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New Page Review - newsletter No.3

Hello SmokeyJoe,

Voting for coordinators has now begun HERE and will continue through/to 23:59 UTC Monday 06 March. Please be sure to vote. Any registered, confirmed editor can vote. Nominations are now closed.

Still a MASSIVE backlog

We now have 803 New Page Reviewers but despite numerous appeals for help, the backlog has NOT been significantly reduced.
If you asked for the New Page Reviewer right, please consider investing a bit of time - every little helps preventing spam and trash entering the mainspace and Google when the 'NO_INDEX' tags expire.


Discuss this newsletter here. If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:35, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Ascar123. As you mentioned at the DRV for Lilah Parsons that the nom could be an SPA and a DUCK, you may wish to have a say in this SPI case about the Class455 (talk|stand clear of the doors!) 18:50, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Pages in ThinkLord's user space

Don't call me a liar. The lists are obviously incorrect. DrKay (talk) 22:07, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

New requested move

Have you seen [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Incorporation_of_Tibet_into_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China#Requested_move_13_March_2017 this new requested moveA ri gi bod (talk) 14:48, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Old Norse

On the page for it to be redirected, I believe Vanjageije had redirected it, despite no majority in the verdict. Can you please check this out? Thanks, Schwiiz (talk) 15:38, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Consider taking up JavaScript

You're familiar with HTML.

You've been exposed to CSS.

The 3rd core web technology is JavaScript.

Might as well. ;) The Transhumanist 19:44, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

P.S.: One way to familiar yourself with the lingo is to join Wikipedia:WikiProject JavaScript, and start rating the quality of articles on their talk pages with the WikiProject tag. You could rate them based on how easy they are to understand.

rant

also[edit] apparently you see no merit in those whose ancestors were here before yours, but any time you wish to debate me on this, I stand ready to answer anything you wish to throw at me, becuz', I'm not as stupid as you are. Bring it, I will stand firm and answer your bullshit arguments with the facts, which you wish to ignore. Tell me how Columbus was a hero and had a day named for him, how some curly haired blond racist was visciously killed by savage indians, how set upon soldiers killed women and children becuz' they feared for their lives. Shit, let's not go back that far, what happened to the cop that shot michael brown? or the cops that killed Shamir Rice? (Or the Baltimore cops, can I not go any further?) Give me the right not to blow your shit out of the water. I dare Ya! Bring it!108.6.113.75 (talk) 01:33, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

you don't have any clue

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We-Chank-Wash-ta-don-pee We-Chank-Wash-ta-don-pee — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.6.113.75 (talk) 01:47, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

A tag has been placed on Queensland Law Society requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a company, corporation or organization, but it does not credibly indicate how or why the subject is important or significant: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such articles may be deleted at any time. Please read more about what is generally accepted as notable.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator. TheSandDoctor (talk) 06:17, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Why do you keep saying an non-RM RFC should have been appealed at WP:MR?

You keep suggesting I should have used MR but MR is for reviewing RMs. There was no RM discussion to review. The previous discussion was an RFC not even advertised at RM. Why are you suggestion MR for reviewing it? --В²C 02:36, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

WP:MR is a review forum, explicitly for reviewing page moves. The RfC resulted in a page move, so it obviously fits. The RfC should have been advertised at WP:RM, I think we agree, and for this reason I would support re-opening the RfC for at least a week with formal listing at WP:RM.
An RfC is a fairly high level forum, higher than RM. For this reason, it is not normal to seek to use the RM process to reverse the RfC close. If the RM were to start to look like succeeding, I think it would need to be listed and advertised as an RfC to be considered valid. Alternatively, or additionally, it would be a good idea to notify all participants of the preceding RfC of the formal challenge. However, I hold my first point, your multi-page RM should be closed as too soon, and your complaint about the RfC, which I would support, should be listed at WP:MR. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:22, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
As many of your postions and arguments, this is a novel one. This is what it says at the top of WP:MR:

Move review is a process designed to formally discuss and evaluate a contested close of a requested move (RM) discussion to determine if the close was reasonable, or whether it was inconsistent with the spirit and intent of Wikipedia common practice, policies, or guidelines.

I suspect an attempt to use MR to review a non-RM RFC would be objected-to on pretty solid procedural grounds. MR is not for reviewing page moves. For example, if someone moves a page, you don't go to MR to review it. MR is for reviewing closes of WP:RM discussions. Using it to review the close of an RFC that resulted in a page move makes some sense of course, but that would be a first, I'm sure. --В²C 21:38, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
В²C. Novel ideas are the best ideas. I think it is a very good idea. RfC closes, and merge closes, and other closes, lack a place for formal review. At the moment there is the option of appeal at WP:AN, and I think it serves poorly. Consider commenting at Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_review#Proposal_to_begin_hosting_.22merge_reviews.22_on_this_page or at the referenced thread at WT:MR. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:38, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
This was probably not the ideal situation in which to be exploring a new frontier... --В²C 23:06, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Bullets/indents

Funny thing about bulletting and indenting on WP. If you have:

  • single bullet
indent with two colons - this breaks the next line which uses two bullets
    • double bullet

It generates two bullets which is unlikely what is desired. So to fix this you need to adjust the previous line:

  • single bullet
    indent with bullet followed by colon still renders without a bullet but doesn't mess up following line any more.
    • double bullet now renders as single indented bullet

The key is to not use N bullets (where N > 1) on a line unless you have at least N - 1 bullets on the preceding line.

Make sense? Here are some related fixes I just did: [1] [2] --В²C 19:31, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Reminder[3] . --В²C 16:05, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
Actually, the problem in that case was the blank lines I think. Like this:
  • one bullet. fine.
    • two bullets. Should be good
      • three is fine.
        • Here is four. it should be good except because of the blank line it will render all four bullets. You can fix this by either going with three colons and one asterisk (which is what I did), or getting rid of the blank lines. See below for both examples. Note that the blank line doesn't render anyway.
  • one bullet. fine.
    • two bullets. Should be good
      • three is fine.
        • Here is four with no preceding blank line.
  • one bullet. fine.
    • two bullets. Should be good
      • three is fine.
  • Here is four WITH preceding blank line, but used three colons and only one asterisk instead of four asterisks.

--В²C 16:11, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Questions

Hi. I believe you have asserted in the past that New York (with its capital in Albany) was named for New York City? But per such sources as[4][5] [6], the entire Dutch Colony (New Netherland) was named New York at the time it was awarded to the Duke of York (who was also Duke of Albany), and the city also changed names near the same time. The state thereafter carried its colonial name as all states did. So, two questions, do you argue that one is named after the other, and if so why? Do you have sources, I can look at? Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:59, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

  • Alanscottwalker, thanks for the question and the three sources. I drew entirely from Wikipedia articles and references in the articles. I didn't keep notes. My recollection is that the articles and references were consistent with these three references. What strongly influenced me is the wider understanding that in the 17th century, reference to the "colony" was essentially a reference to the place that is now the city, that place then containing a settlement. Also, the wider land claims of that colony include mostly unsettled land, and the boundaries were very different to the later defined boundaries of the earliest map of the equivalent of the state of New York.
Map of the Province of New York, 1664-1777
Particular reading included the articles: History of New York City, History of New York State, and Province of New York and the map of the Province of New York, 1664-1777.
In other words, the very early settlement known as New York was well defined, but New York, Province of New York, which was not well-defined due to having contested borders and claims on vast unsettled/unconquered lands, did not even exist as the "State of New York" until 1776.
I am confident, surmising, that in 1670 (see History_of_New_York_City#British_and_revolution:_1664.E2.80.931783 (oh how I do't like funny dashes)), that any specific reference to "New York" meant the main city of the settlement of the couple of thousand colonialists. In other words, in 1760, New York City was the PrimaryTopic of New York. Not quite hard and fast, but good enough for me, until persuaded otherwise. Now, this is only with regards to the question of whether one derives from the other. I surmise that NYS derived from NYC, overlooking that both "state" and "city" were not then applicable. Also very important is current usage. Personal experience, both without and outside the USA, is that reference to New York is assumed to be to the city, that within New York, reference to the state is explicit, "New York state" or "upstate New York" or "Long Island", and I very strongly expect that in upstate New York, references to "New York" imply the city. So, I find it all consistent for NYC being the PT of NY.
Admittedly, this is loose and casual scholarship, and I am open to other opinions, and at Talk:New_York/Proposed_move#NYC_as_PT I think I have made myself clear that if it is not agreed that NYS is the PT of NY, I will not object to the dab page being moved to the basename.
Also to be clear, if NYC is the PT of NY, I do not support moving NYC to NY, but having NY redirect to NYC. NYC is the correct title of NYC. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:10, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. My purpose was not to discuss anything beyond history, not wiki-politics. Both the city and the state were named for the Duke of York, one was not named after the other, they were both named for the same person. And it is wrong to say the only part of settlement was at Manhattan, both the Dutch and the later English had colonists in multiple places in the colony, especially up the Hudson River Valley and out Long Island - eg. the first source I gave you discusses all the land and tenant farmers of the patroons in the Hudson Valley and how that effected the entire colony (also settlement at Albany preceded Manhattan}. The map clearly has New York where the state is, so New York is where the state is. If you go by boundary fixing not naming, the state also fixed its boundaries first. Upstate New York is in contrast to Downstate New York not the city, and is at any rate, directional by the compass up is north, down is south - the city is in southern New York (and, if someone says they are from Long Island, New York, they are calling the state New York, not the city). If you somehow just want to go by the revolution, New York declared itself a state, taking the name of the entire Province, and that did not even happen in Manhattan, it happened in the Hudson Valley. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:05, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
I don't dispute any of the facts you present, although downstate New York is new to me, and I have never heard anyone refer to Long Island, New York, just Long Island. Both in the USA and outside, Long Island is very well known. I prefer to refer to ~1670, not the revolution. It is my reading of history that the Province of New York was named after the province's main settlement. Maybe the history can be read differently by others, but that is my reading. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
OK. I guess I would just observe that contested history leads to agreement problems. I should perhaps add some additional things about up and down -- up was in former times often connected river flow (eg., Upper Egypt), here the Hudson flows north to south, and up, higher elevation away from the Ocean, as in Upland South/Upper South. Thanks, again, for the talk. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:43, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Indenting

You said I reset my dot point because I was not replying to your 01:02, 18 May 2017 post. [7]

I'm confused... the edit that introduced the mixed indents was this one. How did the bullets help? Andrewa (talk) 08:21, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

PS and off-topic but related... would you mind if I linked to #Questions above from Wikipedia:List of New York City and New York State move discussion page sections#Current discussions? The points you make there are very likely to be relevant to further discussion. Andrewa (talk) 08:27, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

  • Certainly do feel free to copy Alanscottwalker's conversation, or point of it. I would encourage you to. I think the NYC always has been PT for NY, even before it was a city. If I can be persuaded otherwise, then I will agree there is only one path forward. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:17, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
    • There are at least three paths forward:
      • The RM to put the DAB at the base name
      • An alternative RM to point New York to the city, either as article name or primary redirect
      • An RfC on whether NYC is PT
    • They are all good paths, but the first is IMO the best, for reasons I have (just) given here. Andrewa (talk) 17:45, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Shortcuts

Re: "User:SMcCandlish, aren't you excessively bluelinking shouty shortcuts at the expense of English comprehensibility? Bamboozling by jargon?" No, I'm compressing a much longer rationale, covered in that RM's Extended Discussion section, into a one-line !vote. I know you don't like shortcuts for some reason, but they exist and we use them for real reasons. The main ones are that it saves a tremendous amount of typing and reading time, and that editors participating in processes like RM are largely already aware of what these pages are and do not appreciate being browbeaten as if they just started editing yesterday. (Someone who really did just start isn't competent yet to meaningfully participate in an RM like that anyway, and will do nothing but ILIKEIT or mistaken arguments, or both.)

Would you really have wanted me to write the full wikilink names of every policy/guideline and section being referenced? And explain in situ why I was citing them? Surely not. There would be essentially no difference between that and the Extended Discussion material post, which I specifically directed people to for details at the end of my !vote. We're not supposed to post huge rationale analyses in the !voting section; it's a form of what Wikipedia:Don't bludgeon the process (which I'm giving as a full title just for you, instead of WP:BLUDGEON) warns against.

PS: Please check your civility level. Using "bamboozling" with a link to Confidence trick is twice-over an accusation of bad faith without evidence, and directly contradicted by the thoughtful analysis I provided in the discussion section, which you indicated you didn't read anyway. Makes me wonder why you commented at all, other that to just stick it so someone again for using shortcuts. Not helpful, and not what RM discussions are for.
 — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  16:34, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

  • User:SMcCandlish, I know you have a sense of humour, you could let it out more. I was attempting an angle of humour, I know I am not very good at it. You made an impressively long and organised and logical post on that page, and the best I could manage in passing was a facetious comment. I fully intended to come back and read you seriously, and was not happy to see the discussion closed so soon after. Would you mind pinging me from where the discussion moves to. I promise to respond more seriously and respectfully. Of course you are not attempting a confidence trick. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:55, 10 May 2017 (UTC
Ah, okay. Sorry if I was overreacting.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  17:59, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

New Page Review - Newsletter No.4

Hello SmokeyJoe,

Since rolling out the right in November, just 6 months ago, we now have 803 reviewers, but the backlog is still mysteriously growing fast. If every reviewer did just 55 reviews, the 22,000 backlog would be gone, in a flash, schwoop, just like that!

But do remember: Rather than speed, quality and depth of patrolling and the use of correct CSD criteria are essential to good reviewing. Do not over-tag. Make use of the message feature to let the creator know about your maintenance tags. See the tutorial again HERE. Get help HERE.

Stay up to date with recent new page developments and have your say, read THIS PAGE.


If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, go here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:42, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
Hurrah!!! SBanerjee (talk) 00:23, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for checking in.

I appreciated your note on my user talk page. I am trying not to pay attention to draftspace issues, really I am, but I don't understand what is going on here: [8] and here [9]. I now understand the strong concern some editors have about self-promotion in draftspace articles, but is this really the way they are supposed to be tagged and/or discussed? Newimpartial (talk) 12:30, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes its called collaboration. Page is in Draft space and my tags accurately reflect my concerns with the page. If you want to CSD or MfD that page go ahead. You could also try to fix the issues, but I doubt the topic will pass GNG and no amount of polishing the article will help that. Legacypac (talk) 16:46, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

You are invited to join the discussion at Category talk:Stale userspace drafts. North America1000 01:43, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

CSD tagging

Given I've CSDed thousands of pages, of course there are a few that don't get accepted. "A quick random check of contributions reveals a lot of tagging and some bad tagging"

1. [10] Mdd blanked the page here [11]. I tagged based on that. No idea how the Admin knows they don't want it deleted. Normally blanking is a sign to delete.

2. [12] Neelix redirect to what appeared to be a middle name. Dozens of middle name redirects were CSD'd and I successfully tagged thousands of other Neelix redirects for speedy deletion. This one had a very surprising outcome at RfD because the guy has a very unique African middle name.

3. [13] I quickly reversed by own CSD tag when I spotted something I'd missed. Another editor then CSD'd it but that was declined. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maly_Keres&action=history

4. [14] Admin disagreed over the page being a problem. So what, people disagree on Wikipedia all the time. Same Admin has accepted scores of other CSDs from me. Hope that helps. Legacypac (talk) 06:10, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank-you so much for helping me finally figure out my User:Legacypac/CSD_log. It is a great tool for catching recreations or detaggers. Legacypac (talk) 08:12, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

  • Legacypac, I'm glad. The log has multiple uses, for you yourself, and for anyone checking in with what you are doing. As a non-admin, I cannot see your valid CSD taggings, and so any review of your CSD tagging contributions is seriously flawed.
Some people seem to find you a bit in-their-face, and obnoxious. I suspect that this happens, because you can be caustic in responses to criticism that you find absurd and stupid. That makes for a pattern for serious runaway out-of-control behaviours. I am very pleased to see that the patterns are turning back to normalcy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:22, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

I've specialized in mastering rules and requirements to maximize whatever the desired result is thru my whole life, from blowing thru school to get out early, working in real estate development which is ALL about knowing law and policy (and marketing of course), and hobbies like extreme travel point collecting and extreme coupon shopping - I try to know the rules better than those who administer them. I'm always trying to identify and learn from my mistakes. So yes, some people's abusive attitudes annoy me. Especially annoying is false allegations I don't follow the rules. Legacypac (talk) 03:04, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Regarding MfD

Thank you for the heads up on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:International Radio Club of America. I have withdrawn the nomination and agree that G13 should be extended and voted for that (if I recall correctly) however never did learn the outcome. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 00:36, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

RM: Hijra (South Asia) → Hijra (transgender group)

You recently participated in a move request discussion at Talk:Hegira. I have now proposed one of the suggested moves independently. Please it discuss at Talk:Hijra (South Asia) if you care. —  AjaxSmack  00:51, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Difference between constructive checking and hounding

You and most others are most welcome to check my edits. I occasionally make a mistake and occasionally someone may disagree with my judgement call. What is not welcome is hounding from an editor who pushed me so hard I quit editing completely for many months, is hell bent on driving me off the site, and who I've repeatedly warned to stop stalking me. You are only encouraging him is the delusion that he broke no rule. Legacypac (talk) 01:54, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi Legacypac. We all have our issues. I could describe yours, I could describe his. A good thing to say about you is that you are getting things done. A good thing to say about Godsy is he is very attentive to little details. I think a good way forward was asking him to desist with unimportant edits, edits that make it look like he wants his name following on from nearly every recent edit of yours. I think that point is well taken without needing it repeated.
I almost welcomed you back when I say you returned, with a note to say that the block you were given ("gravedancing, perpetuating a feud,") was mind-boggling to me. I could not work it out, and had no idea Godsy was involved. It is entirely possible that there is a whole lot of things I am unaware of, but to my perspective, there is a lack of persuasive evidence behind everyone's complaints.
On your edits, and moves, it is my current impression that your proportion of mistakes and disagreeable judgement calls is impressively low. I see you have having adjusted well your decisions following long past criticisms, meaning that any new criticism of you needs to cite recent activity, and recent complaints at ANI failed to do so. Feel free to let me know of ongoing behaviours that you feel are harassment or unfairly persecuting. Using email might be good, as public voicing of perceived harassment is often exacerbating of the problem. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:16, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

I feel like I'm clogging up MfD - but on the plus side I cleared a 1200 page CSD13 elegible backlog, and I'm finding a bunch more that are not properly added to the G13 elegible list. Also chipping away at the 1800 page AfC pending review list. Legacypac (talk) 04:15, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

I think MfD is currently doing OK. What got me bothered was when there was so much being fed in that it was getting to the end without review, and many were deserving of "keep" consideration, and some people were arguing to soft delete every unopposed delete request, and then came wholesale relisting, which to me is like saying "the digestive tract is not working, things are coming through untouched, let's connect the anus back to the mouth, that will fix it". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:31, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Considering all the noise and extreme scrutiny, you may find this interesting: User:Legacypac/Promotions Legacypac (talk) 06:44, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

  • I do. I think you are doing a very good job. If all of your mainspace promotions were accepted long term, then I would say you were erring on the side of caution. "85% survival rate as of June 2017"? Not bad. I suggested that you should aim for 90% I think. Your activity level causes people some angst. You make them nervous. You should expect them to be jittery. I continue to think you should welcome any editors reviewing, proofing, and correcting, and at 90% correct, they should welcome your efforts.
Personally, I think most of the community has strayed too far in the direction of meta:Immediatism. It causes everything to go too slow. It means the rejection of the efforts of too many volunteers. However, it is not up there with our biggest problems, which are spam, and undisclosed paid editing. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:53, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
I've been fishing in pretty poor waters to find those 112 pages - same pools where I've done 1600+ CSDs and who knows how many MfDs and blankings. I'm planning to tackle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:AfC_postponed_G13 where there is a bunch of higher quality stuff to fix and promote. Legacypac (talk) 08:17, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

B4 clarification

A clarification to WP:UP/RFC2016 § B4 has been proposed. You participated in that discussion; your input is welcome at Wikipedia:User pages/RfC for stale drafts policy restructuring/B4 clarification. Thanks, — Godsy (TALKCONT) 16:02, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

A look at the underlying agenda here is enlightening. He is only concerned with pages I handled. He needs a new hobby. Legacypac (talk) 05:16, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

MfD, etc.

I hear you re NMFD and previous interaction history. So your suggestion would be to seek consensus at Wikipedia talk:Drafts to harden the language at NMFD, prescribing speedy closure on such nominations? VQuakr (talk) 01:45, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

  • "harden the language at NMFD"? No, my suggestion is to seek consensus at WT:MfD that MfD nominations that solely speak to a question of notability should be speedy closed. Anyone who wants to be able to ask randon notability questions should instead seek to un-archive Wikipedia:Notability/Noticeboard, not destroy other forums with multiple out-of-scope very difficult questions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:59, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
That makes more sense, thanks for clarifying! VQuakr (talk) 03:01, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

ANI

No template for you, but you've been served (or at least, pinged/asked for input). Primefac (talk) 02:48, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

As you participated in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive957#Proposal: One-way IBAN on Godsy towards Legacypac, you may be interested in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Proposing IBAN between Godsy and Legacypac. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 03:16, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Demo

I'm going to take a few minutes and do a friendly demo for you. I'm interested in your feedback. Legacypac (talk) 19:05, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Legacypac, I am probably less sensitive to this, being less aware of what happens around me. However, I noticed you in unusual places for you, where I have been active. It was slightly disconcerting, as in disturbing to my sense of place and orientation, messed my head a little. Then I noted that you must have followed me, as you appeared, made some noise but without any depth of contribution to the immediate conversation. Like being followed by a little kid who wants to be chummy. Would you like us to be chums? I would be OK with that, I have never disliked you, but clearly if I did dislike you this would be extremely disturbing. I have never been stalked, but this line of thinking hints to me at just how serious is can feel to the stalkee. I appreciate that you are willing for draft page management actions by yourself to be scrutinized, but still find it disturbing if there is a stalker doing it. I think this is very real to you, even while Godsy fails to see himself as doing anything wrong. As I said at ANI, "It reminds me of the new cat that follows the old cat until the old cat goes nuts and runs away." --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:23, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
I never even replied to or commented on anything you did, or typed one word about you SmokeyJoe. I'm not sure where you are from, but we are all already celebrating Canada's 150th Birthday here (July 1) so have a beer my friend. Legacypac (talk) 02:45, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
I will, thank you! You even added a source for the road to Mount Gargash? That is pretty good for a stalking edit. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:49, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Did you put this edit in the wrong discussion? Seems a bit off. [15] Legacypac (talk) 03:46, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

It is straying into pre-empting unlikely hypotheticals. I don't sense sockpuppetry, but then again, there is a lot of weirdness. Godsy did appear as a sudden clueful account around the time of creation of Ricky's sockpuppets, and his harassment of you has some similarities to his sockpuppet's harassment of himself. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:23, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
I wondered what happened to Ricky. He was a good Admin dedicated to cleanup. I will not comment further. Legacypac (talk) 05:11, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
Ricky was caught socking to troll himself. I was suspecting that the Ricky trolls were a close relative or work colleague. I had been confused by my inability to have ongoing rationale conversation with him. Once caught, all Ricky accounts on all sites went silent. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:21, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your latest comments on the case. My thinking has moved the same way. Speaking very generally, if you see a fence at a cliff that says "don't cross the fence", and you decide to dance on top of the fence, you may be technically not breaking the "don't cross" rule but it is only a matter of time...

I believe you are following the WP:ACTRIAL situation. When/if that rolls out I'm expecting a surge in drafts and userspace attack/spam/nonsense etc. It's still going to be less than the current flow of junk into mainspace, but draft & userspace management requirements will go up. There are still hundreds of such serious problem pages in User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report, where everything is over 6 months old already. Any ideas on how to tackle that issue? Legacypac (talk) 10:15, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

I stopped following the NPP ACTRIAL threads. Too many parallel threads and old characters I am not up to speed with, and some curious friction between volunteers and WMF staff. I am waiting for an announcement, or a decision. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:26, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Ya there is conflict there that's beyond my paygrade. It looks like WMF decided to try ACTRIAL but unclear when or under what measurement framework. Legacypac (talk) 11:43, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer Newsletter

Hello SmokeyJoe, thank you for your efforts reviewing new pages!

Backlog update:

  • The new page backlog is currently at 18,511 pages. We have worked hard to decrease from over 22,000, but more hard work is needed! Please consider reviewing even just a few pages a a day.
  • Some editors are committing to work specifically on patrolling new pages on 15 July. If you have not reviewed new pages in a while, this might be a good time to be involved. Please remember that quality of patrolling is more important than quantity, that the speedy deletion criteria should be followed strictly, and that ovetagging for minor issues should be avoided.

Technology update:

  • Several requests have been put into Phabractor to increase usability of the New Pages Feed and the Page Curation toolbar. For more details or to suggest improvements go to Wikipedia:Page Curation/Suggested improvements
  • The tutorial has been updated to include links to the following useful userscripts. If you were not aware of them, they could be useful in your efforts reviewing new pages:

General project update:


If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, go here. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:48, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Tagging drafts - BOLD question

I can't think of any reason why creating promising and nonstarter tags, posting them to a few dozen (non-AfC) stale drafts as a process demonstration would be a problem to anyone. What do you think? VQuakr (talk) 21:26, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Cool! I know at MfD you expressed little enthusiasm for participating in WP:MassivelyOverlongDraftRfC2017, but your continued input would be welcome if offered. VQuakr (talk) 21:50, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Did I? Did I miss it? Did it not hit my radar? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:10, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
No, what I meant to write was participating in development of a hypothetical future one. Sorry for the ambiguity! VQuakr (talk) 22:14, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Try it. Experimenting may lead to a good idea. A downside to tagging a hopeless draft as hopeless is it makes the draft "not stale" for another 6+ months which takes it off the radar for 6 months. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Legacypac (talkcontribs)
Yes, I was planning to avoid touching AfC drafts since they are already managed. AfC members would be rightly annoyed if someone spammed a "this is hopeless" template on every 5.5 month-old submission. VQuakr (talk) 03:11, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report over 6,000 pages to experiment on. Many should be CSD'd so be prepared. Legacypac (talk) 11:42, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
If a CSD applies, it is good to tag them. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:19, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

RfA

Thanks for supporting my run for administrator. I am honored and grateful. ) Cullen328 Let's discuss it 06:29, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

G13 RfC

What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
For having the balls to propose the G13 extension when I know you feel frustrated and aggravated by the entire MfD/abandoned drafts process. You did what the rest of us were too timid to go through with, and so far it looks like the community agrees with you 100%. Thank you. ♠PMC(talk) 20:36, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi. To me this seems bizarre but on the RM where you opposed the Chilean's accent proof of personal preference has been requested. Please see https://www.facebook.com/garinofficial/ Cheers In ictu oculi (talk) 15:02, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion

SmokeyJoe, it seems that you are the only editor from the previous discussion about moving the Genderqueer article who doesn't know about the current move discussion. I state this because others already know about it either via a recent WP:LGBT discussion or because they have the article on their watchlist. SSTflyer from the previous discussion is now Feminist, for example. Others who were involved before seem not to want to weigh in this time. Anyway, I'm letting you know of the current discussion in case you do want to weigh in on it again; it's at Talk:Genderqueer#Requested move 1 August 2017. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:24, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Two things

First, have the NPP draftification guidelines been finalized? Second, re: ACTRIAL and drafts/AFC, ideally you are correct that the landing page flow would send more people to edit stubs or other articles that need improving (I think building from a stub is actually the easiest way to get involved). Whether or not we close off draft space to new users is a tricky question. I don't think the community would get behind it, and I don't know how we would test for it in the trial in order to include data in it for the post-trial RfC. If you do have thoughts on that it might be worth mentioning what you think should be tested at WP:ACTRIAL or WT:ACTRIAL (and if you have and I missed them I apologize. So many conversations about this in different places.) TonyBallioni (talk) 01:15, 27 July 2017 (UTC)


> have the NPP draftification guidelines been finalized?

  • No, but I think the preliminary discussion at WT:NPP has concluded. The guidelines now need an RfC at WT:Drafts, and implementing the documentation at WT:Drafts. Probably simultaneously, although care is needed, because in these things, a small technical problem can see people !vote "oppose".

> Whether or not we close off draft space to new users is a tricky question.

  • I am sitting sort of quietly in support of shutting off DraftSpace new page creation to non-confirmed users. I have mentioned it several times in passing, with little comment in response. I expect it to be a good idea, and as far as it is a good idea, it should be pursued separately to using it as opposition of expansion of G13. Newcomers should be expected to be further along the learning curve enough that they can comprehend that DraftSpace is not for leaving things forever.

> I don't think the community would get behind it,

  • That is to be discovered, but I think they will. Inviting newcomers to go straight into writing new draft pages on new topics in draftspace off-radar to normal editors is doing them a great disservice. No new topic should be written up as an orphan, which is what is required by Wikipedia:Cross-namespace redirects, and I definitely am not in support of allowing mainspace to link to draftspace. In fact, I now wonder, should a requirement for a new topic draft be that it has at least one mainspace redlink?

> I don't know how we would test for it in the trial

  • I think the ACTRIAL test results will apply broadly. Does requiring autoconfirmed to create a page result in better new pages? (hope so). Does it result in less new page? (to be expected) Does it result in less good new pages? If it is shown that requiring autoconfirmed is good for newcomers contributing, then I think the same conclusion applies equally in draftspace.

I don't think any of this needs mentioning, and I would fear it being a complication. I want to see the results of ACTRIAL and review all positions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:29, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed response. I always appreciate your thoughtfullness. All are very good points. I actually do my absolute best to stay out of draft space except for a bit of work I do with AfC once in a blue moon to know what the other side of the coin to NPP looks like. I tend to support commonsense ways of dealing with problems involving the crap that ends up there, but also don't have strong opinions myself on it, so I wouldn't be the one to propose extending the confirmed restriction to it myself. I trust those who work there to explain to me what needs to happen (like you just did). All the best, TonyBallioni (talk) 02:34, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, but note that I don't actually work there. I consider efforts in AfC to be on average wasted. I think the value of its successes is well below the cost of volunteer time to respond to the poor stuff, but that's just quietly, none of us should decide on how others should best volunteer their time. I more worry that AfC does damage to the newcomers who use it. I have seen evidence in the history of rejected submissions sent to MfD, as well as seeing real life newcomers' enthusiasm rapidly evaporate mostly due to lack of interaction on their never-submitted draft. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:55, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Regarding drafts

Hi there. Tony mentioned on my talk page that you are working on a guideline proposal for draftifying. Not having seen any such discussion at WT:Drafts, I started a discussion at VPPR but if you have already some ideas on how to word it, it would be great if you could share them with editors there. While it seems that a majority is in favor of unilateral draftification, even a number of those editors agree that some kind of guideline would be useful. Regards SoWhy 05:54, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer Newsletter

Hello SmokeyJoe, thank you for your efforts reviewing new pages!

Backlog update:

  • The new page backlog is currently at 16,991 pages. We have worked hard to decrease from over 22,000, but more hard work is needed! Please consider reviewing even just a few pages a a day.

Technology update:

  • Rentier has created a NPP browser in WMF Labs that allows you to search new unreviewed pages using keywords and categories.

General project update:

  • The Wikimedia Foundation Community Tech team is working with the community to implement the autoconfirmed article creation trial. The trial is currently set to start on 7 September 2017, pending final approval of the technical features.
  • Please remember to focus on the quality of review: correct tagging of articles and not tagbombing are important. Searching for potential copyright violations is also important, and it can be aided by Earwig's Copyvio Detector, which can be added to your toolbar for ease of use with this user script.
  • To keep up with the latest conversation on New Pages Patrol or to ask questions, you can go to Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers and add it to your watchlist.

If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, go here. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:33, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The No Spam Barnstar
For having the guts to propose expanding G13 to cover all drafts. It worked! Thank-you. Legacypac (talk) 04:21, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

So it happened!? Good. The least worst way, and far better than the status quo. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:22, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Menorca or Minorca?

You have recently participated in a discussion of the title of the Minorca/Menorca article. A move request discussion concerning the issue is currently open at Talk:Minorca if you care to participate. —  AjaxSmack  21:25, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer Newsletter

Hello SmokeyJoe, thank you for your efforts reviewing new pages!

Backlog update:

  • The new page backlog is currently at 14304 pages. We have worked hard to decrease from over 22,000, but more hard work is needed! Please consider reviewing even just a few pages a day.
  • Currently there are 532 pages in the backlog that were created by non-autoconfirmed users before WP:ACTRIAL. The NPP project is undertaking a drive to clear these pages from the backlog before they hit the 90 day Google index point. Please consider reviewing a few today!

Technology update:

  • The Wikimedia Foundation is currently working on creating a new filter for page curation that will allow new page patrollers to filter by extended confirmed status. For more information see: T175225

General project update:

  • On 14 September 2017 the English Wikipedia began the autoconfirmed article creation trial. For a six month period, creation of articles in the mainspace of the English Wikipedia will be restricted to users with autoconfirmed status. New users who attempt article creation will now be redirected to a newly designed landing page.
  • Before clicking on a reference or external link while reviewing a page, please be careful that the site looks trustworthy. If you have a question about the safety of clicking on a link, it is better not to click on it.
  • To keep up with the latest conversation on New Pages Patrol or to ask questions, you can go to Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers and add it to your watchlist.

If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, go here. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:16, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

I've been away for a week, so didn't get a chance to respond to you on the page itself. However, I would say I am puzzled as to your comment "Necrothesp is so completely wrong. Mary I of England is rarely called "Mary Tudor", being "Queen Mary" or "Mary the First"". I don't know where you come from or how old you are, but certainly when I was growing up (in England), if one said "Mary Tudor" one was invariably referring to Mary I. In fact, that was by far the most common name by which she was known to my parents' and grandparents' generation. And while I would call her Mary I, she's still the first person I would think of if the name Mary Tudor was mentioned. While that doesn't appear to be quite so common any more, to say she is rarely known by this name is certainly not true. Just to clarify my position. Cheers. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:48, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

  • "Invariably"? That suggests complete unawareness of her aunt. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:41, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
    • Not really, given the Queen is much better known. If one meant her aunt one would specify her. If one did not, one invariably meant the Queen. That, in my experience, is generally how the English language works. Just as saying "the Queen" today without qualification invariably means Queen Elizabeth II but does not suggest complete unawareness of any other queen or saying "Prince George" without qualification invariably means the third in line to the throne but does not suggest complete unawareness of the many other Prince Georges. It merely means we assume the listener knows who we're talking about. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:15, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
      • I think much more weight should be placed on contemporary terms, names used at the time, names to be found in the primary documents, and with an aversion to modern fiction. The Duchess of Suffolk was not known as that, and the future queen was an illegitimised teenage princess when the daughter of Henry Tudor died. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:32, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
        • Not sure I ever mentioned fiction. I referred to common name. And that was, I can assure you, Mary Tudor. Maybe not so much now, but certainly well within living memory (I'm not that old!). I'm merely pointing out that your claim that she is rarely known by that name and that I am "so completely wrong" is incorrect. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:37, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
          • No, you didn't mention fiction, or merge her with her older sister. Background stuff that annoys me, not you, not your fault, excuse my bouts of grumpiness please. Experience must vary, I have never known "Mary Tudor" to refer exclusively, or even by default, to the second Mary named after the first. But then, I studied them in chronological order. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:46, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Draftifying old articles.

You summed up the discussion at WT:New pages patrol#Clarification and guidance for draftification by saying WP:Drafts should be updated "Old pages should be draftified via AfD". This wasn't disputed nor was it done(!). I feel rather strongly that this should be in the information page in some form, particularly after the fiasco at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket/Archive 82#Draftification of over 500 cricket biographies (were you aware of this?). By the way, I succeeded in getting page creation date added to User:JJMC89 bot/report/Draftifications/daily which I check most days. Thincat (talk) 18:21, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree, it should be done. Should "Old pages" be altered to read "Reviewed pages"? Should draftification of reviewed pages be allowed via PROD? I would think so. Using the term "reviewed", under the scope of Wikipedia:New pages patrol, will raise the question of who may "unreview". I think this is no big deal, but needs doing. Any New Page Reviewer may unreview a page reviewed by another NPReviewer, but doing so is an overt assertion that the first reviewer was mistaken or wrong to marked it reviewed, and probably this action should be logged on a page, probably Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:30, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Why "Old"? Insufficently developed for mainspace might be a better term. We tend to draftify a variety of pages for a variety of reasons - but Old is not one of them. Legacypac (talk) 01:54, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
The "old" language derives from the "new" in "New Page Review". New page reviewers review new pages. The drafted draftifying rule will be that only an accredited New Page Reviewer, includes all admins, may unilaterally draftify any page as part of the NPR process. However, some pages get "old" before being reviewed, and some reviewed pages are still "new", so I am thinking to abandon the "old"/"new" terms in favour of "reviewed"/"unreviewed".
"Insufficiently developed for mainspace"? No. That is so subjective. Could you, for example, write the criteria for "Insufficiently developed for mainspace"? Compare with the existing well-known immediatiatism vs eventualism conflicting philosophies. Wikipedia was built under extreme eventualism while Nupedia died from its immediatism. Read meta:Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies; where do you stand? I think "development" is is irrelevant, "potential" matters instead, and the potential to be immediately brought to WP:Stub standard marks the line between "reviewed" and "draftified". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:43, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
I agree that "old" does not imply "satisfactory". I'm thinking about articles which, over the years, have been edited by many people. What about creations before articles could be marked as reviewed, before AFC or draft space? Many of these oldies were unsatisfactory, particularly in referencing, but many were OK or were later edited to become so. Taking an example at the time it was draftified Chris Martin (cricketer). Was this an appropriate move? One person thought that it was and there was (and is) no guidance otherwise. I think the person moving it thought it was justified because in was in a batch of articles that were mostly unsatisfactory[16] and it could be left to others to restore if appropriate. I do not think this is a good practice. I agree with SmokeyJoe that one person should not be deciding on their own that an established article is "insufficiently developed". Thincat (talk) 09:07, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer Newsletter

Hello SmokeyJoe, thank you for your efforts reviewing new pages!

Backlog update:

  • The new page backlog is currently at 12,878 pages. We have worked hard to decrease from over 22,000, but more hard work is needed! Please consider reviewing even just a few pages a day.
  • We have successfully cleared the backlog of pages created by non-confirmed accounts before ACTRIAL. Thank you to everyone who participated in that drive.

Technology update:

  • Primefac has created a script that will assist in requesting revision deletion for copyright violations that are often found in new pages. For more information see User:Primefac/revdel.

General project update:


If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, go here. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:47, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Unsuitable MfD nominations

Sorry, I think I was pushing the "cleanup" side of things too far, having had generally good results from my nominations at CSD and MfD. I'm familiar with WP:ATD but wasn't keeping it in mind. I was also neglecting the potential for lost history.

So, for a couple of my bad nominations, I probably should have been going for redirect, which I could just do myself without losing history. Am I understanding this correctly? Thanks for your help. — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 04:42, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

  • Hi User:jmcgnh. I would like to encourage you in your excellent cleaning, you are doing good, but ask you to minimise use of MfD. MfD is a high cost forum for performing obvious cleanup tasks. If the cleanup can be accomplished with a redirect, then just do. Come to MfD if you have an actual problem, such as someone objecting. Don’t be quick to hesitate in making a decision to redirect. You will be afforded a number of mistakes before anyone gets grumpy. When you make a mistake, it is easily undone, and someone will tell you about it. Learning through mistakes is a very good way to learn, in places like this where you can’t easily do lasting damage. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:59, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. Will do. — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 05:04, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Future of outlines

Hey, SmokeyJoe,

I thought you'd like a heads up on technological progress on this front.

I'm in the process of building scripts for viewing outlines and for outline development.

So far, there is:

  • User:The Transhumanist/OutlineViewAnnotationToggler.js – this one provides a menu item to turn annotations on/off, so you can view lists bare when you want to (without annotations). When done, it will work on (the embedded lists of) all pages, not just outlines. Currently it is limited to outlines only, for development and testing purposes. It supports hotkey activation/deactivation of annotations, but that feature currently lacks an accurate viewport location reset for retaining the location on screen that the user was looking at. The program also needs an indicator that tells the user it is still on. Otherwise, you might wonder why a bare list has annotations in edit mode, when you go in to add some. :) Though it is functional as is. Check it out. After installing it, look at Outline of cell biology, and press ⇧ Shift+Alt+a. And again.
  • User:The Transhumanist/RedlinksRemover.js – strips out entries in outlines that are nothing but a redlink. It removes them right out of the tree structure. But only end nodes (i.e., not parent nodes, which we need to keep). It delinks redlinks that have non-redlink offspring, or that have or are embedded in an annotation. It does not yet recognize entries that lack a bullet (it treats those as embedded).

It is my objective to build a set of scripts that fully automate the process of creating outlines. This end goal is a long way off (AI-complete?). In the meantime, I hope to increase productivity as much as I can. Fifty percent automation would double an editor's productivity. I think I could reach 80% automation (a five-fold increase in productivity) within a couple years.

There's more:

  • User:The Transhumanist/StripSearchInWikicode.js – another script, which strips search results down to a bare list of links, and inserts wikilink formatting for ease of insertion of those links into lists. This is useful for gathering links for outlines. I'd like this script to sort its results. So, if you know how, or know someone who knows how, please let me know.

Script and script feature requests are welcome. The Transhumanist 06:13, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

P.S.: The significance of the redlinks remover is not immediately obvious. When combined with the use of a template, it will enable rapid creation of outlines. For example, if you wanted to create outlines for cities, a template could be used that included every possible link you could think of for cities, such as Islands of blank", "Neighborhoods of blank", "Founding of blank", etc. Of course, a particular city would only match a small proportion of the links, and the rest would be redlinks. Enter the redlinks remover! The resultant outlines would only be suitable as drafts, as they would be far from complete. But, this method would provide a jump start over building outlines completely from scratch manually.

Category:Wikipedians with poorly-designed user pages

Hello!

You wrote, Per the “duplicative” part of the nomination statement, why was the nomination to “delete” and not to “merge”? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:30, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

I nominated the category deletion due to the fact we did not (and could not) know whether the users were simply making a "joke" statement about their user pages—very likely given it was created as an {{Idiosyncratic Wikipedians category}}— or actively requesting help to improve their user pages. Merging would have likely resulted in miscategorization. Cheers, -- Black Falcon (talk) 03:39, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

RE Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2017_October_18#Category:Wikipedians_with_poorly-designed_user_pages

You wrote:

:Nominator's rationale: This is either a broadly or vaguely defined category that does not facilitate collaboration in any way, since there is no value in creating a grouping of users with poorly designed user pages, or duplicative of Category:Wikipedians requesting help improving their user pages. -- Black Falcon (talk) 06:12, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Per the “duplicative” part of the nomination statement, why was the nomination to “delete” and not to “merge”? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:30, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
I see the nomination and completion of the process as overly and needlessly destructive. I note that the usual company of CfD-ers particpated, closed, and executed their decision. It looks so bad.

Your "fact" is not a "fact". Consider it disputed. It was not impossible at all to determine that the user is known as a joker, and the interpretation of it as a request for assistance with implication that he is one of many is entirely reasonable. And again,"duplicative" should imply a need to merge. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:44, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough, I do not question your right to dispute it. However, please note that I did not just assert it was duplicative. Instead, I stated that it was "either a broadly or vaguely defined category ... or duplicative" (emphasis added). Deletion was appropriate in the former case, and merging in the latter. If it would alleviate your concern, I would be glad to reach out to the user(s) who were in the category in order to inform them of its deletion and to advise them that they can add themselves to Category:Wikipedians requesting help improving their user pages. -- Black Falcon (talk) 04:23, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
I’m concerned about a CfD culture where if it is not a proper category, there’s a kneejerk response to delete. It’s akin to WP:BITING, biting category newcomers. Not enough effort to help the category newcomers achieve their objective an acceptable and better way. You are usually pretty good, but overall, the CfD culture could be better. To start with, listify or merge where possible, as opposed to just deleting. No argument that the categories are rarely proper categories.
Thanks anyway for your time. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:03, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
You make a valid point, and I'll try to be more mindful of the need to either engage users before the nomination (not always possible or productive) or to cover alternatives in the nomination itself. I partly disagree with your proposed solution, however. We should be cautious about merging user categories except when one is purely a subset of another (e.g. merging Wikipedians in Bonn into Wikipedians in Germany), so as not to introduce miscategorization. As for converting user categories to lists, I would be interested to know how you envision doing that—in most cases, there is nothing to listify except the title and list of users, and I do not see much value in that in most (not all) cases. Thanks, -- Black Falcon (talk) 23:08, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Not always productive, no. Some judgement required. Caution in merging, yes. “Duplicative” implies a merge should be considered. Some record of it being considered and decided against would be great. Listifications? I don’t see the problem of converting the list of membership to WP:CatergoryName, with a lede: “The following users self-identified as <match the title>. List the membership. Why should it be harder? NB. This assumes the self identification has some project-related purpose. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:22, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
This assumes the self identification has some project-related purpose. Ah, that's the piece I was missing. I still don't fully see the value of a bare list without content, but the option is certainly much more paltable and I agree it is at least worth considering in cases where the characteristic being listified has some project-related purpose. Thanks for clarifying! Cheers, -- Black Falcon (talk) 02:14, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

I twigged to this from this on my watchlist. I do wonder what User:S_Marshall thinks. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:12, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for flagging S_Marshall. I reviewed Marcocapelle's contributions and he was the only member of the now-deleted category. -- Black Falcon (talk) 23:08, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, that was a pointlessly destructive thing to do. Why was deleting a whimsical user space category more urgent than checking BLPs or writing content? —S Marshall T/C 16:57, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

I did not realize I was accountable to you for how I allocated my time... I'll gladly answer "why" but don't let's be beastly and forgo the condescension.
The full deletion rationale is available here, and basically comes down to the fact that, while we are all free to be whimsical in user space (and to a lesser degree in project space), categories are not an extension of user space. If it's the visual effect of a link at the bottom of your user page that you're seeking, you can achieve the same effect using {{fmbox}} without generating a category—and yes, I should have mentioned this in the nomination. If you are interested, I would be happy to supply the wikicode. Cheers, -- Black Falcon (talk) 20:21, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Userpage deadlink, fyi

@ User:SmokeyJoe#other notes
[http://dictionary.die.net/kook kooks] <<< {{deadlink}}
--75.188.199.98 (talk) 18:51, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Move review

WRT Wikipedia:Move_review/Log/2017_November, my sentiments exactly. Thanks! --Jax 0677 (talk) 21:11, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Just for the record

I'm not trying to pick a fight with you and don't feel one is being picked with me, with regard to either of the pages we're arguing on. It's just a stronger than usual difference of opinion. As a former professional civil liberties activist, I have a strong and clearly delineated sense of the difference between a right and privilege, and you'll find that shared among pretty much everyone from that background. You seem to be trying to extend a really, really attenuated natural justice and perhaps civil rights perspective from the public sphere and society at large to a private-sector enterprise's all-volunteer workspace, and that's not going to meet with agreement from everyone. We just have a radically different take on this, and I doubt there's a cure for that other than one of us just walking away from the squabble, so I'm going to do that. Peace.  — SMcCandlish ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ʌ<  16:42, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

  • It's a funny argument for us to be having, because I think we hold a lot of values in common. I have always read everything you right carefully and in all seriousness.
In these two last discussions, for me the arguments are not going in circles, instead you fail to persuade me on each point. You seem to have value lines in slightly different places to me. WP:NPA doesn't apply if no individual is even implicitly targeted, and if you include WP:NPA in the rationale, I have to begin by carving out chunks of your arguments as false. Similarly for "WP:NOT#SOCIALNETWORK". It doesn't apply to Wikipedians networking. If you use it that way, I have to proceed assessing your argument as if you are off the logical rails.
On "censorship". I take your point that on Wikipedia, depopulating a category of Wikipedian protesters complaining about some category management issue is not at the level of real world political oppression or even mere social injustices, but that just means that we are not discussing something of great importance. It doesn't change the basic logic. Similarly for "star chambers". I admit to crossing into emotive hyperbole, but I feel far more in control that the editors who demonstrably have taken deep offence. Among these abusive editors are long term valued Wikipedians and administrators.
Natural justice? You don't think it applies? A CfD leads to a decision to depopulate, to make edits on the members' userpages. The membership are not informed or invited to the decision making discussion. Both VegaDark and BrownHairedGirl raised the issue to chastisements, including WP:Blocking. Is that not a textbook violation of natural justice? This may not be a matter of life and liberty, but surely you know about Sayre's law? I don't think our discussion has gone in circles, I think you have ignored my questions driving the to the central point of disagreement. I also think the disagreement is entirely on tangential lines to that path I think we are on at WT:CfD, the orderly deletion of inappropriate categories and the education of the editors who like to make them. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:08, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
I already gave reasons why NOT#SOCIALNETWORK and NPA do apply (with a huge pile o' ArbCom for the latter). I know for a fact from direct experience that NPA applies as I suggest. I barely escaped a year-long sanction for generalized and non-editor-specific conspiratorial aspersions of pretty much exactly the same character (and less heat) than what's found in the essay. I got probation not because the NPA analysis was questioned but only because a couple of AE admins thought I'd improved since the previous round (when an indef was what was on the table), and it ended up being a draw. Blind F'ing luck! (My taking it to heart and actually changing my approach is one of the reasons I'm so "soft" at ANI, etc., i.e. so often in favor of no block, and no TBAN longer than 3 months or so.) Already been over the basic logic in the censorship thing. Star chamber: someone is apt to feel this way any time they don't get what they want from people more familiar with any system of rules; that doesn't make it an injustice, it just makes it normal human group interaction and learning curve. I don't see how I've ignored what you've said; I've responded to it until blue in the face and we just were not communicating (or at least convincing/compromising). With a philosophical difference this sharp (even if small) that's not a rare outcome. Agreed the category-related stuff is tangential; no so with the essay matter. Keeping that kind of crap sends two very strong signals: 1) it's okay to demonize other editors as long as you redact usernames; 2) it's okay to misuse WP as a platform for incitement against itself, so if you're pissed, feel free to engage in WP:NOTHERE anti-WP screaming until you get your way. Neither are correct, so we should not encourage them. Even if that comes at the cost of not saving old rants by net-negative "editors" who are long gone. I'm reminded strongly of lots of other MfDed stuff, like the huge page were we used to catalogue all the funny vandalism and the worst edits and so on; it encouraged people to try get on the list for kicks.  — SMcCandlish ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ʌ<  06:16, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
And I told you why I think NOT#SOCIALNETWORK and NPA do not apply. I checked again, the essay contains no reference to any particular person, even redacted. I checked some arbcom stuff, every case always direct mentions of obvious alluded mentions, and I think always involves more disruption than uploading too much astronomy data. Different.
You barely escaped sanction and got a probation? OK, that surprises me. Can you link for me so that I can read, so I might better understand your perspective here? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:41, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Ringside

Your !vote at Talk:Ringside (disambiguation) is rendering as an empty bullet. I tried to fix it, the result of which was that your text became visible, but you reverted my attempt, so it's back to empty bullet now. FYI. --В²C 16:58, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Hello. I am writing to you regarding the deletion of my sandbox page. First, I am not clear why my harmless sandbox is deleted, I think it was a valid page listing all currently transmitted telenovelas, similar pages exist in wikipedia, this one is just more detailed and in the end it is only a sandbox. Second, I honestly do not understand what user User:Philip J Fry has against me, instead of contributing for the good of wikipedia he is constantly chasing me. Now he has gone against my harmless sandbox, and previously if you take a look at the history he has reverted many of my edits of en.wikipedia, those edits that I made were usually corrections of the erroneous data, and he has on various occasions insisted that his or previous edits are somehow right, providing no or no valid reason. Therefore, please help me retrieve my sandbox and warn the user Philip J Fry to stop chasing me. I know that lately I did not contribute much on en.wikipedia, but on es.wikipedia I have good references where I have introduced many new things and they have been now accepted by other users. All the best, --Zzz369 (talk) 23:48, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

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G11 and sourcing

Following up here so as not to overwhelm that MfD: I think we are in agreement on most things here. XfD is preferred when something isn't fundamentally promotional but is still spam. I think if you check my XfD to G11 tagging ration, you'll find that I send most spam to XfD because I interpret G11 very narrowly. My answer to your question would be if there are two decent paragraphs/headers it doesn't matter what the sourcing is: it isn't G11 eligible. My disagreement on the draft in question is that the only header that doesn't need a fundamental rewrite on my view is a sentence that includes information about his family and pet dog. All speedy deletion criteria are discussing the article as it stands at the time the admin is reviewing the tag, and any previous version in the revision history, not a potential future article. On G11 the question is if by removing or tweaking the promotional content in a non-fundamental way, would there be an article left at the end of it. If that is the case, the sourcing doesn't matter. If it isn't, the sourcing also doesn't matter as it should be kept. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:56, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

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Widr (talk) 07:08, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Don't understand your "support (1983 album)" comment on the album RM. Are there two albums by Madonna both called Madonna? AFAIK the other 2 are by 2 other artists. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:54, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Why is Madonna (Madonna album) silly? Very many artists have self titled albums, they are all titled in this way if there are two albums. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:00, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
The repetition reads silly. If one Madonna reads to you differently to the other, then you are reading it as a deeply encultured Wikipedia titling aficionado, and not as a casual reader. Does Madonna make albums that are not Madonna albums? The parenthetical Madonna could be improved by change to “eponymous” or “self-titled”. I prefer 1983 as the year provides valuable information. It tells me that it is a very early album. “Debut” too. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:46, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
I think you're overstating it, compare Avalon (Roxy Music album), to Avalon (Avalon album) or H2O (H2O album) vs H2O (Hall & Oates album) All Saints (All Saints album) vas All Saints (David Bowie album), there are literally dozens of self-titled albums which require the artist dab. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:02, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Not all self-titled albums are debut albums, so there would still be plenty of edge cases if you went with (debut album). Also, if you go with year, its still possible to have two albums in the same year with the same name, having one use the year and another use a band name could be confusing. "Eponymous" is not a common word, most sources won't use it. I do like (self-titled album) as the way to go. -- Netoholic @ 22:15, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Avalon (Roxy Music album)? I don't see a problem.
Avalon (Avalon album) should go to Avalon (1996 album), then it wouldn't be sill and wouldnt need the hatnote.
H2O (H2O album). silly. Instead H2O (debut album) Its single reference begins: "H20's eponymous debut ..." (sic).
Similarly, All Saints (All Saints album) --> All Saints (debut album), or better All Saints (1997 album)
Self titled albums that are not debut albums can be titled "(yyyy album)". So could debut albums. Personally, I would prefer the date over "debut" generally, because the year is definitive and factual, "debut" can call into question the status of some uncirculated self-published experiment. Who's to say that Madonna didn't compose an album in 1982, or 1979, that she didn't release.
Multiple eponymous albums in the one year? Easily accommodated, a very old question long since solved, commonly by Parenthetical_referencing#Author-date dot point #7. There are so many easy solutions for this rare occurrance.
I agree with you on the slight preference of "self-titled" over "eponymous", and agree with using "self-titled" over a repeat of the name. Good writing avoids repetition of the same words. Repetition on the title is extremely silly looking.
(a) H2O (1996 album)
(b) H2O (self-titled album)
(c) H2O (debut album)
(d) H2O (eponymous album)
All are better than H2O (H2O album). My preference is the order listed. (a) gives the most information assisting recognition and avoidance of mis-recognition, and is even the shortest --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:07, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Well there are reasons the Music project has rejected these kind of dabs. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:49, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
What kind of reasons? Do they have records? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:54, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

ghits

Hi, just a clarification about search engine hit counts: at this Rfc you said, "great care has to be taken to select only introductory uses, to eliminate repeat usage in the same document." I think you might be confusing the concept of PageRank on the one hand, for which the number of occurrences per document does play a part in ranking, with the search result hit count on the other, which is a count of the number of documents containing a given search term. If a document contains the search term 100 times, that document counts for one hit. (Naturally, it's not quite that simple and many other factors can affect hit count, but that's the basic principle.) But in general, you are right about having to use hit counts carefully, because they can be affected by many factors including double quotes, multiple terms, stop words, delimiters, pluralization and other suffix inflection, and many other factors which could fill an essay. But multiple occurrences of the search term per document, isn't one of them. You can prove it to yourself by experiment, using a search term that returns very few documents, where one of the documents contains the term twice or more. Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 08:29, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Dissolution of the Monasteries

I'm not sure how to interpret your closing comment on the category discussion. Do you mean that the article result came to the "wrong" decision? Because that's what I think happened. It was overly parochial. Laurel Lodged (talk) 10:30, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I think the article RM came to the wrong decision. The participants have an English background bias, I guess. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:45, 12 December 2017 (UTC)