Unfortunately I am having a long weekend spotting Welsh Mountain Sheep so I'm not near it to the moment, but I can have a look when I get home. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:25, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

The issue is, I currently possess this book and failed to find any page containing this information :( But sure two heads are better than one when looking at the same source. Sheeps are interesting in the meantime. Meeeeehhhhhhhh ;) Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 16:53, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Well the Islington Gazette is a reliable source (local newspaper printing local interest story), it might not pass muster at FAC though. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:56, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Too bad the only thing it stated in the source was about it would have been on the Vicky but not about how and why it was oofed. Yes, I would agree it won't make it, and I might get tagged a "citation needed". Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 19:32, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

I know that a test tunnel was built somewhere in the region of Manor House in the late 1950s as part of preparation for the Victoria line, but I don't know of any concrete proposals to transfer Finsbury Park - Cockfosters onto the Victoria. If it's not cited in Horne's book, it might just be worth removing it entirely as pure speculation and guesswork. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:10, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Oh, it's about transferring just Manor House to the Victoria. I'll trim up that bit before I nominate for GA, and I hope to get a reply from LT Museum once it reopens in a couple of days and see what they have in store. Yes, there was a test tunnel built around Manor House for the Vicky. Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 10:31, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't get that. If you transfer Manor House to the Victoria, where's the line going to go after that? Was it planned to be an interchange station along with Finsbury Park? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:33, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

It was disputed. I assume that if Manor House is transferred, Victoria line will receive new platforms there, while the Piccadilly tracks will be rebuilt to be straighter to Turnpike Lane. The other was that Manor House would have cross-platform interchange for trains travelling opposite directions to be at the same level. Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 12:34, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

AfD

Regarding your closure of this AfD, would you mind explaining the rationale behind your decision? Thanks. – ².O.^Boxing 19:58, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Basically, nobody agreed with you that the article should be deleted. While AfD is not a vote, everyone who suggested to keep the article gave reasoned arguments, with particular reference to suggesting that the improvements made by HuntGroup showed that the article could be kept and improved further. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 20:02, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

The first argument is from an editor that appeared to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the notability guidelines (suggesting NBOX "conveys automatic notability") and failed to establish GNG; the second was an editor that clearly lacks any understanding of notability guidelines and failed to establish GNG; the third was an editor who demonstrated a lack of any understanding of NBOX, incorrectly assumed GNG had been met with the improvements (clearly didn't examine the references) and failed to provide sources to establish GNG; and the fourth, well, their argument was that the subject is black and notability guidelines "exhibit white privilege", so we should give him a pass lol I think the improvements made by HuntGroup (adding the only references that I could find in my own searches before nominating) confirms the individual fails to satisfy GNG; if there was significant coverage in multiple sources then logic says they would have been added during their improvements. If GNG hasn't been established and NBOX is a fail, then...I don't know, I'm confused lol – ².O.^Boxing 20:39, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Don't shoot me, I'm only the closing admin. Unfortunately, I can only go with the arguments presented to me, and if nobody agrees with your views, then there can't be a consensus. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:03, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

I understand you can only go by the arguments, but a little investigation shows the arguments to be invalid; all arguments that the subject satisfies NBOX couldn't have been more wrong, that's not even debatable; the sole argument that he satisfies GNG is the finding of this single source with minimal significant coverage (the only source with significant coverage that I could find in my searches before nominating). Are you saying that single source is enough for GNG? – ².O.^Boxing 11:23, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

If you are still unhappy about the quality of arguments, I can reverse the closure and relist the AfD for a further week to strengthen consensus. Would you like me to do this? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 12:36, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

How does that work? Is the original discussion relisted or a fresh discussion started? If the former, is there a note that is added explaining the relist or do I leave a general comment at the bottom with my rationale for contesting the closure? Sorry, I didn't even know relisting was an option. – ².O.^Boxing 13:47, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

The process is basically reverting this edit and replacing it with the appropriate relist tags, then adding it to the rolling AfD logs. It will then act like the AfD was relisted in the first place and there will be a further week to discuss issues. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 13:52, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) in effect, the current closed discussion will be continued on the same page. If re-opened, I will be ivoting Keep -Roxy the inedible dog . wooF 14:07, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

@Roxy the dog: Can I ask what would motivate your keep vote? Is the single source with minimal significant coverage really enough to satisfy GNG? – ².O.^Boxing 14:21, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

You can, but on the AfD please, my talk page is the wrong place. The AfD is now relisted for another week. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 14:24, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

September

I like today's Main page, with the TFA on the anniversary day (of both dedication and our concert), a DYK, and a great photographer who didn't make it soon enough, Jürgen Schadeberg, - more on my talk, mostly about the tribute to Brian who shared his sources. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:08, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Well that sounds a whole lot better than what I've been up to, which appears to have been to cause even Ealdgyth to throw her arms up in despair about the Great Infobox Feud .... the sad thing is, I'd sometimes like to have a reasoned and civil discussion about them in certain articles; for example, I took out the extra image in North Circular Road because I think the map is probably the most useful one to show the reader, and a shorter box stops images lower down getting squashed. I think my favourite infobox addition is still the one I did on Hammond organ here and here, which gives a whole load of "pazazz" to the article and makes it much more inviting to the reader .... however, as long as we have entrenched positions over the mere existence of them, I might as well be shouting in the wind :-( Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 22:14, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

I hope you were one of the 50k+ who looked at the TFA article, and 3.5k ITN! I write for readers, and am content with content. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:16, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

I did read Peanuts Gallery and imagined Charlie Brown crying out to anyone who would listen, "Does anyone here know the meaning of Wikipedia?", to which Linus Van Pelt comes forward, quoting The Five Commandments, concluding "that's what Wikipedia is all about." Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 09:04, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Great ;) - I thought of the 10 commandments SBHB left us before, just today. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:02, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

I was just thinking of Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy per your comment at the DYK. I recall a review once that said something like "Any one of these guitarists would have been good in any hard rock or metal band, but integrated with Lynott's songwriting and passion made a real difference". Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 13:55, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

"passion made a real difference" is great, - thank you! If ANI is the Great Dismal Swamp, what is AE? Can the infamous DS even be applied for a discussion that isn't about the topic? Collapsing information that is meant to be seen at a glance is a ~~strange~~ kafkaesque concept, which would take substantial arguments to defend, no? I don't plan to take part, but tell me when aspersions get worse. So far I take the accusations to welcome and thank-click users on a daily basis as a compliment. I really try to welcome every red-link user who appears on my watchlist and made a constructive edit, regardless which topic, - everybody can check that out. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:44, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Gerda Arendt, ah, here you are again, still not talking about infoboxes or the shit storms that follow in their wake. Cassianto^Talk 15:47, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

noise reduction

I am watching the discussion which I am not meant to name because someone would say 'canvassing', and (of all subtle incivilities there) the header "noise reduction" (which is not neutral but belittles the comments of an opponent, imho) hit me as the most offensive. You took the one who changed it to more neutral to WP:AE, and the user left. I confess that I had silently hoped that the small print above,, and/or the detailed analysis by Levivich, might have caused you to realize that the victim was accused. What can you do to make that right?

What can we do? I'd say stop arguing about infoboxes, everybody. (And here it wasn't even infobox, only its collapsing, - and blaming editors who don't want to accept a bad compromise as 'unwilling to compromise' also hit me). If - as some suggest - we need another arb case, this is notice that I tried. I hope we don't. Back to music. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:34, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Gerda Arendt, but you never talk about it, Gerda? Cassianto^Talk 07:42, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

it being what? I talk about injustice. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:49, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Gerda Arendt, great, then I'll expect to see you along at AE to stick up for ScroCat and tell Barkeep to wind his neck in? Also, while we're both here, what are your thoughts on this, which had a "silent consensus" not to include a box, but now has one, despite the creator not wanting one? Cassianto^Talk 09:30, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I won't go to AE. I was there, one of the most unpleasant memories around here. I try to avoid a link. I don't wish AE, or any sanctions for that matter, to anybody. If you have questions for me, please ask your talk or mine. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:34, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Gerda Arendt, no, of course you won't. Nicely skirted around the Snaresbrook Crown Court infobox uncomfortableness. Why am I not surprised? Cassianto^Talk 20:37, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

The best was to reduce noise is to remain silent. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:22, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Gerda Arendt, do you mean like our admins do (present company excluded)? That's what has caused the problem. Cassianto^Talk 16:41, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

My thoughts are - the article's not in too bad a shape, but more can be retrieved from the Historic England reference; I've added a bit about the late 19th-century extensions when it was still an orphanage. The London Encyclopedia isn't much help; its entire coverage of the building on p. 843 is one and a half sentences long. I haven't checked the Survey of London yet. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 09:51, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Good work. Would you mind sorting out the bloody Coords? I've moved them out of the box to where they should be, just above it, and have deleted the horrible repetition inside the box. I've tried, but they're not having it. Cheers Cassianto^Talk 20:54, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Should be sorted now. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:10, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Ritchie333, there certainly was not that much detail on the HE website when I wrote this article. I see there was an entry amendment in December 2019 so I shall go through it and see if there is anything else to add. Cassianto^Talk 11:08, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

There is a small amount of detail at the end of A History of the County of Essex, but I'm not sure it gives us anything that's not already in the article. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 11:12, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Ritchie333, I'll go with that. The two buildings within the grounds, I see, were recently listed, namely the Gatekeeper's Lodge and former swimming pool, hence why HE, presumably, decided to expand on the Crown Court. Cassianto^Talk 15:49, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Trae Coyle

It looks like someone has already wiped the edit history of the article you just draftified - can you restore it, I'd like to see how the article was when it was deleted. Nfitz (talk) 21:36, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Nfitz: I think the history is all there - GiantSnowman did a history merge. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 12:31, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Ah yes ... I think I was looking at the wrong thing. Ugh, what a mess. But it seems to be there! Thanks. Nfitz (talk) 14:42, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Nfitz, please AGF. This is the version that was draftified. I did say there was an existing draft but nobody paid attention... Giant Snowman 14:57, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

What a complete and total waste of time. I have no idea why User:Ritchie333 didn't keep it open for another week, and GS, needs to stop creating drafts in hidden space, rather than in draft space where people are flagged when they try and create an article. Nfitz (talk) 03:45, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Maypole in the Strand

On 8 September 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Maypole in the Strand, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the Maypole in the Strand ended up being Isaac Newton's telescope stand? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Maypole in the Strand. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Maypole in the Strand), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 8

An automated process has detected that you recently added links to disambiguation pages.

Still in Love with You (Thin Lizzy song)

added a link pointing to Brian Robertson

Thin Lizzy

added a link pointing to Brian Downey

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 07:30, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Gary Moore

On 9 September 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Gary Moore, which you recently nominated. The fact was ... that Gary Moore bought Peter Green's Gibson Les Paul for around £100? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Gary Moore. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, daily totals), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cwmhiraeth (talk) 00:02, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Your Rhodes Work Is Noticed

Hi Ritchie, A poster on the Electric Piano forum left this accolade for your Wikipedia Rhodes editing: "Hi Fender Benders,

      Just happened to check Wikipedia's description of "Fender Rhodes" and thought it was well done and just a good brief overall take on it. Wonder if there are any errors in the description you Rhodes wizards know of. Here I hope is a working link to it...."

Best wishes Docrobbie (talk) 00:13, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Do you have a link? There have been problems in the past where people have complained about the article, but not supplied reliable sources to back up their viewpoint. While it's possible for a generally reliable source to be wrong, without first-hand evidence to the contrary, it's difficult to affect change. It isn't the first time I've seen an article I improved to GA mentioned on the internet; a rail forum said something nice about Broad Street railway station (England) once too. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:33, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

DAVA Foods

It needs to say what's notable, buddy. Sticking a tag on asking someone else to translate the content from Danish doesn't make the article pass A7.—S Marshall T/C 16:23, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

According to the Danish version of the article, it's responsible for the manufacturing and distribution of eggs in about half of Denmark. The Danish version of the article also cites a major outbreak of Salmonella at one of their plants in 2014, which was covered in multiple news sources. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:35, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Sure, but, our version of the article is A7able. If anyone wants to carry out a proper translation of the Danish article then I would welcome that. However, Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English is extremely backlogged and the likely timeframe for a translation is many years.—S Marshall T/C 18:01, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

It isn't A7able - see Wikipedia:Common claims of significance or importance. You can try nominating it at AfD if you think we shouldn't have an article. However, there has never been a policy that says just because an article is a bare stub or otherwise poor, it should be deleted. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:16, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Ritchie and {{ping|S Marshall)) I only realised after I'd spent an age wrestling a workable article out of the Danish (which has separate overlapping histories and timelines as well as broken refs, although it isn't their fault that one of the latter turned out to be one of those newspapers that will only show you the article after you do a new search on their website, so my ref may well also show as broken) that this was created with the foul WMF tool, which was probably why it only consisted of the intro as it must then have been. By then I was so steamed from copy-pasting in a dozen "In lang" templates because they took away the "icon" templates that I could remember, and then search-replacing "dk" with "da" because it isn't one of the examples and the page the template documentation links to isn't a list, that I marched over to the creator's talk page and told them in strong terms not to use a machine translation tool here again, having not noticed that was 2015 when a lot of innocents were using the WMF's foul tool. So, a test case for one of the 2 types of articles that produced, the other being the enormous screed requiring word by word checking that was best treated by stubbing. I'm glad the AfD hadn't gone to deletion rationales based on its being a business by the time I put in the time. I would like to say, bring any of these in either Germanic languages or French to me first, but I have throttled back my activity to under 100 edits, so I daren't even look at PNT. And these things do take a lot of work: I still have to track down the most recent figures I can get on turnover and number of employees, put in the pic of the HQ and the Commons category, and see whether any of the 2020 news is fit to include. And I'm supposed to be spending most of my time on something non-Wikipedia! Anyway, thanks both, and sorry to tread on your toes, S Marshall; they can't all be fixed and some are not only inadequate articles but wrong. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:19, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

You certainly haven't trodden on any toes: I welcome the help and am pleased to bump into you again. I'd bring you stuff to work on if the original editor had made a real effort, but when they've spent twenty seconds using automated tools and then given up and abandoned it, I'd much rather not waste any of your limited volunteering time that you could spend writing interesting articles about the Old Norse. Although, ideally, I'd want the content written properly, I'll settle for deleted until that happens.—S Marshall T/C 17:27, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

I think we'd all like Wikipedia articles to be written to a sufficient length and quality, but the reality is that in a volunteer led project where any paid editing is considered intrinsically evil (as opposed to paid spamming, which is what people actually object to), you just have to hope in good faith that the problems will somehow get fixed. It's a core part of the deletion policy : "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page"; and in this specific instance I thought I would improve the article a little bit (given my knowledge of the egg industry and Danish is scant) in the hope that would encourage others to give it go (which it did). It is possible to delete completely unsalvageable articles that nobody has bothered to do anything with at AfD, but only on a case by case basis. I could also make an argument that unilaterally deleting everything in Category:Unreferenced BLPs is an improvement to the quality of the encyclopedia, but I don't believe such an action would survive scrutiny, and possibly end up with a trip to the Dramaboards. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:39, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

You'd get a strong endorse from me. But there are unique concerns and special guidelines about the articles created with that tool, which are documented at WP:AN/CXT; they had their own special speedy deletion criterion which I personally deprecated earlier this year.—S Marshall T/C 10:51, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I like your comment "Machine translations are dangerous because as well as producing horrible Yoda-speak that's incredibly time consuming to clean up, they can also misrepresent or even invert the meaning of the original text." For example, Google Translate transfers "Portez ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume" (a very well-known French pangram) as "Take that old whiskey to the blonde smoking judge"; to me, that might imply that somebody has set the judge alight and some mad anarchist wants to tip a bottle of whiskey on him to finish the poor fellow off, presumably in the hopes that the first-degree murder won't get traced back to him. As an anecdote to the pitfalls of translation, a long time ago I wanted to translate "she kissed him when he left" into French - and looking up "to kiss" in a French dictionary should give you "baiser" and "embrasser". Well, the latter sounds like "embrace", so the other word must be the platonic version, so I used that. No, that's completely wrong - the correct French is "Elle l'a embrassé quand il est parti" - replace "embrassé" with "baisé" in Google Translate and judge for yourself! Anyway, I digress. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:59, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Indeed; and French is one of the easy ones. Google translate does well with it, except false friends and possessive pronouns; it does much worse with non-Indo-European languages. And lots of people speak French (including Yngvadottir and me). The problems with Chinese, for example, are formidable. There's a story about someone who translated "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" into Russian and back, and got "The vodka is strong but the meat is rotten".—S Marshall T/C 13:17, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Machine translation also can't handle inflected languages, and drops not only enclitics such as the Scandinavian enclitic definite article but, frequently, negative particles. Apparently they are not AI-based at all, but specialised searches with very occasional human improvement to the database; and the WMF didn't even use Google Translate but an inferior rival. Thanks for the barnstar, Ritchie, but I'm still kind of embarrassed; I'd entirely missed that it was created with that "tool", and it serves as a good example, especially since in the meantime our standards on companies have ratcheted up to the point where being a market leader (especially in a non-English-speaking region) is no longer enough and any press source is challenged at AfD, and the Danish article is so badly organised and makes such heavy use of primary sources that it obscures the facts of notability. The creator is focussed on Hadsund, particularly on businesses there, and edited the Danish article both before and after starting the English one: this is what the Danish looked like then, he translated the start and end of the intro, and made the same change to an unreferenced start date in both versions shortly thereafter. (He'd also first rewritten the article with the company having closed and then moved it to the new name.) So I regret the vehemence of my message on his talk page because the penny hadn't dropped that he did this in 2015 when the "tool" had not been deprecated, but this is a good example of one of the two kinds of damage inflicted on the encyclopaedia by the WMF encouraging machine translations, the other being the huge screed with unknown defects and/or incomprehensibility. And despite my fundamental inclusionism and my horror at how hostile and bad faith we now are about articles on companies, I remain in agreement that these bad translations should have been deleted back then if they hadn't been checked and improved.
On unreferenced BLPs, has there been a change? I thought they were to be BLP-PRODded and that that's the one kind of PROD that gets reinstated if it was removed without addressing the issue? Looking at the category, I found the comprehensive list and picked one at random: Baki Davrak. I see the German article is identical except that it has two German-language external links, one of which is a newspaper article that looks great, but appears to be solidly paywalled (I didn't check Wayback), whereas ours has only IMDb (probably someone thought we only accepted English-language sources), and it was "no-footnotes" instead of unsourced until 12 April 2019. Have we decided that IMDb doesn't count? To the best of my knowledge we have explicitly decided that an external link was sufficient, it didn't have to be a footnote. But if IMDb alone doesn't count as a source to make a BLP not unreferenced (and I would expect an RfC on the issue, because we accept a raft of sports databases), then that change needs to be advertised and a mass BLP-PROD needs to take place. If not, I think a bot needs to run to change "BLP unreferenced" to "BLP sources" (or whatever that got moved to—way, way too much mucking about changing templates in this place, we don't all go around with Twinkle and AWB in our hip pockets) where an external link is present. Because unreferenced BLPs are supposed to be sourced or deleted pronto and I remember the tail end of a huge effort to expunge them after they were outlawed. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:20, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

What does sometimes get my goat is when you get AfDs like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DJ Wich, which didn't get deleted because one editor found sources .... and didn't put them in the article, so it's still tagged as an "unreferenced BLP" and prone to deletion regardless. I'm not always great at this, because if the article I've found sources for isn't in my area of expertise, I'm concerned I'll make it worse by trying to bolt sourced information onto it. Still, I do always at least try to give it a go. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 22:29, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Gah, BLP matters, I dropped everything and did what I could for that. You are an admin and you haven't had the interruptions to your wiki-career that I have; can you find out whether policy has changed either on the urgency of deleting genuine unreferenced BLPs—like that one!—or on acceptance of an IMDb external link alone? Maybe bother Iridescent about it if you don't know? Maybe S Marshall knows, with all his work at deletion review. I'm quite rattled after seeing that category. Yngvadottir (talk) 23:47, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

The significant changes are removing the grandfather clause (previously unreferenced BLPs prior to March 2010 couldn't be BLP PRODded, now they can) and this RfC which concluded "There is a strong consensus to oppose the proposal that articles with only references to Internet Movie Database be made eligible for WP:BLPPROD." Perhaps I should pick a couple of the more egregious examples and PROD them to see what happens - it's not disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point if your actions are intended to improve the encyclopedia in good faith. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 07:20, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

That category is going to be a headache to empty because each one will need looking at to see if it's unreferenced because of vandalism or other bad faith. I would like to finish off emptying my sandbox of the remaining 1200 shitty cxt translations, then spend some time actually writing content; the idea of working through another Augean backlog makes me slightly nauseous.—S Marshall T/C 11:02, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Oooooh yes; that may be the first time I've suggested a bot. We have been having a heatwave and I have only just got my morning coffee at noon, so I may be a bit befuddled, but if I read Ritchie aright, a loophole on date was tightened some time ago and a proposal to ignore an IMDb external reference (or footnote) when judging a BLP to be unreferenced was solidly rejected, so that edit to Baki Davrak was wrong; plus it's in any case procedurally wrong to tag a BLP as unreferenced rather than BLP-PROD it. So the effect is to mask the renewed presence on the encyclopedia of generally unreferenced BLPs, like DJ Wich was. And those are emergencies. I believe we need a bot to run to flip "BLP unreferenced" (back) to "BLP sources" (or whatever) where there is an external link, plus possibly a note somewhere reminding people that an external link to a source counts. It may in fact be just one or two editors making that change to "unsourced", because we do rightly give the fish-eye to IMDb in other ways. I thought I was nuts—we lost a significant number of articles, and a lot of people worked hard adding sources to biographies to save them—but it is admittedly possible that I'm misinterpreting current policy. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:25, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I've gone through a bunch this evening. Some of them I dumped a source in (I know I shouldn't use bare URLs but ... meh). Some of them had sources but weren't inline, so I changed the tag, although I can't help feeling that's just shifting the problem sideways. I've sent one to AfD as it superficially looks notable but my google-fu completely failed me when looking for sources. Having said all that, dropping a single source in verifying the person exists might get the backlog reduced quicker, but doesn't really resolve the main issue that we've got a whole bunch of potentially libellous articles sitting around that nobody (broadly construed) can be really bothered to do anything about. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 21:02, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for that work. I wish I could help. I'm biting my tongue because of BEANS, as I do regarding Wikidata, but I can't help comparing that massive push 10 years ago or so and thinking that a bot run plus some sort of effort to reach editors who are mistagging is the way to reveal the genuine ones by clearing the others out. I can't believe there are actually many truly unsourced BLPs, but I admit that I've been proved overly optimistic before and that I can think of a few ways they may have arisen. Yngvadottir (talk) 23:18, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I think if I can gather together a suitable list, the Women in Red crowd (wave to Rosiestep and Megalibrarygirl) should be able to tackle the unsourced women BLPs between them. That'll at least get us some of the way there. Certainly there's more that can be done to source Danielle Masters properly. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 12:48, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

If someone develops a list of unsourced women BLPs and shares it here with Women in Red, there will be editors interested in working on these biographies. Also, please provide the list to Women in Green as it focuses on article improvement. (waving at SusunW) --Rosiestep (talk) 17:51, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I do try to help with BLPs but my preference is to never touch them. If you need me, I am happy to try, just let me know. SusunW (talk) 18:20, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLP script

@Rosiestep and SusunW: Okay, I have knocked up a script that tries to identify unreferenced women BLPs by the incredibly basic heuristic that if the article has a category containing the word "woman", "female" or "actress", it should be listed. The output is at User:Ritchie333/Unreferenced women BLPs; can you have a quick look and check it all looks correct and what you'd expect to see? At the moment it's hand-cranked but I suppose Galobtter or one of the other techies wants to run with the code, it could be automated. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:49, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

... flippin' heck what on earth is Pui Fan Lee doing in that list? I recall her reading bedtime stories to my kids on CBeebies and being banged up in a women's prison with Bridget Jones. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 19:08, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why anyone would write a biography of a living person without references. What I notice about most of them, (I've quickly pulled up a dozen), is that they are all in some field of entertainment—acting, singing, sport. None of which I know much about. But, perhaps posting it on WiR folks will hop in and try to help clear it. SusunW (talk) 19:18, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I would speculate that that's because those in academia immediately have a reliable source which is to the university or college website confirming their post, making this sort of scenario unlikely. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 20:26, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

The thing is, most of those, like the men and those who eschew gender, probably have external links. (I see three on Pui Fan Lee.) Is it possible for you to code a script that finds BLPs tagged as unreferenced that have external links, or just contain the word "External"? Those should all be re-tagged BLP-refimprove or BLP-nofootnotes (I still think the former is more to the point), and a human can then scan them for only having an external link to Wikipedia itself, to the subject's Facebook or other personal page (except that faculty pages are often invaluable), or to Wikia; but the urgent need in my view is to get them out of the unreferenced category and find and deal with the genuinely unreferenced ones that they are masking. Not that improvement is bad, and not that there aren't probably urgent things lurking in some of the wrongly tagged bios (indeed we just had a report of serious misrepresentation in a BLP with sources), but we need that category to only contain the completely unreferenced ones so that they can be immediately dealt with (and incidentally, to dissuade people from creating them). Yngvadottir (talk) 20:01, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm having a look now. One of the problems is a lot of those biographies embed certain links within templates, such as Steve Lawson (American football) who according to my script has no citations or links whatsoever, but in fact does. Or Simon Bowes-Lyon, 19th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne which has a single plain-text source "Burke's Peerage". Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 20:26, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I've dumped that out to User:Ritchie333/Unreferenced and unlinked BLPs; they're all unreferenced BLPs (according to the tag) with no "external links" section. It's less than 1 in 5 of the total. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 20:36, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, that helped! And since I was up early today, I fixed one up a bit (turned out to be pre-2010). There are more than I expected :-( Yngvadottir (talk) 21:57, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I've looked at some of the American footballers, and BLP-PRODed them. They all look possibly non-notable, and were mostly created by a couple of long gone users. Joseph2302 (talk) 22:50, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Joseph2302: I've looked at a couple of those you tagged, and they all had the problem Ritchie mentioned above in reference to, for examople, Steve Lawson (American football), one or two external links to a stats site but embedded in the infobox so there is no "External links" section for the tool to pick up. Those I looked at met the standard for that sport, and I see at least some you PRODded someone has now updated the external link that formerly went to a search page. So that's good, but where there is actually an external link, the article shouldn't be in the unreferenced BLP category and is contributing to masking those that should be. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:10, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Ritchie, for creating the list and for adding it here so that other editors are aware of it. I'm not a tech guru so I don't know if the list will self-update or not? If not, I hope someone creates a bot for it. BTW, I added a ref to the Jolita Herlyn BLP, so I'll remove her from this list (User:Ritchie333/Unreferenced and unlinked BLPs); note, as her article didn't have a "woman" cat, she didn't appear on this list (User:Ritchie333/Unreferenced women BLPs). --Rosiestep (talk) 00:52, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing those, Rosie. I've just done an update; it appears BattyBot did a whole bunch of tagging last night and there's been an explosion of new entries :-/ The script doesn't automatically update; to cut a long story short anyone can write an anonymous script to read Wikipedia, but to write to it, you need a bot and have to go through the authorisation process. So instead, my script writes the output to a local file, and I cut and paste that onto the page. It's the simplest thing that could possibly work. Of course, if somebody wants to take the code and integrate it into their existing bot, that's great too. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:44, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Shirt58's law, do ya?

Hi, Ritchie333.

Sure, why not! I have written a ~~commemorative ode~~, a ~~Limerick (poetry)~~, some doggerel in support.

There once was admin named Peter
Whose Lim'ricks most often kept meter
A previous law
His essay foresaw
Use "we" on a page?- we'll delete ya

Also: mostly off-topic-but-why-not link to Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah

Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 10:49, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

You can get into a "bit of bother" for posting links like that. Still, Wikipedia:Shirt58's Law is now a page, now we just need to add some well-place humour courtesy of Mr Funnybones himself. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 11:55, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Earl's Court tube station

On 9 September 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Earl's Court tube station, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that a one-legged engineer rode the escalators at Earl's Court tube station on their first day of operation to reassure passengers of their safety? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Earl's Court tube station. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Earl's Court tube station), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:02, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Yohoho, we've made it to today years old with 109 years on our hands. Time flies. Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 14:52, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Recently Deleted E. Javier Loya

Hello I was working on behalf of a client for the recently deleted page of E. Javier Loya

The page was deleted for copyright issues, however all the material was provided by the client including copy.

I was hoping restore the page and I can re-write the copy in my own word or possibly move it to a draft page?

I didn't have enough time to contest the speedy deletion because it was night time when the tag was created, and the page was deleted before I woke upMespar20 (talk) 16:04, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Hello? Mespar20 (talk) 08:03, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

@Mespar20: Yes, I was out until 1am last night. Now, would you take your car to be serviced by someone who did not know how to change the oil and filters and change brake pads? Would you pay for someone to design an extension on your house who wasn't a registered member of the Royal Institute of British Architects? So, why on earth would somebody pay someone else to write a Wikipedia article who didn't have a thorough and professional-level understanding of core policies? Please give the client their money back. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:03, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Curious Question

Hi Ritchie! I always wonder whether a tracklist of an album should have its details included in an article before its release, even when the celebrity has already revealed on Twitter. Just out today, Mariah Carey revealed her Rarities album tracklist on her Twitter account, but it's not exactly a reliable source to me. Someone decided to add the tracklist but I am a little softhearted to revert it. Need your wise advice, thank you!

PS: If you didn't fancy the bubble tea I have delivered, here's a pint of red wine. :3 Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 14:31, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Vincent60030: I'm not sure, most of the articles of this nature I've worked on are about albums that have been released for, well, decades. I would say until the actual album is released, you shouldn't add a track listing as it might change. In some way, it's an extension to WP:HAMMER.

Thank you for the wine, I don't suppose next time you could send a bottle? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 17:16, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I should have brought a bigger one, AHHAHHAHAH. I'm too lazy at the moment to revert and all 'cause of the influx that's happening after Mariah's announcement, but thank you! Cheers Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 18:31, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

You know you can get wine flat packed? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 21:19, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to pass you another glass for watching well over Autobahnkirche Siegerland while I was out, - nice stats, almost 10k. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:10, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Dang, that's something new to my dictionary! I'll check that out when I'm not underaged (soon) :D Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 08:35, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

In the UK, a 15-year old can legally drink a glass of wine in a private household. The age limit is based on licensed sales.[1] Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:36, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

As things progress, I've tried reflecting upon my attempts here, here, here and here, where I was told to revert as BADNACS. I agree that I should have been more careful with timings, and for the first link, I should have waited for more opinions but I am now unsure whether I should continue attempting to do NACs. I know I still can participate by commenting, but I feel a bit contradictory that if I can't do NACs without following a strict timeframe, it defeats the purpose of being efficient in terms of discussions progressing. Hopefully I can get some enlightenment, and to find out whether I have any misconceptions from a wise big mop holder, old chap :D Cheers Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 14:50, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

(Captain obvious notes: I have checked the articles and sources available before closing them)

Personal opinion - non-admins should not be closing AfDs. You may have noticed I have put forward a lot of requests for adminship and nominate candidates on a regular basis, and this is one of (several) reasons. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:12, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Ah great to hear this. Thank you! :D Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 11:42, 13 September 2020 (UTC)


spirale of justice