User talk:UnicornTapestry/Archive 2009

Carnegie Medal

About your recent creation of a disambiguation page: I wonder if you have taken into account the considerable number of links to "Carnegie Medal" which will now need to be disambiguated. I really think it is an unhelpful move, as the premier children's literature award in the United Kingdom is commonly referred to simply as the Carnegie Medal, whereas the other medal does not have its own page and seems to be generally referred to on linking pages as the "Carnegie Hero Fund Medal".

I would prefer that the previous arrangement be restored, with a hatnote saying "For the Carnegie Medal for Heroism, see..." etc. Otherwise "Carnegie Medal" could redirect to "Carnegie Medal in Literature" also with a hatnote, though I think that would be messier. What are your thoughts on this? Robina Fox (talk) 22:58, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your note. I've given it some thought and read the relevant pages. I'm pretty sure bots don't fix the links - just double redirects, which don't apply here. See this from Wikipedia:Disambiguation:

Links to disambiguated topics

A code of honor for creating disambiguation pages is to fix all resulting mis-directed links.

Before moving an article to a qualified name (in order to create a disambiguation page at the base name), click on What links here to find all of the incoming links. Repair all of those incoming links to use the new article name.

It also advises using disambiguation links/hatnotes where only two pages are involved. Although it is true the heroism medal is older, and has more recipients too, the literature award is definitely the primary page - it has over ten times the number of incoming links and about ten times the page views. I checked over the links and found three which should have gone to the Carnegie Hero Fund (now fixed), so there is obviously some confusion, but only a quite small amount. I think a hatnote will be enough, and I don't suppose you want to be fixing all those links any more than I do! Robina Fox (talk) 11:50, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi again. You're clearly more experienced. I've learned from the information you provided (and have much more to learn).

In defense, I can only say this:

• The move pages says bots will follow within 'a few days' and correct the links.
• If the links aren't fixed by bots, by the very nature of Wikipedia they will be corrected over time. In any case, the most that would be required would be a second click.
• I am uncomfortable to relegating an article about nearly 10,000 recipients who risked (and often gave) their lives to being subordinate to fewer than 100 recipients being honored for children's books.
• Do we know for certain there are only 2 Carnegie medals? It seems the 2 categories we know about were unaware of the other.

In any case, I see you've executed a fait accompli, so my argument is moot.

best regards, --UnicornTapestry (talk) 17:25, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

It is obviously not a question of worthiness, just a matter of which page gets the most use and traffic within Wikipedia. And in fact, the heroism medal does not even have a whole page of its own.

However, it is the links which really concern me; disambiguation pages should not have incoming links which belong to another page - I don't use bots, but I don't believe bots fix this; there is a whole Wikiproject devoted to changing such links manually. I changed the Carnegie Medal page redirect to fix the links problem. You could change all the links so they go directly to the literature page (though I'm not happy about the title of it - the award really is just called the Carnegie Medal, not in or for anything), then the Carnegie Medal page would eventually be free. You could ask the opinion of people on both the talk pages and perhaps enlist some help.

Meanwhile, I have compromised - Carnegie medal (small "m") goes to the disambiguation page. This is what people would usually type in the search box.

I have actually found two others: The Andrew Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy (founded 2001) - which has a section in Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Children's Video (founded 1991), not currently mentioned in Wikipedia. Neither is just known as the Carnegie Medal, and they are not hatnote material, but they could go on the disambiguation page.

Hope this is a bit more satisfactory! Robina Fox (talk) 19:20, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow, you're a very dedicated researcher and I appreciate that. Thank you.

Robina, I think you have a reasonable compromise, and your work makes the disambiguation page more valuable.

kind regards, --UnicornTapestry (talk) 22:08, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

antisemitism

I appreciate your kind words. But I really meant what I said, and my words were not meant personally. But since you took the time to comment on my talk page I will provide a resume: I personally favor anti-Semitism (which of course is also a neologism; it certainly is not found in Shakespeare or even Dickens!). However, antisemitism is a form used by scholars, and therefore acceptable to me. There is a consensus, and I will fight a consensus only when I believe something substantive is at stake. I simply do not consider the spelling of a word substantive. There is a real thing that is the topic of that article, and how we spell it does not change the thing. And there is a lot of scholarship on this thing that is not yet represented in the article. I think reading books published by academic presses, and articles in peer-reviewed journals, and discussions over how to incorporate material from those works into the article, are all worth spending time on. Compared to the importance of that task, spending more than fifteen minutes arguing over a hyphen is trivial, silly, and a waste of time. I would say this to anyone, because I am describing a situation, not a particular person, so you ought not to take this personally. In general, I put the task of reading notable books and articles far, far above arguments over things like spelling when it comes to writing an encyclopedia, as long as the form of spelling currently used can be found in a notable book or article. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

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

Following up with what to do with the material you assembled. Piano non troppo (talk) 18:08, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Request to participate in University of Washington survey on tool to quickly understand Wikipedians’ reputations

Hello. I'm part of a research group at the University of Washington. In April, we met with some local Wikipedians to learn what they would like to know about other editors’ history and activities (within Wikipedia) when interacting with them on talk pages. The goal of those sessions was to gather feedback to help design an embedded application that could quickly communicate useful information about other Wikipedians. We have now created a few images that we feel represent some of what our participants thought was important. We would appreciate it if you took a few minutes of your time to complete an online survey that investigates whether or not these images would be useful to you. Your quick contribution would be very valuable to our research group and ultimately to Wikipedia. (When finished, the code for this application will be given over to the Wikipedia community to use and/or adjust as they see fit.)

Willing to spend a few minutes taking our survey? Click this link.

Please feel free to share the link with other Wikipedians. The more feedback, the better! The survey is completely anonymous and takes less than 10 minutes to complete. All data is used for university research purposes only.

Thank you for your time! If you have any questions about our research or research group, please visit our user page. Commprac01 (talk) 01:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Additional details about our research group are available here.

Done. --UnicornTapestry (talk) 03:23, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Phagophilia

Previously phagophilia was a redirect to vorarephilia, while now it is a separate article. Either way, it's currently inappropriate. That it was a redirect was why I reverted the inclusion of the wikilink. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 23:10, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Setting aside a question of redirects, I don't following the reasoning why linking the two is "inappropriate". For example, if the John Adams article links to his son, John Quincy Adams, and JQA links to his father, JA, there is a 'circular link'.

By the same reasoning, I don't following why fascination with chewing in considered a wrongful circular link to a fascination with eating? Or, are you saying redirect (which I wasn't aware of) is somehow related? What am I missing?

Thank you for clarification. --UnicornTapestry (talk) 12:48, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

You're misunderstanding - until it was re-created yesterday as a mainspace page (I'm assuming Altenmann, who is an admin, deleted the redirect to create this page), phagophilia was a redirect to vorarephilia. In other words, if you clicked on phagophilia link on the vorarephilia page before yesterday, it would have brought you back to vorarephilia. If phagophilia had its own page, if it was distinguished as a separate paraphilia, then a link would be appropriate. It's not like John Adams linking to John Quincy Adams which links to John Adams. This was a case of John Adams containing a link to Novanglus or any of these pages. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:12, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

NOW I understand. I hadn't realized a redirect was involved linking back to the same page. Thanks for the clarification.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 14:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

No problem. I check my wikilinks if I'm not absolutely sure by previewing my edits followed by the use of Popups on any I've changed (or plan to change). Handy trick and since the redirect is immediately apparent before you save, it allows more precise and direct linking. I don't know if you use any editing/browsing tools that have similar functionality (your editing history doesn't seem to indicate this) but I would highly, highly recommend them. Unless you use internet explorer, in which case it's kinda a pain in the ass (it crashes fairly often and I've never figured out why). WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 14:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. There's still a lot of wiki-stuff I'm naïve about.

I used Firefox and sometimes Safari, so I could probably use the tools once I figure them out. Thanks!

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 00:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I've a lengthy essay of advice and commentary for new editors here if you're interested. With Firefox and Safari you shouldn't have any problems with Popups, but there's even better tools available if you don't have to deal with explorer. I recommend, well, all of them. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 01:02, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Green Giants and other things

How do I send you a private message ? Can you send me a message and tell me how I may write to you so I may I send you my ideas, I apologize if I am being a bother or writing this long, I just don't know how to contact you, thank you. Fuzzk1- Giant woman and woman shrinking men and woman.

Sent you an eMail. --UnicornTapestry (talk) 23:30, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you UnicornTapestry, I will check my e-mail to see it, if not I will send you my e-mail address here, thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fuzzk1 (talk • contribs) 04:57, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Category question

Think you might have dropped that edit on the wrong page. TheresaWilson (talk) 01:16, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Uberpedia

A tag has been placed on Uberpedia 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 web content, but it does not 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 see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guideline for web content. You may also wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles - see the Article Wizard.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. ArcAngel (talk) 07:46, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Nolo contendere. The site turned up in a Google search.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 08:06, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I was actually the admin who went ahead and endorsed the speedy. There's really nothing I saw in terms of a reference to establish any notability, other than "it exists"... it looks like just another fork (it's actually listed at Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks). Just wanted to clarify what I did there. :D --Kinu ^t/_c 08:13, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I appreciate the information. --UnicornTapestry (talk) 08:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Grammatical issues introduced into Socialized medicine article

You have removed many conjunctives and definite articles from the socialized medicine article which in my opinion break the normal conventions of English.

It may be (that) you are one of those rare types (that) is not concerned about at all about (the) proper use of definite and indefinite articles and conjunctions in their every day language. And of course there may be dialectical usage where this is common. But surely you will accept (that) there are people for whom the absence of these words in sentences where they should exist makes it offensive to the ear!

Maybe you will be kind enough to take a second look.--Hauskalainen (talk) 20:49, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello,

As a professional and published writer, my concern is for precise and economical use of language. My wordsmithing edits tighten and remove superfluous wording to make the language easier to read. Generally, the use of 'that' I removed were used as conjunctions and yes, I removed a couple instances of 'the' which appeared unnecessary. I also removed a couple of indefinite modifiers (very and some), although that section of the article has surprisingly few.

If you would like, I can refer you to high-profile writers such as George Orwell and Elmore Leonard who recommend modern economical language as opposed to the older Victorian style. ('That' is one of their favorite targets.) I was originally trained in the Victorian style and I still occasionally slip back into the older wording.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 22:29, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: POV

Thanks for transwiki'ing that. I'm still going to resubmit the content at some point. The AfD was rather annoying as so many people insisted the article had POV problems but couldn't venture an explanation as to what they were. It reminded me of the old Chinese proverb Three in the morning only in this case there was no pleasing the monkeys. -- 209.6.238.201 (talk) 20:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Paul Abraham

Hi - just wondering why you moved Paul Abraham to Paul Abraham (composer)? There don't seem to be any other people called Paul Abraham on WP and there's no dab page. Best. --GuillaumeTell 21:05, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Paul Abraham is also a pitcher with the San Diego Padres. While I agree the composer will remain known longer than almost any baseball player, one of the issues with Wiki are entries of names or songs or bands without regard to a long view, that there might be another person or song or band with the same name. For example, a minor UK soccer player grabbed Paul Abrahams (with an S), locking out important figures with the same name, all linking to a retired British footballer (which has now been changed – Paul Abrahams (disambiguation)). However, without a separate DAB page for Paul Abraham, I concur the name Paul Abraham should redirect to the composer.

Of possible interest to you, the same thing happened with "Mutual Admiration Society" in with a minor modern release grabbed the name, excluding not only two bands, but more importantly the song (from a Broadway musical, if I remember right) that was wildly popular in the 1950s and has been covered several times since.

For the record, your Wiki ID/talk is very clever. --UnicornTapestry (talk) 00:41, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I still can't see any reason for the move. There is no other Paul Abraham article, and if there were, a hatnote would take care of that. Wikipedia:Disambiguation gives an example of exctly this case at Deciding to disambiguate (Michael Dobbs). I think the principle of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is quite clear.

This discussion is now of course pointless, but I recommend you discuss changes which fundamentally impact on Wikipedia's navigatiability on talk pages first. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:00, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Navigability is the point, with a failure to take a long view of choosing names. Paul Abrahams (not Paul Abraham) was DAB's as FIVE different names all pointed to one obscure retired British sports guy. Looking at Paul Abraham, two very different fans (sports and music) are vying for a name. That name wasn't DAB'd and Paul Abraham name still points to Paul Abraham (composer).

Sorry, Unicorn Tapestry, but I think you misunderstand Wikipedia's policy here. Either the composer is the primary usage, in which case he has the article at "Paul Abraham", or he is not, in which case the disambiguation page goes at that title. Where there is only one article on a name, that article has the title without disambiguation. Although you've done all the correct tidying up after moving the page, it was not right to move it in the first place. The same applies to the "Paul Abrahams" situation: the English footballer is the only person who has a WP article, so goes at the undisambiguated name. If and when an article is written on one of the others, that second article should have a disambiguation, and if it's agreed that there is no primary usage then the original article would also get a disambiguation and the dab page would go at the undisambiguated title. Wikipedia does not have a policy of taking "a long view" in choosing names. PamD (talk) 05:49, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec) GuillaumeTell and I are not discussing Paul Abrahams. Your explanation above does not provide any justification for the move from Paul Abraham to Paul Abraham (composer). Again, I refer you to Deciding to disambiguate. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 05:54, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

There're two different names and two different cases involved and I've come to agree with you in the one case. Pam, in the case of Paul Abrahams, you will find in Wikipedia FIVE DIFFERENT people who all pointed to the SAME biography (and at least one predated the biography), that of said retired UK footballer mentioned, clearly not WP:PT. To clarify, there were five different links but not five different bios because editors had not done their homework. For that name only, I created a disambiguation page and as a courtesy included the two "See also: Paul Abraham" entries. However, in passing, I discovered one of the links was picking up Paul Abraham, who also happens to be a baseball player. For that name, I added the disambiguation (baseball) and (composer) but did not create a DAB page for Paul Abraham, because I agree with you that the composer is more significant. (The link Paul Abraham, still points to the composer.) While I regret I seem to have caused great angst with the clarification (which I confess caught me by surprise), please appreciate I was still considering WP:PT, because it's a lot easier to create a name without forethought or link a name without checking than to clean up situations like the first case (Paul Abrahams with five different persons pointing to one bio). In retrospect, I concede the point (regarding Paul Abraham) and I apologize for the misery the disambiguation caused you.

Well, we're all agreed about Paul Abraham, so I've been bold and reversed the move. UT - There's no need to go round fixing all the redirects again - see WP:REDIRECT#NOTBROKEN. As for my ID/talk, it was a combination of coincidence and serendipity - I started off as plain old User:GuillaumeTell (because I like the opera and its title character and because I didn't realise that an ID could consist of more than one word with spaces in between) and then I came upon a snazzy multicoloured ID (Happy‑melon) and realised that mine could be even better!. It took a bit of trial and error to get it right, but I like that sort of thing. Try it yourself (I can help if you have a problem). Best. --GuillaumeTell 13:34, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! It will be some time before I come up with anything approaching your clever name. You set a high bar! --UnicornTapestry (talk) 13:42, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

John Dean/Natty Bumpo

I'm afraid you're going to have to explain how removing the redlink - which was a redlink for years until it was finally removed because no article had been forthcoming - creates any sort of problem. If you intended, at some future point, in creating an article about the man, fine. It's appropriately kept in the disambiguation page, but there is no fundamental reason to continue to retain a redlink in two articles, covering the same topic, and there is no reason to assume that removing the redlinks in two articles is creating a problem and the discussion to which you referred does not indicate a problem. If and when you do create an article about this person, then fine, put in the link. Meanwhile, there is no reason to retain what had been sitting as a redlink for years with no forthcoming article. The disambiguation page is fine with redlinks and they often contain them. Not a good reason to return redlinking to two articles. I didn't say it was an error when I removed the link, I said clearly I see no point in returning a redlink when nothing was ever written to fill out the link. Eventually, there is no need for a redlink. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:44, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi,

When I began my edits, there were no red links present, so if 'years' was involved, it was before my time. (See history for articles.) According to WP:RED, "red links help Wikipedia grow". I took the trouble to track down full citations and correct mistitled works at the same time.

In any case, rather than I being a ping-pong ball, it's better to take it up with Boleyn (talk), whom I referenced in the revert. Thanks.

Um, when you began your edits on Gertrude Baniszewski, there were no redlinks because the author name was not wikilinked. You inserted wikilinks and I removed them again because the redlinks were formerly there and no article was ever written, leading to the removal of the redlinks. You returned them, saying "red links are NOT errors and removing is causing problems in other places (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Boleyn#John_Dean_.28disambiguation.29". I see no valid reason for returning such redlinks to this article and I cannot see how or where the lack of them would cause problems. I am posting to you because you are the one that put in the redlinks and reverted my change and I would really like to know what sort of problem could possibly mandate inserting a redlink again for an author who has no article and has had no article since the inception of Wikipedia. I'm even more mystified by your changing the article to use the name "John Edwin Dean". He did not publish, to my knowledge, under that name and I'm not clear on where that middle name came from or why it is being used. I'm asking you because you've changed it twice in the Baniszewski article and now on the disambiguation page. I don't see the logic here. Wildhartlivie (talk) 02:50, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The 'Edwin' name I spotted just now when I looked up the history, which apparently is the man's birth name. As I said, when I came upon the article, I believe there were no red links. There's even a sense in WP:RED that red links are encouraged. In any case, I followed the instructions referred to from Boleyn (talk).

Merge of Steam and Tilt

If you're interested, you should know that I proposed a merge of articles Steam (poker) and Tilt (poker). The discussion is here. PokitJaxx (talk) 17:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)