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Do not add comments here; add new sections at the bottom, not the top

Hi DGG, or if I may be so bold, David,
You wrote at WP:AN/I Archive691: <block quote>There is more than one valid way of working here. Some people prefer to create only high quality articles, even though they may do very few of them. Some prefer to create many verifiable articles of clear notability even though they may not be of initially high quality. As this is a communal project, I think every individual person is fully entitled to do whichever they prefer, and the thing to do about people who prefer otherwise than oneself is to let them work their way, while you work yours. The only choice which is not productive is to argue about how to do it, rather than going ahead in the way that one finds suitable.</block quote> Many ^[who?] editors include a statement about their attitudes to editing on their user pages. I am not one of them, that is until I came across what you wrote. I would really like to include this on my user page. While I can add anything at all I like to my user page subject to WP:USER PAGE, I nevertheless ask for your permission to add the quote. OK with you? I'm fine if you decline this.
--Shirt58 (talk) 12:37, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of course. DGG ( talk ) 21:04, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

where is the "like" button? RobLab (talk) 01:42, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WP:TALKINGSOFASTNOBODYCANHEARYOU. Is my memory that faulty? I can't find it, and it's possible the syntax isn't precise. Did you use this a sort of irony? I seem to remember you used the link to represent bullying behaviors. I'm seeing one such user who seems to be wanting to turn the entire AfD process on its head by using such a technique. BusterD (talk) 11:48, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have sometimes used pseudo-links like these as a statement for their own sake, without writing an actual essay. I remember saying something like this, but I can't find it. I think this one was TALKINGSOMUCH... -- but I can't find it either. As for the problem, I've commented pretty extensively at AN/I: [1], and will comment at the RfC also, But please don't confuse the reasonable message, with which I am in agreement -- that Deletion Policy is overbalanced towards deletion, and one step towards rebalancing it would be to require some version of WP:BEFORE -- with the unreasonable way it is being over-expressed. DGG ( talk ) 23:23, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, David. I was a debater in school before "talking so fast" became the current style. I feel anything which games the system deserves appropriate response in order to keep the system sound. I appreciate your valid concern about deletion procedures being over-weighted toward one outcome. Thanks for your valuable comments in those forums. Be well. BusterD (talk) 23:37, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, I had forgotten that context. And so was I, in college--a very valuable experience, especially in facilitating the sort of intercampus experiences only the athletic teams otherwise gave occasion for. But the stimulus is interesting: if I take a turn at NPP, the amount of junk turns me for a while into a deletionist before I catch myself and stop being so unfriendly to all the newcomers. If I take a look at AfD, the number of unwarranted nominations makes me inclined to give a similarly snappy and unjust response to all of them, with the less than rational thought that if I argue against all of them, maybe there's a chance the good ones will make it. Several good inclusionists have run into trouble here falling into such temptation. DGG ( talk ) 23:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

items from 2015 and 2016 removed for archiving--a few will be replaced here

Heard your lightning talk just now. I support both the "Radical solutions to promotional paid editing" proposals you announced on notability and restrictions on anon editors around companies newer than 1999 foundation. Are there some written proposals to refer to? - Brianhe (talk) 20:43, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

there will be--one of the reasons I gave the talk was to get some feedback about just what to propose, and I am already getting some. Watch this space tomorrow. DGG ( talk ) 20:55, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. I will evangelize to the communities I'm part of, as soon as there's something to show them. - Brianhe (talk) 20:57, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher)Hi, DGG! I'd like to hear that too. Link? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:07, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Video from the lightning talks is now available via Commons. DGG's lightning talk is the first one, proposal #1 is detailed at 2:15 and #2 at 3:00. - Brianhe (talk) 06:31, 24 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG, I noticed a wave of combative deletion rebuttals on your page lately and wondered if this is a new phenomenon. Would you like me to answer them as able, or just leave them alone? - Brianhe (talk) 18:17, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

detailed discussion forthcoming tomorrow. DGG ( talk ) 04:45, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In the past, most paid or other promotional editors, when their articles have been deleted, have simply gone away and tried again, generally under another username. For a while now, an increasing number of them have been adopting the practice of arguing. Many admins ignore them; my response unless they are ridiculous altogether is to explain why, sometimes in detail. If they are a good faith but promotional editor who simply has not realized, they usually understand, though it sometimes take a second round of explanation. . If they are professional paid editor with any sense, they realise they;re not going to get anywhere, and go away--and try again usually under another name. Zealots with a unpaid COI have very often continued to argue, sometimes indefinitely. The best thing for us to do here is the traditional remedy, to ignore them. Some paid editors are now doing the same, hoping to wear people down. The best technique here is to block them. If they show up for the same purpose again, they can and should be summarily blocked as behavioral meatpuppets--though we usually run a checkuser for possibly helpful additional information. The danger, as has become clear, is catching a good faith but imitative editor. There are only 3 solutions: accept promotionalism , be able to investigate who people actually are, or accept there will be occasional injustice. I will oppose the first as long as I work here, I will continue trying to change consensus to permit the second, and , alas, be forced to accept the third.

There are of course other factors. I have lately been taking a larger role at AfD, and as I didbefore, I tend to close the ones that nobody is eager to close and present some possible ambiguities. It is therefore natural that there should be exceptions taken to them. ,Unless I were to do only the obvious, it's part of the structure, and I will make an effort to address what I think are reasonable objections. And, unlike some admins who just refer people to DelRev hoping few will brave that extremely specialized process, I will revert a close if I think it may have been in error.,

There is also of course the possibility that I may have been making more errors. DGG ( talk ) 03:56, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Back in the day (Nov. 2013), you stated in an AfC comment that the subject is notable and that the page needed cleanup (diff). So, I cleaned it up and published it in main namespace just now. Feel free to improve the article further. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:19, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

all it needs now is 1/removal of some adjectives and phrases that constitute puffery, 2/or that could be seen as espousing a political view, 3/removing inserting some links to relevant WP articles, 4/Clarifying 4.1, which implies but does not say that the first generation parents resisted or wanted to resist, 5/ clarifying section 4.2 by saying in the text as coming from the California oral history project & making it an indented quote, 6/ removing or sourcing multiple sentences of opinion and 7/Finding some references that come from other sources than Omura and Toland.

It makes no difference how strongly you or I agree with the his political viewpoint. If we used WP to advocate our own beliefs, we'd end up the same as Conservapedia. You may possibly think that in the current political situation in the US and some other countries, all honest citizens should feel themselves called upon to undertake action, or at least write polemics. I would probably support this as a valid position, but the advocacy does not belong on WP. The role of WP in fighting actual or potential tyranny is now and always to write objective articles in purely dispassionate language. At WP we present the facts, trusting the readers to themselves draw the proper conclusions, not to tell the reader what conclusions they ought to draw.

To avoid misunderstanding, I think the WMF, as distinct from the encyclopedia, can appropriately play a political role in defense of its values, and I support its past and present actions and statements. And, also to avoid misunderstanding, there may indeed come a time when dispassionate reporting is hopeless, and direct opposition is the only possible course. But the two should not be confused. DGG ( talk ) 21:24, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I cannot guarantee that I will improve the article more; perhaps you could post the content of your first paragraph above on the article's talk page so others will see your suggestions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:23, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm contacting you because you participated in this proposal discussion. While the proposal was approved, it has not received developer action. The request is now under consideration as part of the 2017 Developer Wishlist, with voting open through the end of day on Tuesday (23:59 UTC). The latter link describes the voting process, if you are interested. —swpb^T 18:02, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I will comment there, but I think this require WMF action independent of that process. DGG ( talk ) 18:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Am interested in your thoughts on this AfD, and specifically on the issue I have raised. I have no idea how you are going to !vote on this, and am curious. Jytdog (talk) 19:44, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of naive discussions of citations from others, but the actual analysis speaks for itself. You did of very good job of editing, btw. For someone of his importance I would have done if it needed, but its great to have such competent help. DGG ( talk ) 04:36, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your kind words but all I did was clear away the most fetid of the promotionalism. The remaining directory entry ( i will not it an "article") is promotional; this person cannot have an actual WP article as there no sources from which to write one. The directory entry exists because someone is trying to promote this guy. So I have just polished a turd. It should not exist in WP per NOTDIRECTORY and PROMO.

I am going to try to raise N standards around WP. I am trying because a bunch of people seem to think we should and more importantly they undercut efforts to make meaningful changes by pointing to things like changing N.

But everybody has pet projects and is willing to fight to the death to protect notability guidelines and essays that allow fake "articles" to exist in WP, that are really directory entries or worse. The journals people do it, the academic people do it, the radio people do it, the music people do it, etc. It will be a waste of time, but I will try. So it goes. Jytdog (talk) 05:27, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm willing to go to some trouble to maintain proper standards of notability based upon objective evidence that shows someone is a leader in their field. WP:PROF is one of the very few guidelines we have that follows a rational approach to inclusion policy. I fell so strongly about objective guidelines that I support them even when I think them overly broad (as for sports) or much too narrow (as for politicians).

I can and will argue as I think appropriate & necessary using the GNG in either direction, but it's a totally useless intellectual activity that I think detracts from the encyclopedia . You may possibly have a case about directory entries (though we have about 2 million directory articles), ut I don't see how the article is PROMO. Anyway, looking at it from your direction, even so you're attacking articles that we do have in a field where we do not have anywhere near enough coverage--if you want to attack directory entries--why not do it a field where e have overcoverage. Or do you really think academics unimportant?

Of course we have information to write an article we have what's important about academics: their position and their published work. In each case that's third party information based on the university authorities and the editor of the journals and the citing authors. The decisions of peer reviewers and peer authors in the aggregate are much sounder basis for an article than the uninformed comments of journalists in most current day newspapers.

one of the differences in what I and most others do here, is that I'm willing to fight even for what other people consider important. Tolerating and supporting each other is the basis of a cooperative encyclopedia. There's real promotionalism in WP that's much more dangerous and compromising than even the original version of this article. You're losing perspective. DGG ( talk ) 05:58, 22 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your thoughts. I know that lots of people have identified various fields in WP that they think are particularly .... bad. Some people focus on where they believe there is lots of "paid editing", some people focus on where there is lots of COI, other people on various forms of POV or bias, systemic and otherwise. I know people think that what I care about is COI/paid editing. They are wrong but I let myself get trapped too often in that box.

My work is primarily about NPOV - ensuring that articles summarize high quality sources.

NPOV is what my entire Userpage is focused on, and has been focused on, for a long time. (it comes down to finding high quality sources and accurately summarizing them)

Lots of people have said we should address the paid editing problem at least in part (and in some quarters, primarily) by raising N standards.

I agree with that. It would solve lots of other problems too.

I don't understand -- at all -- how anybody can support raising N standards, and at the same time support any guideline that allows automatic green-lighting, even when we cannot actually write a WP article about something because there are not multiple independent sources with significant discussion of it. (In other words, it isn't possible to write an NPOV article about it)

I mean it - this completely baffles me and in my view comes down to special pleading. And each Wikiproject points to the special pleading that other Wikiprojects do. Which means we will never succeed in raising N standards for any field in WP.

If, on the other hand, Guy is correct and NOTDIRECTORY has been effectively abandoned, I need to rethink what a "WP article" is and my approach to NPOV.

But as it stands, in my view, the approach to N that allows PROF and JOURNALs and RADIO to create and keep directory entries, is what allows crap articles about business executives to exist.

(and what is promotional about the article about the guy who is subject of the AfD, is its very existence in WP. It was created as part of a promotional campaign, and upon examination it fails GNG and should not exist in WP at all. It is no different than artIcle about some business executive that gets created, gets looked at, and should get deleted.)

So what do people mean when they say "raise N standards"? How is it coherent and consistent? I really don't understand (obviously). Please explain how this makes sense to you. Please. Jytdog (talk) 22:05, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I should acknowledge that I made a mess of the discussion at PROF. I did that badly. Jytdog (talk) 23:00, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, i just read your userpage, and see that your thoughts about GNG and N are completely different. Hm. Jytdog (talk) 06:11, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

yes, they are, and I've made no secret about it. Besides what I do on wiki, I've talked about this at many events. This has been my general approach for about 7 years now--the main difference from then is that 7 years ago the problem of using WP to advertise was not as widespread, and I was much more willing to rewrite such articles than I am now. Under current conditions, I'm very much more concerned about fighting promotional editing than about disagreements on the level or criteria of notability. DGG ( talk ) 04:43, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But in making arguments in actual cases here I always give an argument based on the conventional rules. I will then sometimes supplement it with additional reasons. I use my own concepts in deciding which articles I'm going to argue about. I will not personally defend an article that clearly meets WP:N and which I do not think appropriate unless I can find some other policy-based reason. DGG ( talk ) 08:21, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG. Is Anthony Gill (professor) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) notable? You're better than I at accessing the notability of academics. The article was created by HM8383, a member of this undisclosed paid editing sockfarm. — JJMC89 (T·C) 22:46, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely notable, but see my comment at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Arunkapadia/Archive [2]:

My view is that all articles written by this group should be deleted regardless of notability. The TOU are foundation policy. Our COI policy is based both on that and WP:NOT, which supersedes all consideration of notability. Attempting to advertise someone highly notable, is still advertising, just as advocating the worthiest of causes is still advocacy. Some of the people being written about are so notable, however, that an article ought to be written. I considered whether to rewrite the existing articles, but decided not to, because it would take rewriting from scratch. I think the only way we can enforce our rules and deter promotionalism is to first delete, and then wait a bit and communicate with the subjects to make sure the lesson is learned, and then rewrite. DGG ( talk ) 01:55, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page stalker here, with a minor point. The PROD template might benefit from a special-purpose parameter. As it is now, the wording is unfortunate. I quote: "If you created the article, please don't be offended. Instead, consider improving the article so that it is acceptable according to the deletion policy." Of course contradicting the reason for deletion. (And of course I have no objection to the idea of deleting this article or those like it. Just a matter of wording.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:04, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there is a way a undeclared paid editor can actually save the article, which is by declaring and then rewriting. I do not think there's an actual guideline, but so far we have generally granted amnesty retrospectively, in order to encourage people to do things properly. Of course, it a situation like this there would be considerable explanation needed. Anyway, I was thinking of using speedy in analogy with G12. I know it would be to IAR, and IAR is rarely used in connection with speedy. We could have another speedy criterion, but I don't want to propose it until consensus about the tou is more firmly established. It's cases like this which will show the need for it. DGG ( talk ) 03:58, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I am in favor of nuking the articles created by this group. There is a list of remaining articles at WP:COIN#Arunkapadia. An IP has heavily trimmed this one. — JJMC89 (T·C) 21:10, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

considering the extent of work on this particular article, I am not going to list it for deletion. But anyone else can do so. DGG ( talk ) 18:54, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I came across 501 7th Avenue, SeaRise Office Tower, and 111 West 33rd Street and originally thought that it was a paid promotional editor and so put a paid editing notice on the creator's user talk page. Looking a bit closer at the user's created articles, it seems that they might actually be trying to spread information about Qatari owned businesses that have terrorist funding connections, and have created several BLPs/recent deaths that make terrorist funding/terrorism claims too: Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, Ismail al-Salabi, Mohammed bin Hashim al-Awadhy. I'm not sure how great the sourcing is on the BLPs, but given the sensitive nature of the topic and a near laser focus on it, it raised my eyebrows. You deleted Pamodzi Sports Marketing as G11, and since that was the last deletion on the talk page, and I know you have experience with COI type subjects, I thought I would get your thoughts. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:45, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have generally thought most large buildings in major cities notable, though it is difficult to say an exact size, and t will depend on the city.

Searise & W33rd St are I thing large enough; 7th Ave isn't but it was built by a famous architect. But what we really need is an article for the company that owns them (and the Empire State Building), Empire State Partners (formerly Empire State Realty Trust), which is mentioned in the Empire State building article); it is a NUYSE company and has an interesting history. None of this of course answers the question of whether we should keep articles on notable subjects by undeclared paid promotional editors. I've been arguing that we should not--for those that are so notable as to be essential, someone else can rewrite them -- after a gap, because there is no other way to convince people that it is not helpful to pay for an article. If your suggestion is correct, it's still by a promotional editor, because it's advocacy which is considered as promotionalism , but that isn't considered nough reason for deletion, if the subject is notable just for revision unless it's so bad that revision is hopeless and it falls under G11.

I'll look at the BLPs tomorrow. The sourcing is,as you say, not great, but I think they would pass AfD DGG ( talk ) 18:54, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, JzG's talk page notice suggested contacting you for review of deletions. He also seems to be on a wikibreak. Please have a look at my query at User talk:JzG#Deletion of long-standing articles without review, which came about from a request at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion#Timeline of Facebook. Thanks. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:02, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

fwiw, those deletions stem from this ANI thread, Vipul's paid editing enterprise, where there have been some calls to delete company timeline articles created by the group under discussion there. Jytdog (talk) 05:33, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh and i just saw this: User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#A_Wikipedia_wide_new_policy_is_needed_to_ban_.22paid_for.22_editing. oy. Jytdog (talk) 05:37, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would probably support a CSD criterion modeled after G5, for undeclared paid editing, but we do not currently have one, and using G11 for the purpose is stretching it very far. This is especially true when the actual article was probably not written as promotionalism or advocacy, but as a unfortunately misguided good faith approach to improving WP. JzG is very much around, and I do not intend to do this without notifying him, especially because I entirely respect and totally agree with his desire to rid WP of blatantly improper editing. I consider the speedies to be misjudgment, not absolute error. I will undelete them tomorrow unless there are arguments otherwise., and they can then be taken to AfD I fully understand why the deleting admin did this, and I totally sympathize with his views on this sort of editing. But G11 is really not the appropriate method. These need to be taken to Afd if they are to be deleted, because this is a disputed situation and requies explicit consensus. Speedy is not appropriate when the consensus will be debated, only when the deleting admin can be reasonably sure that the consensus would certainly support him. I do not think there's the case here. and the best course would be for JzG to do that himself. My own suggestion would instead be a merge, and therefore I will not personally take it to afd after it has been restored, for AfD is not needed to do a merge.. DGG ( talk ) 07:49, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• So, first of all, I already proposed a speedy criterion for material created in violation of the terms of use, and it was rejected. Getting any kind of broad community consensus on what to do with paid advertorial is difficult, not least because there is a group of people who for whatever reason seek to make it impossible. Not all of these are associated with the Sangerites and their fawning over Kohs. Some have a genuine, if in my view misguided, belief, that Wikipedia's need for articles overwhelms the problems of people subverting Wikipedia for profit.

That's why I only removed a small number of articles. There are several medical timelines, for example, all paid for by the same pyramid scheme, which I did not touch.

The articles I did remove are promotional in intent and designed, in my view, purely for SEO. They are timelines of commercial entities, paid for by Vipul (who engages in SEO as well as his Wikipedia editing pyramid scheme), replete with numerous links to other commercial entities, several of which are owned by Vipul. And that's what pushes them over the line. Guy (Help!) 09:02, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

JzG, You may be right, but you shouldn't be making this decision by yourself, especially because there is disagreement about the nature of Vipul's motivations. Please undelete and send them to AfD. This particular case very much needs discussion, and preferably not just between the two of us. . As for the speedy criterion, the main problem I see is exactly what is presented here--the difficulty in determining motivations (and identity, usually, though not in this case). DGG ( talk ) 15:01, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's any disagreement about Vipul's motivation by now, but whatever. Guy (Help!) 16:11, 13 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

JzG is free to hold whatever views they want to hold about paid editors. They shouldn't be calling all of them as "vermin", "dogs" and "parasites" - that is at least a gross violation of WP:NPA, and a BLP violation as well, if anyone cares. But, the least they can do is not to delete stuff bypassing consensus. Feel free to AfD the articles, but don't act unilaterally. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 19:02, 16 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Read again for comprehension. I did not call them dogs. Parasites, of course, is entirely accurate according to the definition of the term. Guy (Help!) 00:18, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@JzG: I am not that interested in the dehumanizing language you use for people you don't like. But is someone (you or anyone else) going to undelete the "Timeline of..." pages? The deletion under CSD deletion G11 is clearly not applicable because it is not an unambiguous case of blatant advertising; indeed DGG agrees on that point. The CSD process is meant to deal with clear-cut cases with minimum of WP:BURO, not a method to shortcut consensus on an issue on which reasonable people may differ. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 02:26, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@JzG: You also keep repeating that Vipul is running an SEO spamming operation (despite them denying it) and a pyramid scheme. Might I remind you that pyramid schemes are illegal in the US? This is as blatant a personal attack as can be imagined. Just because you think you're right doesn't mean that you can go around flouting rules with impunity. If you can't keep your head while dealing with the subject, let other people deal with it. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 02:38, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:COIN. They were offering to pay people, and allow those people to recruit downline and pass the money on. That's a pyramid scheme. The SEO is also proven to my satisfaction, people have checked the records of sites he admits to operating. I actually think he did not consider how this would be perceived. I originally offered him some advice on how to support Wikipedia articles in his area of interest without these problems, but it's since become apparent that this has been going on for a long time and his responses do not look to be entirely straight. I've not been involved in much of the cleanup, I mainly reviewed sourcing on a series of articles on immigration-related topics where Vipul and his paid editors had added large numbers of links to sites selling visa services. Again, I am not sure this was intentional spamming, but there is a conflict between the claim that they are experienced editors and the use of poor quality promotional sources.

You also appear to be under a misapprehension about my views on spammers. They are not people I dislike. I dislike the behaviour, not the people. I strongly suspect that Vipul and I would share broad agreement on a number of issues, and several of his paid editors seem to be nice people caught up in a nasty situation. Paid editing is predatory, a parasitic abuse of a charitable project for personal gain. It is reprehensible and, I would argue, morally indefensible. But you can see why Vipul did this. The critical point is what happens when the user is confronted. In this case the response was obfuscation. That is not cool. There have been many cases where the response is genuine remorse, the user not having even considered how the community might view paid editing. I can write that down to mistakes born of ignorance. That certainly applies to a lot of Vipul's paid editors. But not, I think, to Vipul himself, based on current evidence. Guy (Help!) 10:14, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

JzG You are accusing someone on Wikipedia of doing something illegal. And just because you think you're right and you have the correct opinions about paid editing, that makes it ok. Even if you were right (and you aren't), this kind of behaviour would be wildly out of line. Referrals are not necessarily pyramid schemes; they need to have a structure where people get most of their income through referrals and not through direct work. There are many other factors which go into pyramid schemes (see this page, for instance). You are totally incompetent to make such a determination (as am I), but you go around making these outrageous accusations. I would suggest that you're unable to think rationally about this topic. Please get some outside advice on this matter (from someone on WP) you trust. Preferably in private. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:27, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You are engaging in hyperbole. Up to a point, so am I. I think there's nothing more to be said here. Guy (Help!) 23:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@JzG: Are you going to undelete the "Timeline of ..." articles? DGG says clearly above that G11 doesn't apply and you shouldn't be making this decision by yourself. Your failure to answer this question is rather annoying. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 23:33, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am not good at answering questions when they are framed as overblown rhetorical statements, Am I goin to u delete the paid-for SEO adverts? Um, I will leave that to DRV because I remain convinced they are spam. Guy (Help!) 09:40, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to comment on this further, since at least some aspects of this might be headed for arb com. DGG ( talk ) 03:47, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG, I just wanted to thank you for having a spirited but civil discussion at AfD. Your points are good, as I believe are mine. Your good demeanor is refreshing. I didn't want to clutter the AfD page up with this, but wanted to say "Thanks!" Jacona (talk) 02:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC) (re: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brandon Mendelson )[reply]

Hi DGG, do you think I should refrain from commenting on Vipul/Riceissa related matters? I decided to leave the following note on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Riceissa/Spokes (replication system): "Note: I was a part of the same paid editing ring as User:Riceissa, so that is a COI I hold; I am not getting paid for any of my comments related to the Vipul/Riceissa ordeal, they are of my own accord. I was not asked by Vipul or Riceissa or anyone else to make any of the comments below." If you think I should stop, I'll stop; I don't want to get blocked for paid MEATing or whatnot. Sincerely, Ethanbas ^(talk) 07:25, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• (talk page stalker) You're skating on pretty thin ice already, so I would strongly recommend you keep well clear of anything even tangentially related to this mess. Guy (Help!) 09:55, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• I agree with Guy/JzG. Softlavender (talk) 10:09, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I will not comment on any thread any longer; however, I reserve the right to comment on talk pages of users involved in this mess (making sure they know I was part of Vipul's project) Ethanbas ^(talk) 02:48, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Here, you say "About reusing drafts: the unlikelihood of anyone else reusing a draft is one of the faults of our current system. I think there are at most 4 people (including myself) who rescue old drafts. I generally only do them in my primary field of interest (academic faculty and related), but even so I have a very long list, and very rarely have time to do one. We do not even have a system where when someone starts an article, it shows whether there is a pre-existing draft on the topic. The default Wikipedia search does not pick them up, and even if set to Everything only finds them if spelled the same way. Kudpung, you know this system best--is there any reasonable solution?". Maybe INDEXing the drafts is the solution? Ethanbas ^(talk) 02:41, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

this has been proposed, and decisively rejected. Drafts contain unverified material, including copyvios and advertising nd possible BLP violations. The whole idea for drafts is that they are not yet reasd to have a prominent position in external indexes. They do show up in our internal search, if one knows the title and specifies a customs search.T

the solution that has been suggested several times and could have been adopted years ago, is to categorize them in at least rough categories, so people could at least scan them. The objection has been raised that there are not people willing to do this manually, but there are two other methods: a simple weighted keyword approach, which, however inexact, is at least a start, and more recently an AI system. There has historically been a dichotomy--at least a perceived dichotomy--between the people who work with the WP infrastructure and the people who work with articles. Fortunately, under the current Executive Director, there seems to be a possibility of some improvement. DGG ( talk ) 02:52, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You have an interest in professors, so this may be of interest to you: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bryan Caplan (2nd nomination) Ethanbas ^(talk) 20:17, 26 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting that Vipul did not mention he is associated with Caplan when he added so many primary-sourced references to Caplan's blogging into articles. Funny how that goes, eh? Guy (Help!) 00:03, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

JzG, there are two alternative approaches to COI problems: one is to simply judge the subject for notability in the usual way; the other, for which you have been arguing, is to judge the intent. I certainly understand the point of your way of doing it: I would support a rule that undeclared paid editing be deleted rather than fixed on the same principle as we delete articles from banned editors (otherwise the prohibition is toothless), and I would probably also support a rule that grossly COI articles also be deleted rather than fixed unless someone actually rewrites them, as we do for copyvio. There are also arguments against either proposition, and I think the strongest two are that usually we cannot tell, so it will remain toothless, and that is that paid editors can be persuaded to declare, and COI editors taught to write properly (though both seem to be quite rare occurrences).

But at present the community supports neither rule. I doubt we could get the necessary support to explicitly change either of them, and I am very reluctant to propose that until there is some chance ofsucceeding in the argument Another way to change the rule is to change what we actually do at AfD, because the rules here are what we actually do, rather than just what we say; this is the method you;ve been pursuing. I've been doing the same thing, but I am trying to concentrate on the individuals without significant notability, not clearly notable people like him DGG ( talk ) 04:03, 28 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello!

My name is David Alves (User:Horadrim~usurped), and I'm an Wikipedian in Residence at RIDC NeuroMat (User:Horadrim). I've reach your contact through the == Wikimedian in Residence BoF at Wikimania 2017 ==outreach:WIR|Wikimedian in residence page]] in Outreach. As you may know, Wikimania 2017 is coming! I am here because, as a fellow WiR, I believe this would be a great opportunity for us to share experiences, discuss difficulties and exchange solutions, creating a community among us capable of supporting in other projects that would benefit from residents. In that sense, I have submitted a proposal of a Birds of a Feather activity to Wikimania that you can check out here. I hope to count with your support in this project and would like to invite you to join us if you participate in Wikimania. In case of any doubts, please feel free to contact me, either in my talk pages or by e-mail at david.alvesoutlook.com.

Thank you very much! ‎Horadrim~usurped (talk) 00:33, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I just wanted to comment and say I really appreciate your User page. Thanks for writing that up because I have always felt the same way and couldn't say it better myself. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 04:00, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

hi DGG. you mentioned that you would like to see <andrew radford> draft before i submit and that you would accept it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Josephgalasso/sandbox

photo is a family photo and i have permission from radford to use it freely. thanks so much for any feedback. i could submit next week if it looks ok. josephJosephgalasso (talk) 20:48, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

even if you have permission, you need to follow the formal procedures at WP:DCM. The copyright permission must be made by the copyright owner, and it must be for CC-BY, which permits use not just in WP, but use anywhere by anyone for any purpose, even commercial. And we normally list doctoral students only if they are notable themselves. We usually don't mention editorial board membership, only editor-in chief. Otherwise it seems OK. DGG ( talk ) 08:41, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

to check

Pardon, can I ask you to archive a bit more of this talk page? My browser is hanging when I try to post here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:33, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I keep intending to. thanks for reminding me. DGG ( talk ) 19:55, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Which browser and OS, Jo-Jo? Given a lengthy talk page here, with Safari on an iPad I have no problems reading or posting here. With Windows 10 and IE 11 attempting to go directly to a section from my watchlist hangs—but going to User talk:DGG works OK. Surely there should be a computer based solution. Fifty years ago (when I started programming) maybe no, but now? — Neonorange (Phil) 20:42, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If I may butt in; I'm using Safari on iPhone, and when I first tried to load this page I got an error message saying something like "An error occurred. Attempting to reload page." I've never gotten that message before. This is quite possibly the most popular talk page on Wikipedia. Lizard (talk) 20:51, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

actually, it's slowing down even for me, with Safari and 16GB memory. It's my own fault, because I ambitiously set up a system of subject archives instead of doing like everyone else. I will make another try this weekend. DGG ( talk ) 21:23, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Windows 10 64-bit system and the 80 Mbit/sec Internet connection I use is way overkill for editing and browsing. Your talk page, as it is the moment of my sig time stamp, loads in less than a second when I go to User talk:DGG. When I go to a specific section of the page (from my watchlist) the browser busy pointer appears and after five minutes is still busy. I must reload Wikipedia in the browser to continue, as the page cannot be recovered. Computers should allow a person to be as productive as that person wishes, not the reverse. — — Neonorange (Phil) 00:02, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

the section editing for me works in just the opposite way--much faster. Anyway, expect some improvements here. DGG ( talk ) 02:26, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for all you do to help keep Wikipedia collaborative. It's a thankless task, on the ANI board.auntieruth (talk) 14:55, 29 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Summary, modified from my comment elsewhere,

The policy on whether we keep an article is not WP:N. The policy is WP:NOT. The guideline WP:N is the explanation for how we decide on one part of that policy, NOT INDISCRIMINATE. An article might meet that, but fail other parts of NOT. If something is effectually promotion, it fails NOTADVOCACY, and that's enough to rule it out as encyclopedia content, because we do not advertise anything, no matter how notable. There's no justification for keeping advertising in Wikipedia any more than there is copyvio. Unless there is a NPOV version to revert to, or unless it is immediately fixed, it should be deleted, whether by speedy G11 or at AfD. It shouldn't be moved to draft or userified in the hope of improvement, as we might for something lacking in sources for notability but where there's a good chance of finding them. We wouldn't do that for copyvio. We wouldn't do that for BLP violations. Using WP for advertising is just as harmful. "fixable" applies in many circumstances, but not for any of these. DGG ( talk ) 20:27, 29 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

HM. Hm. Set brain to churning with all kinds of things clicking. Two questions:

• Is that true, historically? I mean, was N created to flesh out NOT, explicitly?
• Is this widely seen as true in your view? (I have never heard of it or thought about it this way.... it makes total sense however) Jytdog (talk) 19:57, 1 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(1) See this very early version of WP:N from Sept 2006:

Based on several sections What Wikipedia Is Not, it is generally agreed that topics in most areas must have a certain notability in order to have an article in Wikipedia. Several guidelines have been created, or are under discussion, to indicate what is and is not notable by {{|Radiant!}}. (but at that point several of the proposed specific guidelines had developed to approximately their present form, with varying degrees of acceptance). The first appearance of a GNG was in Nov, 2006. by UncleG

(2) This my understand of the necessary implications of WP:NOT. It is my interpretation, & I think reflects the trend of decisions at AfD. It is not universally accepted; the alternate interpretation is for keeping promotional articles even if borderline notable, if it is at all possible to fix the promotionalism. In choosing how to interpret, we should follow logic & consistency, but also practical considerations. My view is that accepting even temporarily promotionalism plays into the hands of paid editors and other spammers, and that such editing has the real potential to destroy the usefulness of WP as an encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 03:47, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I meant mostly the "this guideline fleshes out NOT" thing. Thanks for the history link! Jytdog (talk) 11:59, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(my argument at a recent deletion review in popular music) Consistent practice at WP has been that meeting the SNG is enough in this field. Guidelines are what we do, not just what we say, and if there is conflict between the two, it's what we do that matters. WP is not run primarily by rules, but primarily by consensus--rules are attempts to codify the usual consensus, and are valid only to the extent the community in practice supports them. re ambiguous, The rule on charting has an enormous advantage: it produces unambiguous results. Except for the need to define just what charts it is that count, there's not much room for dispute and decisions can be easily made,. Following the GNG is another matter entirely:the specifications that coverage by ""reliable"", significant coverage, independent and secondary and in sufficient number, can be endlessly debated, and in all fields where we rely on the GNG they are endlessly debated-in most cases that reach AfD they can be plausibly debated in every direction, and people in practice pick what side to argue by some sort of global judgement about whether the article should belong in WP. Thus our hundred or so FaDs a day where the main discussion is the opportunity to show skill in quibbling, and the result depends on just which skilled quibblers appear at the discussion. I don't care about the individual results in this subject field, but I do care they our decisions be consistent and rational. The SNG does that--the GNG guarantees the opposite.

Perhaps it's odd that with some degree of reputation as a skilled quibbler, and years of experience quibbling on both sides of AfDs, I want to do away with those discussions. I've experience in a lot of unnecessary things, and I'd much rather use my skills at something substantial at RSN or the like, and in figuring how to fix articles. I came here because I thought I could use quite different skills in finding refs to fix articles, but I've never had a chance to use them much. Debating as we do it is just a game. Sourcing is real. DGG ( talk ) 22:32, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG, I noticed you struck the listing for Eliyahu Leon Levi at WP:AN/CXT No. 9 with the comment that it is in adequate English; but how's the translation? The quality of English in the article isn't really that important; any copyeditor can do that. What we are mostly concerned with, is the accuracy of the translation, as most of the pages in this list were script-generated due to a misconfig in ContentTranslation and are either pure MT, or MT+monolingual copyedit, so don't worry too much about the English quality.

If you can vouch for accuracy of articles translated from Hebrew, the following ones in the list could use your help, if you have the time: #106, 197, 1627, 1680, and 1907. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 02:04, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this is a questionable reach for me , as I do not read the language at all. I cannot vouch for accuracy; I can vouch for the English making sense and being consistent and the facts reported being likely. Like most bios, the article is extremely straightforward and leaves little to be misinterpreted. I know the cultural significance of what's reported, and it makes sense. I would not have looked at anything more complex or where I understood nothing of the subject. It's no worse that way than were it to have been written directly into the enWP using Hebrew sources, and certainly had it been an unacknowledged machine translation. The only reason these articles are any different is we know instead of guess that they used machine translation. So I shall ask a wikifriend to verify.

And I did likewise with a Chinese article on a straightforward political career. Again, it makes sense, but it is a language where machine translation to English is notable awful. It could be imaginary, but so could any article using Chinese sources. I'll ask for verification.

The other languages I've worked with I do know how to read at least somewhat, best for French and German. How well I can deal with them depends upon how simple they are. I've done translations in both from scratch, but I do not attempt deWP articles on history with their usual complicated German syntax--this is one case where it is easily possible to get mixed up. However, some types of articles are extremely formulaic. I'm most likely to run into an uncertainty regarding the equivalence of positions in different countries, tho as a librarian I know a lot of organizational equivalents. (There's a very nice large book A manual of European languages for librarians by CG Allen. Invaluable for the Soviet era in particular.) And if I come across anything I'm unsure about, or where I do not know the cultural equivalent, or where the original seems confused, I leave that part out. I see from the comments that other do similarly.

But this raises some more general questions. I was going to post on the project talk p.and I will in some more detail tomorrow:

How many of the articles I accept at NPP or AfC can I really vouch for the accuracy? That's an unrealistically high standard for any new page patroller--all we really check is basic verifiability. That a translation is not quite accurate is no worse than in the English from a non-native speaker is not quite accurate, or if the sources don't actually verify what they say they do, or are unavailable. The only time we really check an article in depth is when an article is challenged at AfD or analyzed for GA or FA. What we're looking for is basic correctness, not detail.

of the first 100 articles, we're accepting or redirecting almost all of them that are worth working on. Some that I could read perfectly well I am not marking for acceptance because I do not consider it worth the work, and I see others are deciding similarly. My intent is to rescue everything worth rescuing if I can do enough work. The project would be enormously simplifyied if we simply accepted translations from the Scandinavian languages. The machine translation does very well with them, because the syntax is almost identical. It also does very well with straightforward German.(as distinct from the professional level German in their longer articles) In other languages , the most serious inaccuracy is the sequence of events because of the difference in tense use which are very often messed up by the machine translation, and the original is often a little unclear here also. But I'm particularly concerned the project did not screen out those articles that used the machine translation as a base, and then edited manually by the contributor or a good editor. There's no reason to assume they're incompetent.

Our role should be to screen out the ones that are incapably done, and not worth fixing. There are fewer than I anticipated--perhaps 25% not 50%. I also consider it our role to produce readable though not necessarily high quality English. :::I am not going to let something that can barely be deciphered pass no matter where I see it. How far it's worth fixing depends on how easy it is to fix, and it's importance.

If this standard is not acceptable, I might challenge the entire project using the experience I now have as the basis. The goal of all we do here is, after all, to get articles worth keeping, not to reject all problematic ones out of hand. But in any case I do understand your advice, and will work more conservatively. DGG ( talk ) 04:31, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for this very thoughtful and detailed response. You raise a lot of interesting issues regarding translation, verifiability, accuracy, quality, and others that go beyond the narrow issue here that sparked the original comment. I hang out at WP:PNT and think about translation there and in other venues (both on, and off-wiki) and I've been thinking about how to better organize this in a way to improve the encyclopedia generally, and capitalize on all the talent and interested people we have here and assemble a group of those who are interested to discuss that. I know there's a WikiProject Translation, but for what I have in mind, I'm not sure if that's the right place for it, as I think this is something else, but anyway (sorry, I'm rambling; it's late!) let's keep in touch about this, if you would like to.

Back to the original topic: I understand your PoV, and in a pool of 3600 articles, it's not so important if one article more or less gets kept or not (with the exception that I hate to nuke ones that editors have worked long and hard on, unless policy really requires it) so if you want to restrike to keep this one it's fine by me, or tell me and I'll do it. Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 08:19, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My confusion; no need to restrike E L Levi, it's still struck as you left it; I've been doing so many of these lately, can't remember which way is up! Mathglot (talk) 08:29, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Librarians -- especially academic librarians -- have the distinctive requirement to be able to deal with material about which they have only the scantiest knowledge--there were about 100 professional librarians at my university, and we were expected to be able to understand the requirements of about 1000 faculty, all of whom had a world-class specialized knowledge that we could not hope to match--even those of us who became librarians after a research career had only mastered one special field, not 10 of them. This is obviously a good background for working at WP. Publishers have a similar skill, and so do reporters. This included the need to work with a range of languages--some of the faculty had an extremely impressive range indeed, but still we collected in more languages than was presently represented. But librarians do not have to truly understand the details of a book in order to catalog it, just understand it well enough to figure out what it is about and the level of the analysis. I've taught librarians also, and though no one can actually teach these abilities, I did explain to my students that if they were to win the respect of faculty, they had to at least know how to pronounce properly the words of their various specialties. (Thus I can spell and pronounce chemical and biological names much better than I can ordinary English) The same is of course true of many non-academic fields--you have to at least know the talk. So I will boldly attempt anything unless I know by experience I will make a fool of myself.

There's a difference among the various WPs. deWP is known for insisting on a solid university level of German, and we don't expect anything more than high school level literacy. We deal more than any other WP with people who cannot really write the language, and within limits, we encourage them. Fortunately, we have a very wide range of language and other specialists, and there is very little we cannot find someone to deal with. (The problem in that in some fields and languages there are very few of them, and they may not be representative of the range of POVs) By experience, I've learned some fields where I can , and cannot, trust the available WPedians, both here and at their own language WPs. I am very reluctant to delete anything the de or fr WPs consider notable --but this does not hold at all for some of the other European language WPs.

Anyway, that's where I come from intellectually. I see you understand, and I appreciate it. DGG ( talk ) 09:29, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher) David, that's an interesting analysis, thanks. I'd noticed that there are many of us librarians or retired librarians editing Wikipedia, and had thought it was connected with our urge to make knowledge accessible, along with an interest in cross-references etc, but you've reminded me of our professional ability to deal with sources of information in subjects we don't understand, and up to a point in languages we don't understand. One of my first tasks as a graduate trainee librarian, many years ago, was to catalogue and classify a couple of shelves-full of books in Macedonian, with some highschool knowledge of Russian and a Macedonian-English dictionary: they'd been donated from Skopje and the chap on whose office shelves they were waiting needed the space. I've set myself the challenge of creating an article for every editathon of WP:Women in Red, whether or not it's an area I know (or care!) much about: it's an interesting exercise! PamD 21:20, 4 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

DGG,

I see the Chad Robichaux page has been nominated for deletion. You stated that, "promotional bio. full of puffery and uncited praise. The athletic career does not seem to meet the requirements,and there is nothing else substantial. I would not have accepted this from AfC."

Thank you for your feedback on the article. I made some edits to the page to remove any puffery. It don't understand, however, your other reasons for this being deleted. Can you help me? As I read the biography for living person page this seems to fall in line with the requirements and the coverage doesn't fall under "routine coverage" as described.

You are the expert, so however I can learn and make this page better I will gladly hear.

TO REPLY

Thanks for reviewing my article. Yavarai (talk) 12:38, 5 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wishing DGG a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Lepricavark (talk) 13:22, 9 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was just looking at your user page and I must say, you have some interesting reading on there. Thank you for sharing! --TheSandDoctor (talk) 17:23, 9 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I looked at the famous February 2017 RFC on SCHOOLOUTCOMES, analyzed it some also did some thinking on my own dime. My full unfinished take is here, but don't click that link, it's long. In summary:

• FWIW WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is indeed accurate. Of 35 randomly sampled the result was 34-1 Keep (or maybe 34-0, 29-1, 29-0 depending on how you count).
• FWIW there are valid reasons to cite WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES I think. 1) it's valid to say "this works, let's keep doing it", 2) it's valid to say "not this shit again, its a timesink, let's not do it" 3) the community has consistently expressed its opinion on the general question for 15 years, and that counts. 4) maybe others I didn't think of. It's a matter of opinion, but reasonable opinion that one can disagree with but not just blow off, I would say.
• Examining the February 2017 RFC, I found that the closers made a mistake -- a bad one. They said "Citing SCHOOLOUTCOME... has been rejected by the community", but that's not actually true; it wasn't (I'm pretty sure; I'm still working on analyzing this, and it will take some hours; but it appears so at this point).
• Therefore people are being given a bum steer, I would say. The poor admin over at the Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2017 May 10#DRV for Kent School is having do deal with a shitshorm, and its not his fault. He followed what is written: "Firstly, I think the new language at WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is unequivocal: Secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist"

This is a problem IMO.

I didn't say this in public, but I have dark suspicions about the people who closed the February 17 RfC. Be that as it may, we can at least say that they demonstrated lack of acuity and diligence. As someone who has closed a couple RfC where I took a week (not 40 full hours, but still), I was appalled to see statements like "many arguments didn't make sense and were ignored". Man, that is not how you adjudicate a hugely visible and important RfC! I mean at least don't say that out loud. If you're too busy do to it right don't do it.

The key point is that the closer said "Citing SCHOOLOUTCOME... has been rejected by the community", but that isn't true, apparently (still working on this, but pretty sure it is not true). Mendacity or... lacking acuity... doesn't matter. They used this (untrue ) statement to make or authorize significant changes to a couple of pages, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes and Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions.

My inclination is to roll back these changes and cite User:Herostratus/Understanding SCHOOLOUTCOMES as justification. Whether WP:BRD applies after three months, I don't know... doubt it. My inclination could also get me in a heap of trouble. I'd rather let jack do it. If I'm going to do it, I need cover. I have enough enemies already.

But it's important enough to not just shrug off IMO. As a matter of principle the whole affair frosts me, for one thing. Four guys supervoting on a highly visible RfC is toxic to community feeling. As a matter of practice, leaving this alone will probably result (after much wasteful drama, and admins being caught in the middle) with a blow to our coverage of high schools outside the first world.

So what to do next? Herostratus (talk) 01:55, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What to do next is to vigorously defend all plausible articles, while letting the very weakest go. I'm willing to accept literally that "citing SA doesn't have consensus" Focus on the rest of the RfC, that in practice we do always keep them. Since nothing in that whole section of common outcomes is policy or even guideline, just advice. I wouldn't bother trying to upset or reconsider the RfC=, no matter how aelf-contradictory its conclusion. Policy & guidelines are important concepts in hierarchical organizations, but at WP, policy is what we do unless there's a very good reason otherwise, and a guideline is what we usually do., unless we decide not to. Usage makes the policies sand the guidelines. Even so , notability isn't even a policy, but a guideline for one part of the real policy, WP:NOT INDISCRIMINATE, and the so-called GNG is just one possible way to apply WP:N. We can use it if it helps. I don't thing it often does, because experience shows how easy it is to manipulate the details to get whatever result is desired. It's a way of arguing, not a useful guide. If I were more cynical, I'd support it, because it would serve my interests, as I have considerable skill and experience in arguments using it in both directions. NOT INDISCRIMINATE is an important and in my opinion necessary policy, but the details of how we choose to apply it it are what affects the results. Just don't cite it. Cite the facts, as you just did in the first sentence above: We always keep them, unless there are unusual circumstances. It's a convention justified by its utility. Remember, as WP idiosyncratically uses the term, "notability " says nothing about actual merit. It's a term of art, meaning only "worth keeping in the encyclopedia".I wish we had never started using it, but instead, said what we meant.

I cannot explain the existence of the current push against high schools. It has the effect of clogging up AfD and preventing proper consideration of the real problems here, which are promotionalism and fan support of the transiently popular. I hope that isn't the intent, but rather am misguided faith in ideological purity. WP is not the place for ideological purity. WP is driven by consensus, and the essence of consensus is compromise, not rigour. Those wh owant rigour wshould go elsewhere.

But consensus has a weakness--it an be defeated by zealots. The only defense is for sensible people to stay with their purpose, and argue each dispute as it comes up. At WP, success goes to the most persevering, Think of it as those who care the most, not those who are most stubborn. who are assumed to care the most. I was raised in a tradition of political activism, and what I was taught was: always appear at every opportunity. Let's see who has the real majority. Otherwise the minority of zealots rule, as they currently do in what I still think to be my country. DGG ( talk ) 07:35, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

15:19, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Can you take a look at this please. I've prodded it because I'm sure it's an amalgam of chunks of text text copied from the one source that's used but I don't have the book. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Kudpung, did you notice there's a snippet view of the book on Google Books? It's not great but maybe good enough to scan for copyvio.

(later) Oops, maybe not - it's volume 1 and the article uses volume 2 or 3. Anyway here's the link [3]. - Bri (talk) 23:33, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Kudpng, it cannot simultaneously be OR and copyvio. And if it is not copyvio, then I do not see it as OR, but the summary of information based on a book with other sources used as well.Thestyle, with the long quotations, and the manner of referencing, suggests that it's a term paper. The snippet view is useless, it's from a quotation in the book. I tried other phrases, only ones from the quotation bring up the book. I suspect its in part a paraphrase., at least as far as organization goes. It covers a narrower scope than the current title; I moved it to American Jewish Anti-Bolshevism during the Russian Revolution. I think the way to proceed is to list it at Copyright problems DGG ( talk ) 00:47, 19 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've been avoiding these as likely lost causes but we may as well deal with whatever we've got. Not sure what the agenda is tomorrow for you but here are some of my current art articles, in addition to that one about the guy who cast bronzes. Oh and a librarian for you: Ana_Santos_Aramburo. And also Dolors_Lamarca

Keep?

• Venecia, Puente de Rialto (Giorgio de Chirico) - es - painting `1950, needs an editor for flowery language if kept
• Inmaculada_Concepción_(Murillo,_1670) - I did some work on this, but is the Fundation Carlos Slim proof of notability? --- translation looking uglier than I thought
• Alsatian Orphan - Rodin, I cleaned up the english
• Marcela_Cernadas - never heard of her but she looks notable; at least has content
• Jacqueline_Lacasa - runs a national art museum in Uruguay; english was horrifying and is now just bad. Read everything twice, found some cognates
• Regina Aprijaskis - as above
• André Dekeijser Belgian-Congolese sculptor
• Marie Helene Aarestrup-esp please check titles of works and exhibitions
• Lot_and_his_Daughters,_with_Sodom_and_Gomorrah_Burning what's the name of the museum? I don't think that's the official translation

Yes I do realize that 1670 is not contemporary and neither is Rodin, but hey if you're going to be in an art museum -- any suggestions on any of these will be great. I will add to these as I go tonight.

leaning meh unless much improved

• Faunesa_de_pie - rodin but I dont trust it
• Venecia,_Puente_de_Rialto_(Giorgio_de_Chirico) - another one that seems to be another bad translation of a museum catalog; 1950 Chirico
• Hafshejan_Elamite_brick - no doubt notable but I can't figure out how to fix, maybe you?
• Pietro Bazzanti e Figlio Art Gallery - I find it interesting but you know someone will say it's promo, and it doesn't seem to be that well-written
• The_Queuing_Continues

already struck but possibly of interest depending on who you are talking to

• Mexico and the Mexicans
• Wing_of_a_European_Roller
• Alberto da Veiga Guignard
• Night Travellers at a Cross

just baffling

• Aurelio_Gonzato patented phallic device which did something or other, sounds like knxt toys I used to buy for my son
• Evgeny_Ksenevich - definitely needs editing but I don't speak those languages or know that art, either one
• Altar_Wings_of_Roudníky--looks important but much is mysterious

kind of rough but possibly worth an effort

• Pablo_Zelaya_Sierra
• Jorge_Riveros ---very long, probably too long and in the name of god isn't there a less depressing picture?
• Apollo_(System_Copernicus)

OK so. That's enough for anyone even given superb powers of delegation. This is not homework, btw, just what I am working on, so if you have other stuff to do then fine. For all I know you are giving the keynote and were thinking along the lines of picking someone's brain for ten minutes. The art stuff is however to say the least extremely uneven and This is where I am with it. Some of the articles probably cannot be saved and also the stuff out of Carlos Slim foundation is sounding kind of sloppy. Or maybe someone just translated a lot of their catalogue? Anyway, there's that. I would like to keep the Rodin but it's where I am seeing this. Elinruby (talk) 14:47, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher) I don't know the background to this but had a look at a couple out of curiosity:

Faunesa_de_pie - looks as if Standing female faun and Kneeling female faun should get a mention in The Gates of Hell: lots of ghits for various versions of this sculpture. The Spanish wikipedia article is longer than this English stub.

Aurelio Gonzato - looks like an exact translation of the Italian wikipedia article. Don't see any sign of phallic device - but perhaps that's in some other context I don't know about. PamD 07:46, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@PamD: First of all, pleased to meet you. And, you are right about phallic, thank you. I apparently looked at "metallic planes" way way way too fast. I still can't figure out what it did though, and he patented it? was it like a transformer? Became different things? Any thoughts welcome. Do you speak Italian? Meanwhile the context to this is that DGG told me on a different earlier talk page that he is going to an edit-a-thon at the Metropolitan museum tomorrow and it so happens that I have a bunch of art articles in this list of bad machine translations scheduled for deletion, except get this, some of them are fairly excellent articles... and then there is the stuff totally beyond my own horizons where I can't tell if it's too technical or too finnish, etc. So. what I have been doing is going down the list to make sure nobody tosses the astrophysics and cryptology articles, then I took some French under my wing, then nobody was doing Portuguese so....Please feel free to jump in. The key question is whether it would be easier to fix a given article or to start over. This is of course subjective but over a couple of iterations we have identified a lot stuff that is fine, other stuff not worth the headaches, or a whole lot more stuff somewhere in between, as with the articles above, where at least two editors appear to have machine translated museum catalogs or something possibly copyvio. And there are weirdnesses that often a sign of something wrong that someone made wronger trying to fix it. Anyway I have talked to DGG about some of these articles and hey if he is going to be at an editathon....if he potentially can enlist some editors at the editathon I thought I would share some of my bemusements. The Rodin piece is definitely worth an article but I am not sure I believe what this one says right now. Anyway, we have entire languages and fields of study that aren't being looked at much right now... we got Tang poets and Roman fortifications and WW2 missiles, origin of life, Chinese warlords, holocaust massacres in lithuania... need arabic, gujarati, chinese. Bulgarian and Portugese would also be very nice. Even if you only speak english you could still fish the Women in Red Articles out of there and that would help a bunch too. Elinruby (talk) 09:10, 22 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Elinruby: Unfortunately i was too much involved in other thing at the museum editathon to work on any of this. I still would like to, and I will be going back there in a few weeks. There's a NYC chapter meeting Wednesday, and I will mention the project if there's times.

However , I do not think it essential to decide whether or not to keep these translated articles. The purpose of the verification is to see if the basic facts are correctly translated, and whether the article is either OK as is, or worth working on further. Some of the participants in this project are of the opinion that all machine translations are hopelessly unreliable, and I think they're wrong . Certainly they are almost always in need of some degree of rewriting (more or less, depending on the language=-the Scandinavian ones are usually very close, and the ones from the languages of India very rough indeed.) A few disastrous problems in meaning have been demonstrated, so they all do do need checking. The problems are not just linguistic but cultural--not knowing the corresponding titles or special meanings in other countries. An interesting example is the very different meaning someone in the US, Russia, or even England is likely to think of first for the term "Civil War"--or what someone in a particular country thinks is met by "War of Independence", (Such problems turn up not only in machine translation, but manual translation by those whose knowledge of one of the two languages ins adequate , and even original writing by someone with inadequate command of English--or indeed even a native speaker working a a field where they do not know the specialist terminology. Our Wikipedia has had probably hundreds of thousands of such articles submitted, and probably a few thousand serious problems remain. Very few articles here have been meticulously checked against the sources by someone expert in the field, and this is why we say that nobody should use WP for serious research.

But those who are expert in both languages--a few of them quite specifically professional translators--want to use their professional standards , just as many of us want to have perfect English grammar in articles, or perfectly formatted citations. But WP is the encyclopedia written by amateurs, not experts. We want to be as good as we reasonably can, but the standard is not academic perfection.

the usual errors in machine translation can be dealt with by amateurs and the level of knowledge of the source knowledge necessary for this depends on the subject. I can translate basic geographical articles from a number of languages, but I don't think there's any where I would be fully capable of doing justice to a complex philosophical or historical article. We o need our language experts, but not for everything. Anyone working with machine translations of say, the Spanish WP, knows the likely errors in tense and gender--but also should know the somewhat lower standards of notability and citation in that WP, and the vagueness of some articles written there by those who may know the language, but not the subject. Even a WP of the very highest standards, such as the deWP, whichI think in general quite superior to ours', uses general references in cases where we would insist on specifics (and in many case I think they it is they who are right about that, not the enWP, but still we must add referencing to satisfy our own expectations, whatever we think of them.

There's a sort of panic when people here come upon a set of particularly weak or problematic articles, leading to an over-hasty decision to delete all of them, such as attempt at the WP:AN to delete one particular editor's very brief but almost always accurate one or two sentence stubs about clearly notable scientists. The people advocating mass deletion can easily find a few conspicuously awful problems, but they're usually just a few % (there have been mass deletions that have been fully justified, such as a large group of articles on slime molds using obsolete taxonomy where most would have to be rewritten from scratch, or a group of geographical stubs using a incorrect procedure for getting material from a census. There's a saying here, better no article at all than a bad one. This is rational, if "" is used to mean awful in one sense or another. It is not rational if "bad" is used to mean inadequate. This is a place where inadequate article get fixed slowly over time. There are a great many editors here who want to improve a small part of an article , but not write an entire article. And an inadequate article on a place or non-living person can still give enough identification to help the user who knows nothing at all. DGG ( talk ) 13:25, 23 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@DGG: it's ok, I knew you might and the sorting process was actually somewhat helpful in itself. And Pam came by to look at a few for me so overall it was a win. I do have some specific questions about that list if you have a moment. But I'll mention first that yes, I agree with you, but nonetheless if wp is getting crap articles because a software tool allows someone to make them faster than they can be fixed, it might be an idea to improve the process so the articles need less fixing whether they come fast or slow. I do have some thoughts about that since I have been doing some of that cleaning for a long time, but for now I am just trying to get some articles adopted before we blow up the others and I start asking you what I need to do to get rid of X2. So, in the goal of getting some articles adopted let me come back to that lost for a moment. I made some posts on the talk page last night and would especially like to know what you think of the one about Tunis. I would also like to know what you suggest about the Olympic athletes and the 18th century mathematicians? Thanks for all you do. Elinruby (talk) 13:52, 23 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

X2 was in my opinion a major error, and what we need to do is not delete the articles, but delete X2, and reject the approach to WP on which X2 is based. Given that we're stuck with it, as we are with all of our over-hasty ill-informed decisions based on inadequate evidence. There will be more--our manner of decision making is subject to such decisions unless they are immediately and vigorously opposed, and get widespread attention. Whether every verifiable Olympic athlete should be notable is an open question, but WP at this time treats them as such. If the original language source or the translation appears to verify, the article must be kept. The articles on 18th century mathematicians follow the same rules as later ones: if they held a major university appointment, or had notable disciples, or published important works, or have something named after them, they will meet WP:PROF.

Unfortunately, there are at least two other situations where I need to do similar rescue: the attempt at WP:AN to remove all the 1000 or so subs by a particular contributor on the basis that 1% of them are inaccurate, and the attempt to delete G13 without looking at the drafts to see whether any are salvageable or even ready for mainspace. I feel overwhelmed to the extent that I am almost unable to work on any of them, and need to force myself to work here at all. DGG ( talk ) 17:06, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I hear you I hear you Elinruby (talk) 03:37, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi David! It's SheridanFord from the Wikimedia NYC chapter. Last month you offered to help me problem-solve around this edit from way back in January. I got stuck with the edit-war around it and haven't come back to it. I want to finish adding to this article. I spent 2 hours while recovering from foot surgery doing this work. Here's the old version that was reverted. SummerPhD2.0 and her bots kept reverting me. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=St._Vincent_(musician)&oldid=762400209.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. I showed my edit to several academics who thought it was neutral in perspective given the sources I used. I am still learning the norms and values of the crowd around here. Thanks in advance for your help. Best --sheridanford (talk) 22:09, 24 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've started, but it will take a while.First step: are there 2007 sources? - DGG ( talk ) 23:55, 24 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A philanthropist who donates millions to research isn't worthy of inclusion in WP, but a film that hasn't been distributed yet, such as Bank Chor, is worthy. I don't get it. ^{Atsme📞📧} 03:13, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) Our notability guidelines for pop culture subjects (celebs, film, sport) are very gameable, especially so when the local media are – ahem – particularly friendly towards the pop culture subjects. Because of the futility, and general ennui, I don't usually try to fix those articles anymore. - Bri (talk) 03:21, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I still support articles on billionaires, but anything less does not much impress me unless they've accomplished something. "philanthropist" is a very easy claim--as I see it, it requires active participation, not just money. DGG ( talk ) 03:47, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I understand, DGG - but the point of my question was about a film that was produced, not yet distributed to the public or seen, and is considered worthy of inclusion in our encyclopedia. Do you support that? If so, why, because that's the part I'm not understanding. ^{Atsme📞📧} 09:59, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Films from India are a problem, because the article written here are usually inadequate, even for important films, the sources are hopelessly contaminated by advertising, and there is generally no practical way to search for additional sources. In consequence, I no longer attempt to work with them. The film was discussed a few days ago at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bank Chor, A rational case was made for the importance of the film, even if the author of the article was unaware that he should have shown it was in principal photography. The film is supposed to open next month. There were 2 keep comments and no delete comments; the experienced admin, Jo-Jo Eumerus, quite reasonably closed keep. On the basis of the material presented, I would have closed the same way. If you disagree, you can file another AfD in a month or so; there is no point going to Del Rev, because the consensus there will almost certainly say just what I did, that no other close was plausible.

If you think particular films are not notable, use deletion processes, If you think the standards are too low, try to get them raised. If you think (as I do) that the sources are unreliable, try to get consensus for that--but be aware they are generally the only practical sources we have for material from that country. If you think you can find better, that would be a major step forward, and a very helpful thing for WP.

My own view of the relative importance of different topic fields has been stated many times: we are a collection of smaller communities, and the basic rule for coexistence is to tolerate each other. My own view of the usefulness of the GNG as a standard for inclusion has also been stated many times: utterly worthless except perhaps as a last resort. DGG ( talk ) 16:51, 26 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, DGG. I understand that you feel strongly that "We can and should delete drafts when there is no hope of an article", but you do realize that the outcome of last year's WP:CONSENSUS, reflected in WP:STALE, is something different, right? That WP:GNG do not apply in user- and draft- space and that neglect of a draft wasn't grounds for deletion, etc.... Do you think it might be better to change the policy, rather than going around it? Because that's how the SD requests look to me. I'm not being tendentious, either; just trying to have good faith dialogue. Newimpartial (talk) 06:07, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I do not mention the GNG in these arguments; I agree it does not apply outside article space, and I have in fact argued that it should not apply. As for speedy, I have never listed a speedy for a draft or users space except for the reasons that are appropriate there, which include G11. It is true I think we should use G11 much more energetically. I remind you that while the RfCs said that G13 does not apply except in draft space, they did say that "For userspace drafts where notability is unlikely to be achieved, consensus is that they should not be kept indefinitely. However, the community did not arrive at a specified time duration." and, for userspace drafts, " They can be deleted, but it should be done on grounds different than solely the age of the draft or the period the draft has not been edited." Therefore, the outcome for individual items is subject to consensus at the MfD. That's always been the case for deletion process. The two fundamental principles involved are WP is an encyclopedia , and IAR.

Simultaneous, I very strong disapprove of the use of G13 for improvable drafts, and most especially for drafts that are already good enough for article space but where inappropriately declined. We need to find a workable system for proper notification and working on them.It and everything else about AfC would be helped by clearing out the hopeless. DGG ( talk ) 06:20, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK; I can see where you're coming from. And I agree that MfD is the place to adjudicate these deletion requests. But that is why I have the problem I do with speedy G11s - it seems to me that many of them aren't G11 at all, but just wimpy early drafts; in cases where they really are WP:SPAM I have no problem seeing them deleted by consensus. But in my deletion review, you say that User:BucaFan3/Shy Kidx "would be a good Speedy anywhere" - but I don't see how it is WP:SPAM at all. It's just a baby article lol. Newimpartial (talk) 06:29, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On a related note, can I just say that it is difficult for me to find you so insightful here <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Maureen_Seaton>, and not just because you agree with me :), but so cavalier about userspace deletion here <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2017_May_28>. I get whiplash. lol. Newimpartial (talk) 13:16, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have a high regard for keeping anything that might be a promising article, and a low tolerance for anything that's going to remain useless. Obviously, views on what falls into these categories will differ. G11 is a criterion which is not as obvious as it claims to be, but it's our best defense against those who would debase the encyclopedia. My priorities vary with time as our needs differ. Ten years ago it was critical to supportg broad inclusiveness, now to resist promotionalism. But I shall look again at the del rev. DGG ( talk ) 16:14, 28 May 2017 (UTC) and I did. your argument did have some merit. DGG ( talk ) 17:14, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

More generally, as with most guidelines and policies in WP, the meaning of the deletion criteria depends a great deal on how they are interpreted. The interpretation is done by the accumulated and sometimes changing consensus the talk pages of the noticeboards and policy/guideline pages, and by the very variable decisions at individual instances. The result is sometimes a considerable gap between the formal wording and the effectual applications of it. Some things are interpreted very narrowly, some very broadly; some very strictly, and some very permissively.. Individual people differ, and the consensus is affect by which individual show up at a given argument. Every one of us who participates in these arguments has a different view of it. That said, there are some constants: the clearest example is that BLP tends to be interpreted strictly and broadly (more broadly than I really think justified); copyvio also strictly (and again more broadly than I think necessary--we are much less permissive than USLaw about fair use); most speedy criteria somewhat more broadly than they are written; WP:V is often disregarded unless someone protests,

The result, of course, is an encyclopedia full of inconsistencies, with consequent difficult for new users in figuring out just what is permitted. But this is inherent in the underlying working method of the encyclopedia -- we make our own rules, we make what exceptions we please, and there is no person or group that who can definitively settle disputes about content. The only reason this works is because of mutual tolerance, including the rule that admins must follow the consensus interpretation whether or not they like it. There is consequently a strong feeling against individual who try too insistently to make a point overemphasizing any one thing--they disturb what little equilibrium we have. Working with deletion processes involves tolerating an especially large amount of ambiguity and stupid decisions. Those who want a more predictable environment, would do better to work on vandalism or copyvio. DGG ( talk ) 16:53, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has been very cordial. Do you have any thoughts about my new ANI? Newimpartial (talk) 17:35, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Commented,. I think at this you will learn more by just watching some AFD discussion than by asking questions. atching is safe, but watch a good while before you start to comment there. The best course for you at the moment, however, is just to do something else for a while, like write or improve some articles. DGG ( talk ) 18:17, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I will be back editing and writing draft articles forthwith, but I won't put any new articles into userspace until I feel that I can stop looking over my shoulder for deletionists. You know, I lurked at MfD for about a week, on and off, without commenting, and really felt that I grasped the letter of the policies. Now I understand the letter plays into my own idiosyncrasies, and isn't the main thing that counts. But my reason for lurking in the first place? Fear of deletion lol. Newimpartial (talk) 18:26, 28 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	Thanks for reviewing my newly created article and encouraging a new editor like me. Regards Yavarai (talk) 10:52, 31 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

What is the preferred format to reference CVs? I would think external link rather than in line citation, but thought I would ask. Article in question is Robert R. Caldwell. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:50, 1 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I usually add both. It's both a RS for most purposes, and a proper external link. I also of course add an EL to their web page at the university, but often the CB is not linked from there. I consider the formal CV a much more authoritative source than the university website. The formal DV id sn officisal document, and people get hired on the basis of it. In 11 years here there has only been one case of a false (or even misleading) cv for an actual academic. (politicians are another matter). For the university website, department PR staff sometimes have a role in it. DGG ( talk ) 04:27, 1 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You stood out as the sole user who I thought may be possibly amendable on this whole draft article ordeal. Part of the reason I've chosen to not continue it is a belief that nothing I produce, at least by myself, will be satisfactory to the detractors and cynics who have opposed some of my past additions and for whom I was confident would resume this pattern. I did want to ask what qualifies a person to receive a sub article; do the Early life of Frank Sinatra and Early life of Joseph Stalin exist because the main articles are long? I've found myself perplexed by that question since that happen, and I'm seeing fit to live with the mystery. Informant16 June 2, 2017 'still needs reply

Thanks for reviewing my article about Sukhdev Rajbhar. Regards Yavarai (talk) 10:06, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! I saw your post here wishing that some kind of keyword sorting might be imposed upon unpatrolled pages to help us patrol pages in our realm of interest. I just wanted to leave a quick note here in case you missed the recent conversation at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Noticeboard where someone pointed out that you can use User:AlexNewArtBot to do exactly that. For example, here are the search results for the New Jersey keyword search. It'd be nice if this functionality was integrated into the NewPagesFeed interface, but in the meantime it definitely helps me to be more efficient with patrolling. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 19:51, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

yes,I'm aware of that, and a simplified version oft he bot was more or less what I have in mind. . Unfortunately, very few workgroups aare actually active, and fewer actually use i; locating the results within the workgroups is not very efficient for anyone else, as most of us interested in deletion process have altogether too many workgroups to follow.. The bot needs to be used to provide a more systematic approach,with the material in one place.

What I had in mind was either a collection of pages covering all, after the model of categorized AfD discussions, the articles , using the bot , or simply using the bot to add subject keywords to the new article list. I'll comment further. I apologize for not having had the time yesterday--but I've also found that sometimes just suggesting an idea and letting others develop it to be a very effective way of getting interest. DGG ( talk ) 00:12, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think a tool that did something like this would be of any practical use? I haven't done any serious NPP myself for about a decade, and it was pretty rare back then for pages to hang around unreviewed long enough for someone to categorize them. —Cryptic 01:03, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

comment needed DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your speech here was a masterpiece. A shame it was only on a user's talk page. Relax for 15 minutes and read WP:KNPP. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:16, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I will copy over a revised version somewhere. I think of it as a rough draft, and I was very tired when I did it. I has not followed the previous ANI stuff.

Thank you for editing with Black Lunch Table at Wiki Loves Pride! Heathart (talk) 02:35, 23 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Integrated Filters

• The team is moving full speed ahead on a follow-up project to the New Filters for Edit Review beta dubbed "Integrated Filters." The name refers to the fact that we are integrating the Recent Changes tools that currently remain in the old user interface (like Namespace and Tag filters), along with some tools and capabilities from Watchlist and elsewhere, into the new Recent Changes interface.
• You can get an overview of the Integrated Filters projects, and the general release strategy, on the description page of the project Phabricator board. Among the more interesting new capabilities:
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08:41, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

...

My caution about bands, record labels, fan pages, music, celebrity spin-offs, etc. can be summed up in this diff which resulted in a bit of a rollback'' but it's mainstream thinking nonetheless. ^{Atsme📞📧} 15:46, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I try to not get involved in fan areas. WP has always been very intensive in a few fields, and I think it best to leave them alone, on the basis that others may think the stuff I am interested in to be just as intrinsically unimportant. DGG ( talk ) 17:18, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am deeply disturbed by your apparent admission of moral cowardice, DGG. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:40, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean I do not go around here looking for fights, I admit the charge. If you mean that I am prepared to admit that other's views on importance or anything else may be valid although different from my own, I think any other attitude arrogant. If you mean that I do not seek to eliminate articles on let's say wrestling or tv serial episodes or individual pop songs because I do not like the genre, I think my view coincides with the principles of WP. DGG ( talk ) 18:00, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Slightly related to your comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of participants at the Second Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, but do you have thoughts on listing of electors at papal conclaves. As I mentioned in another thread above I've been working through the 17th century ones, which were largely lists based on self-published sources of the electors. My current technique has been removing the lists because they are overwhelming and not from RS. I'd been planning on going back through when I was done with that century and seeing if I can reconstruct the lists as articles from reliable sourcing, but your !vote there has given me second thoughts. Input is welcome. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:57, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

uncertain--but in any case they would be part of the article. They must also have sources in Catholic encyclopedia, histories of the papacy, etc. I'd expect everyone who participated was usually the subject of at least one biography, and in the 17th & 18th century I would expect almost all of the sources to be in Italian. DGG ( talk ) 02:44, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the thoughts. I asked because more recent ones have it as separate list articles (see Category:Lists of Papal conclaves). I personally side against the inclusion in the article because naming 50-70 individuals with half of them being red links is less than ideal. I am also just generally list averse in articles, which is why I like checking myself on such things. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:29, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But should they be redlinks? It seems to me that this makes it obvious that there should be articles. I recognize your greater expertise in the area, butsince all bishops even are considered notable here .... DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, most certainly none of them should be red links, though all cardinals being bishops or even all being priests is a 20th century innovation, being a cardinal is notable independent of episcopal status. When there has been a runner-up that doesn't have an article, I've been creating it. I'd do it for all the red links, except I don't have the language skills to do more than the more notable runners-up. I believe the 20th century model we have of not listing all of the individual electors in articles is probably ideal stylistically, but your comment at the AfD above made me reconsider whether the 20th century model of listing them separately was ideal. Following this conversation I think what I would probably settle on as the ideal is mentioning within individual biographies what elections the subject was a part of. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:29, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking exactly the same. DGG ( talk ) 04:56, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• I have highest of regards on your knowledge of Wikipedia. I am highly participative in your AfD. But this one i do not agree on various grounds.

• You have deleted the One of the Biggest Fintech startup in India. Its like deleting PayPal or Ebay from Wikipedia. There might be article quality issue, but this is no PR stunts, if you even know India, this is by every means follow standards to Encyclopedia or Wikipedia. It is Textbook notable, I will not be surprised if students are being taught in schools taking examples of PayU.
• I know you are very senior and not biased. But are you see every Indian startup or company as advertising. I can show to over 1000 Americans companies here with baseless, blatant promotions, and ridiculous Press coverage being protected in the name of GNC or some other Wikipedia policies.
• Even you have protected many American articles which I have AfD, on what grounds, just because they are covered in Media? or they are American?
• You are an Admin, and this decision does not make any sense. By every means there are some Startups in India which deserves the place here. Else i will be first one to nominate them.
• I am not advocate of any articles here, not for Indian neither for American, but it should be treated similar, if its Indian startup or an Indian Entrepreneurs does not make them automatically non-notable by their place.
• I can give you list of Ridiculous US startups you have protected without any significance as they have, PayU and few others are not promotions, It is a history of Payment.
• You are very intelligent making decision, i will still be participating removing the spam as you tag them. No offence just my view, you are biased in many places, no one can be perfect, neither you are. Sorry If i offended you, but I can not agree on few decision of yours. Light2021 (talk) 20:39, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Light2021, It is always appropriate to challenge me to explain myself. True, some people here don't like it, but that's a little silly, because this is a place where it is expected and a necessary part of our manner of working. I will always take something like this seriously and give the best answer I can. What's more, sometimes I'm just plain wrong!

I must follow consensus when I close. My role in closing is merely to judge what the consensus of reasonable arguments is, and state it. I may not instead close according to my own opinion. No admin may do that. (Some have been known to do so nonetheless, but it's quite wrong, it is called here a Supervote, and such decisions are usually reversed at Deletion Review)

If I disagree with the consensus, I have 4 choices only: instead of closing, I may give my own opinion, or I may pass it by and let someone else close, or I may list for further discussion, or, if the consensus is clear enough, I may close it according to the consensus as expressed.

the consensus here was clear. Most of the experienced users thought the references insufficiently independent or insubstantial. If that's what they think, rightly or wrongly, that's still the consensus. It had already been relisted once, and it is rarely useful to relist again.

I do not see Indian companies as likely to be non-notable. I do see them as relatively difficult to prove notability by the standards we use, because I consider articles on companies in Indian newspapers as very likely to be PR. I also see most articles on American companies or organizations of any sort in most newspapers as likely to be PR, and I have so argued when relevant. There are more Indian companies with promotional articles being submitted these days, in part because more American companies have learned not to try for articles here. But , as you observe, there are a great many that got into WP in earlier years, and we have not yet removed all of them.

In both cases, I judge by the content. If several articles repeat the same words, they're almost certainly copying it from the press release. If they interview the CEO, and let him say whatever he chooses about the origin and accomplishments of the company, they're an organ for his PR. If they use terms of praise without analysis, they're PR. If the overemphasize minor accomplishments, they're PR. NGOs and similar organizations are even worse in general, because they use cheaper and therefore less skilled press relations people.

But this is irrelevant in this instance. I did not go back to the original sources here, because I was not trying to evaluate the article and decide what I thought about it. I was evaluating the discussion, which is all I'm supposed to do. Unless the discussion looks really weird, I assume the arguments are made in good faith.

If there are any particular keep closes you think I did wrong, let me know--but remember, I must follow the consensus, not the merits. If you think I've argued wrong in any particular case, that's another matter, because most articles I argue are somewhat equivocal. I try to concentrate on the more difficult decisions, and therefore the consensus will not always be with me.

If there are any particular horrible examples from anywhere, that you think I might want to nominate, just tell me.

But let me give my opinion on the actual notability of this company: I think it might well be notable, but I do not think the article shows it. But I see it's an international company and I think it would be much better to write the article about that company first, with a section on hte Indian company. I see that the entire company (I think) of Naspers, which is notable, and so at least a redirect there would be appropriate. It's already mentioned in the article. a redirect would be appropriate. I will make it for both the international company and the Indian one. . Perhaps I should have seen that originally. But then, perhaps someone could have mentioned it in the discussion. DGG ( talk ) 01:01, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for writing and truly appreciate & understand your point. Light2021 (talk) 18:52, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I looked up some of Mr Magoos' sources and the company does seem notable, although it wasn't clear at first that there was a PayU that was the parent of PayU India. Two things struck me with the voting - not everyone seemed to take the time to read his sources, and of course I'm sure you noticed that TwisterSister voted delete twice, although that didn't affect the final tally. I do notice two biases in Wikipedia - one against Indian companies, which as you pointed out is a function of the press being a bit fawning, but also the fact that some of the articles are written with poor grammar. The other is against businesses - I've taken articles that were tagged for notability and added sources and almost verbatim info from the coverage, and seen the articles subsequently tagged for advertising. Nonetheless, are you able to email me the deleted PayU India text so I can see if it can be fixed? TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:30, 6 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reposting in cased you missed my request. Do you have access to the PayU India text, and if so, can you email it to me? I'll take a shot at fixing it and will submit it to AfC, and will let you know here when it's up. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:24, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	for the work and contribution. Light2021 (talk) 12:39, 6 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Considering your experience, your input is welcome at (the very messy AfD page) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nader El-Bizri. Thank you, —PaleoNeonate - 20:11, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello DGG. I understand your concerns and the reasons for placing warning tags. I also believe you are willing to hear my clarifications. I was not aware that in the course of a discussion I should not make edits. I did this in good faith to improve the article and bring more references. Being new to the Wikipedia protocols and technicalities might have resulted in what messily appears as “disruptive edits”. In real-life I am an academic specializing in philosophy. I do not have a connection with the subject of the article, but I am intellectually interested in his research and of other academics in the field. I used to make occasional edits in philosophy on Wikipedia without adopting a name. I had a bit of time after the end of the semester this summer to contribute to Wikipedia. One of my motives was an incident with a graduate student who used Wikipedia as reference and resulted in negative evaluations of the thesis as per the criteria of reputable universities. Given that I occasionally follow the news of the Wikipedia article being discussed, and those of other academics in related fields, I was concerned about a deletion request being made by a user who did not specialize in academia. I hence became engaged in the process. Given that I am new to this, I tried to find ways to bring this to the attention of experienced Wikipedia editors to serve as independent objective referees/assessors. It became clearer to me as the process was unfolding that it has its internal self-corrective integrity - You are clearly an experienced editor, with sound knowledge as librarian. One side-comment to consider (generally and independently form the article being discussed) is that: “chapters” in anonymously-peer-refereed edited volumes (published by Cambridge, Oxford, Routledge, Brill, etc.) are nearly equivalent to anonymously-peer-refereed “journal articles”, this is the case in the humanities, unlike the criteria of the natural, applied, and social sciences) - I was hesitant at first to write this whole clarification, but I then felt it is vital to do so given the integrity editors like you are bringing to the process, and that clarifying my actions ultimately serves the same purpose, although my contribution to Wikipedia will remain minimal given the limited time I am able to dedicate to it. Thanks anyway (AcademeEditorial (talk) 09:00, 11 July 2017 (UTC))[reply]

Based on my career talking to academics, publishers, and specialist librarians in all fields of knowledge, such chapters are in general not the equivalent, even in the humanities-- except in a few very specialized fields, or if the chapter is in something really important, and I consequently left one in. But I was exceptionally conservative in removing material--normally we do not even include any journal articles for people in fields where the notability and the academic advancement is primarily by published books, and even in the fields where articles are the most important forms of presentation we normally include only the two or three most cited--and there are some editors here who challenge even that. Taking you at your word, there may be no direct coi, but there is such rampant promotionalism in all areas of the world , including the academics, that even good faith editors tend to write promotional articles as that;s what they've always seen, and unfortunately even in WP. It will be years until we have removed half million or so promotional articles from earlier years when standards were lower, but at least we do not want to add to them.

If you do have time for WP,I urge you to write brief bios of leading people in your subject area. The easiest criterion to meet to show notability is holding a named distinguished professorship. DGG ( talk ) 09:17, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you DGG for your response. I began now a User-Page and will see how things progress. The summer is easier than later in the year in terms of having some time to making contributions to WP. I prefer to improve existing articles than start from scratch since I am new to the WP technicalities. However, given the tags under my userpage, I will steer away from the article being discussed and leave its handling to experienced editors (AcademeEditorial (talk) 21:08, 11 July 2017 (UTC))[reply]

Hello DGG. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Colette Mazzucelli, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: Not unambiguously promotional. Thank you. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:20, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

GorillaWarfare , you are aware that almost all of these two articles were written by one or more now-banned undeclared paid editors and their multiple socks? DGG ( talk ) 05:22, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher) As Colette Mazzucelli's article has been around since 2005, edited incrementally over the years, perhaps it should be reverted to the version of 22 March 2016 before the banned editor's major contributions, and their contributions hidden? PamD 07:21, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher)On the other hand, perhaps the edit history of Oren Alexander suggests that perhaps there's another sockpuppet/paid editor to add to the list (it was created by an editor who has made no other edits before or since)? PamD 07:26, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If that's the case, they should be tagged with G5. But when I reviewed them, I disagreed that they were so promotional as to be unsalvageable. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:56, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher) How would that work, GorillaWarfare? Criterion G5 is absolutely specific that "To qualify, the edit or article must have been made while the user was actually banned or blocked". We're just shooting ourselves in the foot here. We know that undeclared paid editing sockpuppet rings exist and that they need to be stopped, yet we can't organise ourselves enough to have any procedure for dealing with them. What's the way forward? Because I think it's time to look for one. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 17:05, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And G11 is absolutely specific that it applies to pages that are "exclusively promotional and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to conform with Wikipedia:NOTFORPROMOTION". Perhaps you should start a discussion to amend the CSD criteria, if you think articles like these should qualify? Otherwise take them to AfD. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:42, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) I agree with GorillaWarfare: I always thought that G11 was about the article's content, not who created it. {{db-g11}} does say in its current form. Adam9007 (talk) 17:50, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, actually so do I – G11 does indeed say those things. But I don't see how G5 could be any more likely to be accepted. Do you? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:24, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) I think Doc James has discussed in the past (at some page I lurk at) trying to clarify G5. Currently it is very narrowly construed. For now, I think the best option is simply to keep pointing out in AfDs that WP:N has two components, and that promotion is a valid reason to delete something per WP:NOT, WP:DEL4, and per WP:DEL14. As someone who is a regular at the NPP conversations, I do think the Sheryl Nields AfD, and the controversy around Marcomgirl in general did a lot to raise the awareness of the issue of promotional editing even within a group that isn't keen on promotionalism to begin with. I continue to think the best way forward at this point is through the AfD process: it is sometimes flawed, but it is a way we can achieve a practical consensus over hundreds of cases rather than a drawn out RfC. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:37, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Justlettersandnumbers: No, I suggested it just based off of what DGG said above. I didn't look at the editors involved. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:12, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

just reminding people that "once an article is nominated for CSD, it can be deleted under any applicable criterion" DGG ( talk ) 21:19, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK. We're still just floundering round in circles here without a proper criterion or policy for dealing with TOU violations. Doc James has reverted to an earlier version of this particular page, as PamD suggested above. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:22, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment So the question how do we interpret "while the user was actually banned or blocked" in the G% criteria? As I have said previously in this case User:Susana Hodge is not the master it is just the oldest account we have found to date. Just look at their first edit. They will have prior blocked accounts and just because we only get CU data for the last 3 months does not mean they do not exist. We can come to obvious conclusion and for these types of cases I occasionally do. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:49, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The way forward is to hold to the principles, not to the often contradictory guidelines that have developed around them. To start with, WP is an encyclopedia in contrast to a medium for advocacy. The two are incompatible. The best practical approach to this is what I've been saying explicitly at AfDs, and what I've actually been doing for the last ten years: either immediately rewrite the article or delete it. Anyone who argues that an article can be fixed, needs to prove it by fixing it, not just by hoping somebody will eventually.

G11 is necessarily somewhat subjective, and two experienced people (such as GW and myself) can still differ in whether an article falls under it. That's why no admins delete G11 single-handed. I make 5% errors, let's say for argument's sake even 10% on the more difficult cases; let's say another more conservative admin makes 2%. Having both of us do it, gives 0.2%, 1 in 500 , which is an error rate as good as we can hope for.

But since it is to some extent subjective, we have to take into account everything that affects how we look on it, and that does include the purpose of writing, which can often be implied by who it is who has worked on it. I think it is a reasonable assumption that articles by paid editors will almost always be promotional , because that's what people pay for. (Not 100% of the time, so some will need a discussion.) I also think it a reasonable assumption that people caught socking will have been socking earlier, and likely to have been banned for it, even if we haven't spotted it. More generally, I think that the terms of use means that articles by undeclared paid editors have no justification for being in WP. In removing them, we should use all applicable processes (fairly and properly and transparently and with checks from those who disagree, as always; we can interpret, we shouldn't distort). DGG ( talk ) 21:19, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I would put in a little time reverting vandalism this evening and found a rewrite you did. I use 'Hatnote', an audio representation of content changes and it flagged this big change of yours. You are well-respected (by me anyway) and I couldn't tell from the edit summary what the problem was in the first place. Reply or not.

Best Regards,

  Bfpage  _{let's talk...}  01:36, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

User:Bfpage, the article was nominated for deletion as promotional and non-notable by another editor. She is an academic, and academic biographies are my main area of interest. I immediately recognized that she was very clearly notable by the relevant guideline WP:PROF, but the article was indeed very promotional. I therefore rewrote it removing the promotionalism and summarizing the detail, as I explained at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Debórah Dwork. You can tell from the previous version in the history what the problem was.

Hatnote [11] seems--and sounds-- interesting. Since the term is used in WP in a different sense, perhaps you could describe it for a page like WP:Hatnote (program) or even an article about it. and possibly mention it at meta:Help:Recent changes DGG ( talk ) 04:02, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hallo David, Could you have a look at Joyce Stevens and Draft:Joyce Stevens? She seems clearly notable (Member of Order of Australia, subject of several articles and obits), and a lot of changes have been made since the draft was last rejected as "appears to read more like an advertisement " and as lacking sources.

The mainspace article appeared fully-formed today with edit summary "(Created new page entry for Joyce Stevens based on a draft made by another editor.) " That obviously isn't right - copying within Wikipedia without real acknowledgement to the editor who's done all the work. But I'm not sure what the protocol is when the copying is also bypassing the (horrible) AfC process. I hope you can do something to help! Thanks. (Incidentally, if the Submission Declined message of 28 June is from a template then the template needs to be fixed as it doesn't seem to make sense: "...should refer to a range of independent, reliable, published sources, not just to materials produced by the creator of the subject being discussed."??? If the subject being discussed is anything other than a fictional character, who's "the creator of the subject..."?) PamD 15:25, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

anyone can move a draft . Sometimes a move without using the AfCH process is necessary--I do it when the AfCH macro doesn't work, which for me is about half the time. But this was done by copypaste, which is almost never necessary, and we normally try to fix copypaste moves by redoing them properly. I will take care of that. For copying within WP we normally just correct the attribution; in this instance, doing the move properly will take care of that. She is clearly notable. The article does have a promotional done, but it seems to be based upon the tone of the tributes to her after her death, and seems fixable. I've revised the draft & moved it to mainspace.

the wording is the wording of the template. It obviously needs some adjustment. The AfC templates are in general terrible, but my efforts to try to get the fixed within the Afc process over the last few years have consistently failed--there has always been some excuse for not doing them. I will make another try at it. The real solution is to redo the entire AfC and NPP process, as Kudpung has been trying to do for several years. The problem is that it seems to require assistance from the WMF programmers, who have their own ideas about how we should do things. Some of the people involved have sometimes not been very willing to actually cooperate. At one point I was thinking of listing the AfC pages at MfD. In the past, before the RfC system was fully developed, that method was sometimes used effectively.

But for any system, we depend on the quality of the participants, & the quality of one of of the reviewers of this article is known to be a problem. I'm trying to deal with it without banning him from afc altogether.

and thanks for your further fix-up. As is obvious, I was trying to get this quickly to avoid confusion, but i see from the eds talk p. I wasn't quite quick enough. I left a comment there that I hope will be encouraging. DGG ( talk ) 22:54, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - but you left your comment on my talk page accidentally, not her's! PamD 22:57, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

PamD, although it can't happen fast enough for me, I think we've achieved a lot (by Wikipedia standards) since I started the ball rolling in Esino a year ago. I am convinced that merging AfC and NPP is the way to go because with a few tweaks the Page Curation system software can easily do both tasks. This would be a 'soft' deprecation of AfC because the Drafts would appear as such in the feed and the AfC team would simply migrate to using a the NPP GUI. There are half a dozen other advantages that I won't go into here, although I have had to temporarily full protect the AfC user list again.

Due to the pressure I and now other editors have exerted recently, the WMF has now done volte-face on some of its ideology based arguments, now accepting a more pragmatic approach instead, which leads me to assume that when we ask for Curation to combine the relatively simple elements of the AfC helper script, the devs will probably do it. The only real resistance is from the AfC users who have no better argument than simply wanting to keep their independence. Once we have the results of the upcoming ACtrial, we'll know more because it directly affects both systems of new article quality control. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:24, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) I haven't been involved in AfC for ages now (aside from just bouncing stuff in their direction when a creator gets upset that their company / band / friend / autobiography was deleted) - are there really individual fiefdoms? I've never been comfortable with the whole idea of AfC as a project in the first place, it's a process that complements NPP as one whole workflow for new topics (or if it doesn't, it should). Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:21, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

16:43, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

In section '"Articles" about academics' in Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not you wrote an elaborated treatise on WP:NPROF. IMO it is quite useful. Why don't you put it in an essay? Staszek Lem (talk) 18:41, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I will work on it -- it needs some supplementation. DGG ( talk ) 23:34, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG: Just letting you know, despite some disagreements we have in AfD discussions, I never take matters personally, and view AfD discussion simply as what they are, a forum for debate about Wikipedia articles. My stance is typically to be as objective and fair as possible, to ensure the highest standards of accuracy. In part, this is a reason why I provide sources in AfD discussions, rather than simply stating "keep - meets gng" or "delete - fails N", etc. This serves to provide an accurate overview regarding a topic's potential notability, or lack thereof. Ultimately, I base my commentary at AfD upon research and facts, avoiding conjecture and subjective rationales. When I walk away from a debate, and when a discussion is eventually closed, I move on, with no hard feelings whatsoever at any time. I wanted to let you know this because the mode of communicating on Wikipedia via typing can be impersonal, whereby one's intentions are not always easy to express or convey.

After seeing you at AfD for some time now, I understand your stance about some company articles, that some of them are not needed in the encyclopedia. I have no problem with your stance, even though I don't always agree with it, but this is relative to each individual article for me, rather than as a macro-level philosophy. In other words, I assess each topic individually, per the merits of that particular topic relative to notability, whether or not an article is promotional, and if so, to what degree (e.g. fixable or a WP:G11 situation), etc. I am also aware that some news sources are derived from press releases, just so you know. You'd be surprised at how many news articles from my searches that I don't provide in AfD discussions, per obvious PR ties. I find myself continuously skipping over articles from internet searches that are not appropriate to establish notability. Sometimes, one has to go through ten or more Google search pages to find one or two usable sources. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:30, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Small differences (or even fairly large differences) in the notability standard do not greatly harm the basic usefulness and values of the encyclopedia. Almost any general position on notability can be justified. Most disputed articles can be reasonably argued in either direction, and the actual question is which articles are worth defending--and which are most in need of removing.

But with respect to promotionalism, any compromise here will tend to destroy not just the usefulness but the basic values of the encyclopedia; if we become a vehicle of promotional content we have no purpose--Google does it better. And there's no reason volunteers would be interested in doing for free what they might get paid for. The essential group of articles that should not be improved or defended are those that are of a basically promotional purpose--especially those likely to have been written by undeclared paid editors. The people who write such articles should if misguided volunteers be educated and if paid, removed from WP. The only possible exception is if an article is so essential that the encyclopedia would be defective without it, and if it would be much easier to rewrite than to start over. Even here I am undecided whether it would be always best to first delete the history and then eventually rewrite.

To the extent your work--however skillful-- is helping such articles remain, you are acting against the principles of WP. Your view undoubtedly differs, but I'm using my priviledge on my own talk p. to close the topic here. We've both plenty of opportunities to say it elsewhere, and neither of us is shy about using them. DGG ( talk ) 03:55, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for replying. In closing, I'll just say that what is considered promotional is in the eye of the beholder. As an editor and WP:COMPANIES member, I pay close attention to maintaining neutral pov and prose when contributing to company-related articles. I'm definitely not here to promote anything. Regards, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 04:14, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

the actual last post on this thread: you are not editing for promotional purposes, but you are helping the people who are accomplish their goals of getting an article in wp. Even if the article at the end is not promotional, you are helping people editing against the terms of use not get their article deleted. And you are helping companies get an article who would not otherwise be noticed here. I consider such editing a danger to the encyclopedia, and I will try to diminish the effects when I can. DGG ( talk ) 14:50, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I came across this article, Social Bite. It appears to be a notable non-profit and some of its claim to notability is this has garnered notice from some A-list Hollywood celebrities. However, after I stopped being enamoured for a bit, I noticed the coverage seems to be based on recycled press releases that have made their way into the Scottish newspapers. My own research led me to a group of articles that seem to be recycling the same press release (see this).

So my question is how best to deal with this? Maybe this is not a notable topic, because, in essence, the topic lacks independent coverage. Or maybe it is notable? I am also pinging @SwisterTwister: to hopefully also offer an opinion. Thanks in advance to both of you. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 02:25, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't asked but I will answer briefly anyway. Looks notable IMO, regional (not local) importance with RS coverage. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:35, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Steve Quinn, I'm usually very wary of such enterprises, but in this case the sourcing seems to be decent enough. Press release-based/inspired or not, they've gained coverage in reliable and notable papers, and that is what matters. My 2 cents. Drmies (talk) 02:38, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm not quite so sure--organizations like this live by publicity. This is a press release, not an NPOV article. But it's a high-quality sensible press release--much more apppropriate than the usual stuff thaat gets written here for organizations of this nature. But consider the same contributor's Draft:Josh Littlejohn -- the 2 articles are part of the same press campaign -- and the bio one is nowhere near as good because it's less focussed, and falls into the common PR style of using a string of very short paragraphs--which is at WP diagnostic of either a press release or an inexperienced good faith contributor naive writer who doesnt yet understand how to write an encyclopedia article. DGG ( talk ) 03:26, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Oh sure it's definitely a publicity campaign. But it appears to have become a notable publicity campaign. The Sun for instance has slightly different coverage of the celebs involved and doesn't use the founders quotes in the press releases at all. So it's not straight up churnalism. I actually based my quick judgement mainly on the names of the sources, and on the award issued by The Guardian; our convention is that if the issuer of the award is notable, then the award probably is too. If I'm reading DGG's tone accurately, then neither of us is fond of the article, but chances are it would survive AfD easily. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:42, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

yes, that's what I was trying to say: there are so many worse ones to work on removing. But I will probably nominate the bio on Littljohn for deletion if it reaches mainspace in its current condition. DGG ( talk ) 03:48, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not trying to be a jerk, but doesn't an MBE satisfy WP:ANYBIO criterion #1? ☆ Bri (talk) 03:58, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

While MBEs are handed out as long-service awards to middle ranking civil servants, No. For other recipients like Olympic medallists, the MBE is a consequence of being notable rather than the cause of their notability. Cabayi (talk) 05:37, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

in more detail, I think we always recognize the rank of CBE (Commander) -- and higher-- as notable; there are according to Order of the British Empire only 6980 Commandeers. The next lower, the OBE (Officer) has 858 appointments each year; the MBE (Member) 1484 peer year. MBE , at the bottom, we include in the article, but it doesn't contribute much to notability; OBE contributes to notability but doesn't amount to presumptive notability. DGG ( talk ) 09:17, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG, thanks for coming to chat after the Undisclosed Paid Editing meetup yesterday. The person who had been sitting next to me was, I think, User:Rachel Helps (BYU). We didn't have our badges on so I didn't realize it was you. I've always admired your perspectives and I hope to see you again at the conference. Take care, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 13:45, 12 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

by that time of day, many of us didn't. I'll me here all the way to the end--and if you don't see me otherwise, look for me at lunch. Today I'm also clear the end of the afternoon. DGG ( talk ) 14:25, 12 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was there but I left early. I have circular glasses if that helps. It was an interesting discussion! Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 02:53, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In one of our many hallway discussions, you mentioned the desire to see edits sorted by size of edits. While you have copied the edit history into a spreadsheet to do this sort, that's pretty cumbersome. I wondered if the revision history statistics were sortable and it turns out they are. This isn't exactly what you wanted because it gives you the total added bytes by user as opposed to by individual edit but it might be close enough for you purposes.

Example: https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-articleinfo/?article=Eugene_Gu&project=en.wikipedia.org

The link doesn't seem to save the sorting but if you go down to the top editor section you can sort on "added (bytes)"--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:57, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's a start. Thanks for the help. (Soritng in an external spreadsheet is for anythign substantial avery cumbersome solution, it is a backup for missing features in many places, on and off WP.) DGG ( talk ) 05:47, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for looking out for people, not the software.

Bearian (talk) 16:34, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded; we need more leaders like you who prioritize community, healthy and functional process, and integrity. Here's a basket of bedding for your new goat. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:47, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

== A Little Help from my Friends @WikimediaNYC ==

Hey User:DGG, Thanks for continuing to offer your help as a senior contributor to WP. I have not been diligent about rewriting my significant edit here. Here was the last difference between my edit and the revert: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:St._Vincent_(musician)&diff=prev&oldid=762490952

Any suggestions for tactics in my expository writing style or my persuasive writing in negotiation with admins would be appreciated. sheridanford (talk) 14:02, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

sheridanford (talk) 13:58, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

this will need a relatively complicated response. It will take me a day or two. DGG ( talk ) 04:10, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

still to do

I like your essay, but noticed one point about people not declining based on lack of inline citations. In the last 6 months there have been over 700 such AfC declines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:AfC_submissions_declined_as_needing_footnotes Can we eliminate that as a reason to decline? I believe AfC is far too tough to pass, forcing the new editor with a notable topic to fully develop and format it, when they are a newbie without the skills and maybe not the interest. Legacypac (talk) 05:49, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

all or almost all of them are BLPs, which really do need them to survive. It is our policy that they must be supplied. I can understand using it as a reason for these, if the only source is a very general one, or if most of the article seems to be unsourced entirely. Many of the ones where it is used wrongly are older ones--the list includes those where it was ever used as a reason to decline, not just the ones where it is latest reason. , Checking a few, most of them should just be given another reason, some should be removed entirely, and a very few accepted to mainspace. or removed entirely. I don't think we should remove the reason, but we should modify the wording to specify it applies to biBLPs only. Has anyone figured out where the text for the template is stored? It used to be hard-coded. DGG ( talk ) 21:12, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Here, I believe. jcc (tea and biscuits) 17:31, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ishall be proposing an umber of changes, some to reduce hostile wording, a few to align with actual policy, and one additional category: nn-spam. DGG ( talk ) 20:44, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Good. Quite a few pages come through as Blank. I consider them test edits and nominate them for deletion G2. The Blank and Test reasons should reflect the idea they are tests and will be deleted. Shorter and less redundant wording would be great too. Legacypac (talk) 20:51, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose you mean removing redundant wording? Then we're talking about a complete rewrite almost from scratch. I can do that, but it might be better to fix a few obvious problems first. DGG ( talk ) 21:44, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

At least on the ones you are rewording. I'll look into these too. Legacypac (talk) 22:21, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't realize you were still around good to see a username I recognize still after my self imposed wiki break.

Whispering 22:02, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This Wikipedia article, Centre for the Mind does not qualify for notability based on news sources - see Google News. Then I noticed on its web page it claims scientific accomplishments and works published in academic journals [13]. There are a number of hits on Google Scholar, but only one with the exact nomenclature [14].

There are some works authored by the center's founder, Professor Allan Snyder. I don't know whether to credit these toward "Centre for the Mind". Then there are these specific journal articles, [15], [16], [17] and [18]. Then there is this page on their website which lists a bunch of journal articles [19].

I have no idea how to gauge this for the notability of this topic. Maybe you and some others who visit this talk page can take a look at this and tell me what you think. It looks they have been publishing since 1997 [20]. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I will leave a similar post over at Academic Journals project. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 03:32, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

the obvious solution is to merge to the article on Snyder. The tone of their web page is such that I do not consider it a reliable source about itself or anything else, even for basic facts, but the publications referred to are ones that he has written or edited. DGG ( talk ) 04:49, 18 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @DGG: ---Steve Quinn (talk) 05:31, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ernst-Georg Drünkler - clearly controversial but I would think encyclopedic because we do have List of German World War II night fighter aces. Who on earth would want to memorialize this person considering the cause? At the same time, when I login, my biases are left behind, and my thought process is focused on NPOV as an editor of an encyclopedia. Were it not for 30 years experience honing a NPOV, I probably would have moved on and left this bio in the NPP queue (where it's been since 2011) for someone else to deal with, but that's not me so here I am, again looking to you for guidance. A GF editor redirected the article but the redirect was reverted. On the TP, there is a response to the redirect. My question is, as a NPR do I mark it as reviewed? It appears to me that it may have escalated beyond NPP, and now requires admin attention. ^{Atsme📞📧} 03:10, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There have been some long discussions about articles like these, and the article talk page reflects it. The article may have remained in the NP queue, but it has been worked on; various people have tried to deal with it before you, and are trying now. There is no reason not to mark it as reviewed--we mark as reviewed wen we have tried to deal with the problems, not waiting until we have been successful.

The general way to look at this is promotionalism. The problem is that we have no enforceable standards for article content; all our processes can enforce is whether or not there will be an article. Thus we have been successful only in removing the fluff and promotionalism in those fields that few here care about--while leaving it in for popular celebrities. We are also susceptible to pressure groups--even one or two really determined people can get their way until the clash head-on with other equally determined opposition. In this case, there is effective opposition, from most of the members of the MILHIS Wikiproject, who are very effective in enforcing their standards.

After trying to cut excessive articles in various fields if I keep getting reverted, I have sometimes taken them to AfD, saying : promotional, and cannot be fixed by normal editing because efforts to remove the promotionalism have consistently been reverted. This argument has sometimes worked. DGG ( talk ) 05:22, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thx, DGG - very helpful. ^{Atsme📞📧} 19:07, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG. I've received no answer to my query to this user about potential paid editing on behalf of BrandTotal. However, she later stated at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dark marketing, that she is "affiliated" with the company in question. My strong impression from the nature of the edits and her previous usernames is that she is not simply "affiliated" but an employee of the company and may well work in the marketing department. The slick jargon in the article in its original form (especially the "Origins" section) is pure PR-speak. Before I pursue this with her, and as a question in general, if she were indeed an employee holding that position, does it count as "paid editing"? Judging from the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure, it seems a bit of a grey area. The article may well be deleted in which case I won't bother pursuing it, but it would be useful to know for the future. Paging also Doc James. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 15:39, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

User:Voceditenore If one's job at a company is marketing than ones work on WP with respect to that company is paid editing. I will block those in the marketing departments of companies who do not disclose based on the TOU. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:42, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! That's fast service, Doc. Thanks. I'll keep that in mind for future encounters and for this case if the article is kept (unlikely) or moved back into draft space (possible). Best, Voceditenore (talk) 15:47, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I consider that it is also paid editing if it is part of a person's job, or assigned to a person as part of their employment, regardless of what the position is called; but with someone in the marketing dept it will always be assumed to be that person's job. DGG ( talk ) 23:52, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this comment of yours on a user page was instead intended for the corresponding talk page. However, I suggest that you skimread the depths of this user talk page before moving it there. -- Hoary (talk) 12:46, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think he was trying to make a good faith effort to contribute. Though we of course do not like autobios, they are not prohibited, and his was very close to appropriate; Google Scholar shows him highly notable, both for the papers and the major textbook. The block seems an over-reaction to a new ed. who makes mistakes, and whose initial effort was given an altogether incorrect AFC review. I will just write the article myself based on the official CV etc DGG ( talk ) 22:09, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

'not yet done

Hi, DGG - with regards to a list of monuments and memorials, I have a few questions:

1. Statues: how does one verify whether or not a statue was created in honor of someone for a single notable event, or for their life's history or for service to their country, etc.? I realize the plaques should provide details of the memoriam but what if there's just a name? Is there a way to look up the dedication and if so, what references would one look up? Example: A statue of Sam Houston in the Statutory Hall in Austin, TX. The memorial honoring his birthplace says noted soldier and statesman, so would it be appropriate to use that memorial in an article titled Monuments and Memorials of the Battle of San Jacinto?
2. Naval ships: when a ship is christened and named in honor of a notable person, is there a reference to look up the reason the ship was named in that person's honor - such as a heroic deed, or a long career, etc.?
3. If a plaque, statue, national park, battleship, street, etc. is named after a notable person, shouldn't that memorial only be included in whatever WP list corresponds to the honor? For example, a memorial was constructed and named in honor of an Admiral who served courageously for 45 years in the US Navy. That memorial would properly be included in List of US Navy Admirals. But what if he also served 4 years in the Foreign Legion and no memorial was created in honor of his service there. Should that same memorial be included in Lists of Monuments and Memorials of the French Foreign Legion?
4. What if there is no plaque or other identifying feature on a statue that defines the honor and gives only the person's name - is there a way to look up why the statue memorialized him?
5. Would it be considered WP:OR to include a statue in a list article for a specific cause without verifying the honor was actually for that cause?
6. Should the statues, ships, memorials, monuments, etc. be cited to a RS to verify that it belongs in the respective list?

Thanks in advance, ^{Atsme📞📧} 05:07, 5 October 2017 (UTC) to respond[reply]

Your comments regarding paid editing are quite interesting - especially since I am applying for a WMF grant to fund a Wikimedian in Residence at Pitt. On the project grant page, an editor told me that I was asking for funding so that I would be be a 'paid' editor. I am still trying to figure out this point of view. I can see that creating content related to the University may be considered paid editing, but is creating content on user pages, talk pages, template pages, category pages and topics unrelated to the University considered paid editing? Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 18:50, 5 October 2017 (UTC) Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 18:50, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

it's a special form of paid editing which we usually consider benign,and is exempt from the usual rules unless it's abused. It can be abused--for example, by making references only or predominantly to university sources for material which is not unique there. There is no reason not to declare it as if it were ordinary paid editing, on both the article talk p and on your user p. Doing so has no down side. DGG ( talk ) 19:00, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

	The Admin's Barnstar
	Thanks for all your work as an admin and an ArbCom member. Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ Talk 20:41, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

{...

But let me ask you, why do you "need" an article? The only reason a person would need an article is in order to promote themselves or their activities--and that sort of promotion is not permitted in WP; it s a violation of our basic policy WP:NOTADVERTISING. I see nothing in the existing draft to indicate that the person isa major government official whp would generally be considered appropriate for an article.

I must also alert you that there are people who write articles in what they claim to be a professional manner, but almost all of them do not follow our terms of use because they do not disclose their conflict of interest, and most of them are in reality incapable of writing an acceptable non-promotional article. Either reason alone would be sufficient cause for the articles they submit to be immediately deleted as soon as they can be identified--we delete dozens of such articles every day. If you use such a service you need to determine that actually follow our terms of use. Any service that claims special access or permission or administrator assistance is not following our rules, because no administrator or person with special permissions is permitted to use those facilities for paid work at WP. And as if this were not bad enough, be aware that some services have the despicable practice of accepting payment and writing the article, but will then challenge the article using another name, and ask additional payment for defending it. DGG ( talk ) 00:50, 17 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Thank you for your response in Wikipedia:Teahouse. Unfortunately, you did not answer my questions. As such I have removed your response from my query in hopes that someone else may be able to assist me.

Kind regards KaiRAWR (talk) 06:43, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

. 

Sonne der Gerechtigkeit, sun of justice in our time. I had some hopes that you wanted to restore the article history of the other hymn, bringing back the 2005 beginning and the history, no? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:13, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm mystified by these taggings. I thought G5 only applied to pages created by banned or blocked users in violation of their ban or block (i.e. after they were blocked, not before). This article wasn't even started by the user in question, and I would say it has substantial edits by others. Note that Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Wikieditions isn't even closed yet, and from what I can tell, Richardaldinho was blocked for logged-out editing that's unrelated to that SPI. Sro23 (talk) 02:21, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sro23, I've deleted the second article you linked to under CSD G5. I also would have deleted the first article under G5 if you had not removed it. There is an emerging consensus that large sock farms/UPE operations where it is clear they are connected and impossible to find an original named master, it is within the discretion of an administrator to delete the article if it is tagged for G5 because we can have moral certainty that the master has been blocked in the past or that the accounts are proxying. This has been reaffirmed in multiple deletion reviews. John McPhee (Ret. Special Forces) also has the complicating factor of being a BLP, which makes me even more confident in that deletion.

David, I did remove the G5 on Waterlogic per Sro23's statement above. It is obvious UPE, but the original account isn't blocked and is stale, so I think it is stretching G5 a bit too far given recent discussion surrounding G14 for UPE. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:57, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If the interpretation you and I and many other admins have been increasingly using for G5 is not as fully accepted as we have been thinking, perhaps we do need to revise the policy behind G5, that any article ever written by anyone shown to an editor blocked for undeclared paid editing must be deleted. The prior interpretation was based on the assumption that banned editors would be blocked for specific misbehavior, and that what they had written before that misbehavior was not necessarily affected. But now we're dealing with cases where the more recently discovered information casts very strong doubt on all previous work. DGG ( talk ) 03:05, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Very confused right now. As best I can tell, Richardaldinho was blocked (temporarily, not even indefinitely) for vote stacking (via IP, no account) on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oliver Isaacs. The block has nothing to do with the SPI or undisclosed paid editing or whatever. Sro23 (talk) 03:13, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sro23, that is a fair point, and I can see how this would be controversial so I've restored the article and PROD'd it because of your concerns. I typically agree with DGG on things such as this, and given the history here of obvious undeclared paid editing over the past few months, and the intersection at that AfD, I think DGG's taggings were within reason.

David, I agree we need clarification here, but I am not hopeful that we can achieve much more in terms of CSD criteria at this time. I think G5 works in the vast majority of these cases, but I get the concerns on this specific one at this time. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:32, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Alas, 2017-11-10T15:20:45‎ Atlantic306‎ . . (deprod- not an uncontroversial deletion as was approved at AFC). Surprised/not surprised this made it out of AfC. ack, -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 16:57, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you can't win 'em all. Hopefully any negative trends as far as reviewing (or reviewers) goes can be reversed before we start accepting real junk. Primefac (talk) 17:10, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We will never get things 100% correct at AfC any more than we do at NPP or AfD. But certainly the error rate at AfC remains higher than elsewhere, and the only way to improve it means following up editors who consistently make wrong decisions there to remind them of the standards. I have actually received negative criticism for checking up on people's accepts and declines, but I think people who concentrate of checking up are necessary at all decision points--and that is in fact the primary reason I gave in asking to be an admin. (One thing that can help is a quick screening of drafts the first day they are entered to remove obvious copyvio and promotionalism before they get any further. I've started doing this for G11, and I see others are also, especially for G12.) DGG ( talk ) 17:57, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hear, hear! (The page in question went the way of all good spam.) If there is a tool/method to help me screen drafts the same day as they are entered, I would enjoy using it. And screening is needed to assure quality. -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:03, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

DGG, to continue on from a thread in another location (and to ping off your "higher error rate" comment) - is your comment based on statistics or just "I see a lot of AFC-accepted pages at AFD"? It seems like everyone except me (who is the one tracking all of these stats) thinks that AFC has this huge error rate in acceptances, and I cannot figure out why. I haven't run the numbers, so I cannot comment on how accurate we are as a group. Primefac (talk) 18:18, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't tried to collect figures for many years now, because there is too much ambiguity in what to measure. There are 3 ways to define error-- a/ a decision which is reversed at a later stage, b/ a decision which is hopelessly wrong, and c/ a decision which I think should have been otherwise. I usually mean by error a mix of criteria b & c, thinking of c as violating the consensus, not just disagreeing with what I think the consensus ought to be. There are also Type I and Type II errors--in this context, I think of a type I error as an incorrect rejection of an article, Type II as an incorrect acceptance. Going by impressions, I consider the rate of errors at AfD to be between 5 and 10 % in each direction. At NPP, probably about 10% incorrect acceptance and 5% incorrect rejection, as Speedy is applied very conservatively; At AfC. I think there's about 5 to 10% incorrect acceptance, and about 10 to 20% incorrect declines, as the unfortunate practice has been to decline for trivial reasons. The prevailing type of error there is the opposite of NPP, because NPP besides being conservative, are systematically reviewed by an admin. But no, I do not have numbers.

The real problem is not the error rate, but the disagreement on whether to fix or delete promotional articles. Before paid editing became so conspicuous, I always tried to err on the side of fixing, and now I do just the opposite. Bad articles are less of a danger than paid editing, which corrupts the entire process of building an encyclopedia, and trying to decrease it is a greater priority. DGG ( talk ) 19:17, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm interested in your take on this deletion discussion. You stated when endorsing the 'Keep' at deletion review that "All comments except one were keep". I don't believe that is accurate, since neither Cordless Larry, nor Pburka – nor I for that matter – made comments that could possibly be interpreted as "keep". In any case, I thought that AfD was decided on the strength of the arguments, not the number of votes.

You also claimed that "all the arguments were sufficiently policy based", and yet every single keep vote was a variation on the theme "the school exists therefore it's notable" or "we always have kept secondary schools in the past, so we should keep this one". Are you aware that the February 2017 RfC specifically discredited both of those arguments? In addition, the keep arguments were based on an earlier version of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES which is not even a guideline, let alone policy. Even being charitable, WP:NPOSSIBLE is a guideline, not policy. And yet the 'delete' arguments were firmly based on policy: "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article about it." and "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources ... Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability." The article was written by a serial adspammer using only the school's own website to create the content. Since then, there has been found nothing more than the entries for the school in a couple of directories and a two brief sentences in The Hindu noting their exam results one year. That is nowhere near enough third-party sourcing to base an article on.

If you feel able to, I'd be interested on how you feel you can refute (i) the strength of argument where policy disagrees with an essay; (ii) the results of an RfC; and (iii) the policy requirements that all articles must be based on reliable, published secondary sources. --RexxS (talk) 18:31, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(1)The effectual policies and guideline are the way we agree to interpret them, not what is written. What is written is not system, sand there are many contradictions. Given these, and given also the differences in how people interpret, at any AfD except the most obvious it is possible to construct a decent argument in any direction. I think people generally make a global opinion on whether WP should or should not have the article, and then look for the appropriate arguments.

(2) The RfC, as I said, did not say what you assert it said. It said there was no consensus to change the practice of keeping school articles. It also said there was no consensus that commonoutcomes was a sufficient argument. I do not know of any way to really harmonize these two conclusions, so confusion about them is not just understandable but inevitable.

(3) My view that we should continue the practice of keeping articles on secondary schools articles is simply an empirical compromise with not keeping primary school articles. It needs no other defense than being a workable way of avoiding spending most of our AfD energy on the the disagreements. The goal is to build an encyclopedia, and sometimes that means not focussing on issues that we cannot settle. The secondary reason is that some degree of consistency is a virtue, and back when I first came here and we did debate every primary and secondary school, the results were not much better than random. You will notice I am not arguing that either primary or secondary schools do or do not meet the standard of GNG--back when I did, the argument was that if we had sufficient access to local sources, we could show notability, but that the effort in obtaining them was not worth it in either case.

(4)It comes down to a choice--either accept the compromise or debate not just every secondary school in the world, but every primary school in the world also.

Further discussion should go elsewhere. But I don't really see the point of it--we are both going to repeat what what we have already said.We are not goign to convince each other, and anyone coming to this question for the first time already has available many full arguments in each direction. DGG ( talk ) 19:17, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was interested in what you've said here and also what I found on your userpage about counting !votes in AfD discussions. Taken together you seem to be arguing that (for example) this AfD should have been closed as "keep" because more people !voted keep citing policy arguments than those who !voted delete. Whilst I kind-of see the logic of this position, it doesn't seem to be one shared by the majority of people who close AfD discussions. And I don't know how it would work in practice: surely it is then just a popularity contest. On the other hand, I think this whole idea of "consensus" is problematic. The vast majority of people who edit do not !vote or engage in these debates, so any RfC or AfD is (obviously) going to be a fight between those who turn up. When those parties get into a rut on how to decide between the merits of keep/delete, I can't see how there can ever be consensus. Simply saying that the consensus is that people disagree doesn't seem to adequately address the problem - particularly when closers seem to apply the supposed consensus in different ways. JMWt (talk) 09:33, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, people can judge consensus in different ways--it is to some extent subjective. But the rule is to go by the consensus of the policy-based arguments, and that is almost always followed, though there is also some subjectivity in judging what is a sufficiently policy-based argument. There is no way in any system to avoid personal judgment in decisions, except by strict vote counting , which we do in only special situations--elections for arb com, decisions by arb com, for example. DGG ( talk ) 13:45, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

DGG, I am a little confused. Can I add references to Nitish Thakor page for example, and is it ok for me to update with more references the JHU BME page? I am currently the Director of Biomedical Engineering and wanted to do for BME what Stanford Computer Science has done and Oxford Computer Science, both have wiki pages and are demonstrating very coherent easy ways to have undergrads and high schoolers just find them easily through Wikipedia.

I dont think I have added anything to date that is not accurate. It isn't our business in the Academy to speak about things we don't have published. Anyway I appreciate reading your notes about "Noteable faculty"; that was very helpful. My criteria which was in error was National Academy. I think essentially it is suggesting the Associate Professors and Full Professors will all likely be noteable because all of them in our department have H-indices that are very high and many publications. Thank-you in advance. Mim.cis (talk) 03:29, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You do have an obvious conflict of interest; according to common sense you are not the best person to evaluate the appropriateness and balance of the content in the articles about your own organization. According to our rules in WP:COI, you may only make suggestions of the article talkpage, except for fixing obvious errors or updating. Adding the references for the plain facts of Thakor's career is the sort of thing you can do directly; adding references for judgements about him, do on the talk page. ( Be careful about adding content--we give only a brief description of the research and list only the 2 or 3 most cited papers. We regard Research Career Development Awards and the like as grants, not awards, and we do not include them; we also do not include alumni awards from his university. There's no need to pad the CV--Fellow IEEE is sufficient proof of notability.

As for the Department article, I started by restoring some refs to the Department articlefrom earlier versions of the article) Since member National Academy is notable, I found the proper way to add some additional names, even though the articles have not yet been written. However, the history section is still a little heavy with internal detail. It could use some copyediting for compactness. I'll give it a try if I can. You might note the extreme plainness of the other articles you mention.

when you proceed to write articles on the other faculty, do it in Draft Space using the WP:Article Wizard, Make sure you declare your conflict of interest. And I strongly recommend that you do them very cautiously, one at a time, starting from the most notable, and seeing if you run into opposition before you start the nest one.. In judging citations, the key factor is not the h factor by itself-- person A with 50 papers each with 50 citations has h=50; so does person B with 20 papers with 200 citations and 30 with 50, but only person B is likely to be notable. I give you advice to the best of my ability about what is acceptable, but I cannot make final judgments. Anyone who wishes can bring an article deletion request at WP:AFD , and the community consensus makes the decision. Do not be surprised if some people oppose.

I hope this helps. DGG ( talk ) 13:34, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello DGG -

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. I love it in America - so rich life here! I think I will rent a car and go buy things at walmart this weekend.

I appreciate your comments and support. You seem like a very established editor who seems to care about other editors. I am considering creating Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Fair Use and I was interested in suggestions on how to go about this, and editors who I can talk to about building this page before it goes live. Any suggestions would be most helpful.

Moscowamerican (talk) 16:02, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would advise you against doing this. The enWikipedia policy on how to deal with copyright is not likely to change, and you will be wasting your efforts entirely. There was a deliberate decision early on to minimize the inclusion of material justified only by Fair Use. Part of the reason is that fair use is interpreted much more liberally in US law than it is anywhere else in the world, and we intend our content to be usable internationally. By US law even a full chapter of a non-fiction book would probably be legally fair use in Wikipedia under either the earlier 4 factor balancing test, or the current emphasis on whether it interferes with commercial exploitation. This is more generous than anywhere else, and makes a curious contrast with the US very extended period of protection. There would be sufficient legality to let WP operate legally in the US--it would not be enough to let everyone copy it everywhere. We were also aware that the entire principle of a open license website like ours would be both in principle and in execution very dangerous to some businesses that depend on intellectual property lawx for their commercial existence, and we wanted to take no chances in letting them attack us. There is also the realization at the very beginning that we intended to use the US very generous rules on other aspects of free speech to the limit, and that these principles were much more important to us and to the world than fair use. So we wanted to show that we were being zealously law-abiding. And, by and large, this strategy has been enormously successful. It is much too important to take risks that might affect it.

Myself, I do think enWP went to ridiculous lengths in the interpretation. I don't want to go into details of what I think would be a safe rule. because I think there is no chance whatsoever of getting it changed. Every person who works on copyvio to a significant extent in enWP follows the current interpretation, and if you did start an RfC, and a vote were taken on whether to continue it, I am as certain as one can be around here that the current guideline would be strongly supported. (I'll even guess the % result--depending on just what you suggested, it would be between 75% and 95% against the change. A result like that will only harden the guideline, and prove extremely counterproductive.

Sometimes there is a reason to challenge something even though knowing that one will be totally defeated. The most important reason is to maintain general awareness of the problem, in the hope that there will be eventual change. If one is going to do this, it is only sensible to either select instances where there is in fact continuing gradual change in opinion sufficient to indicate the real possibility of progress, or to select causes which are fndamentally important enough to be worth it. This does not meet either criterion.

As for your own writing, if you are going to use quotations, use them only when we actually need quotations--to establish someone's opinion. Don;t use them for sections of articles where your own summary would be as helpful. DGG ( talk ) 06:55, 19 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that most long term administrators do not share the same views that you do on treating new editors contributions with the same respect that you mention on your other personal page.

I was interested if there are other administrators like you? If so, who? Thank you in advance. I appreciate all your time and all you do. How can i give you an award? Moscowamerican (talk) 05:44, 19 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I have adequately conveyed my appreciation for your patient explanations of 'how things work' around here. I have learned so much from you. Thank you and Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 06:56, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. It appears your talk page is becoming quite lengthy and is in need of archiving. According to Wikipedia's user talk page guidelines; "Large talk pages become difficult to read, strain the limits of older browsers, and load slowly over slow internet connections. As a rule of thumb, archive closed discussions when a talk page exceeds 75 KB or has multiple resolved or stale discussions." - this talk page is 233.4 KB. See Help:Archiving a talk page for instructions on how to manually archive your talk page, or to arrange for automatic archiving using a bot. If you have any questions, place a {{help me}} notice on your talk page, or go to the help desk. Thank you. --Jax 0677 (talk) 18:28, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Jax 0677 at 267k this page is almost a full fifth of the size it was two weeks ago (when it was the third-longest page on Wikipedia). I for one am happy enough for the progress that has been made so far. Primefac (talk) 18:31, 20 November 2017 (UTC) (talk page stalker)[reply]

I shall be reducing it by another 30% or so, but it will never be as low as 75K. DGG ( talk ) 18:33, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reza Izad the collapse is interfering with the AfD closure wrapper but I can't figure out how :/ Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 20:53, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

neither can I, so I reverted the close, uncollapsed, and re-closed. Please check that the removal of backlinks came out right. DGG ( talk ) 21:04, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think the deletion of Studio 71 may have been accidental, it redirected to Studio71 and not Reza Izad but I had recreated Reza Izad as a redirect to Studio71#History before you reclosed the AfD, so I think the Studio 71 and Reza Izad redirects should be restored? Sorry for the mess and thanks for pitching in. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 21:07, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

yes,I just fixed them a few seconds ago. Also Natural Born Prankster. DGG ( talk ) 21:10, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, the Studio 71 and Reza Izad redirects are still re-deleted, and so is Talk:Studio71. Plus there's like dozens of backlink removals where you unlinked Studio71 instead of the indended backlink. I don't wanna just revert it all Special:Contributions/DGG :/ re-closing really made a mess, sorryBen · Salvidrim! ✉ 21:18, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

did them also just now . anything else? I obviously did the AfD closer wrong, and I'll check more carefully next time. DGG ( talk ) 23:54, 20 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The only thing is the dozen of backlink removals which actually removed links to Studio71 instead of the intended page. If you look at your contributions chronologically, from "Collective (disambiguation)" ‎to "Producers Guild of America Awards 2014" need reverting Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 00:16, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

finally done . Just from checking the wrong box... . My apologies to everyone. DGG ( talk ) 05:06, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

When I drove by your talk page today, it reminded me of Miami after Hurricane Andrew—I didn't recognize the neighborhood.

My Internet situation is such that I've considered length here at this talk page a feature, not a bug. How do you feel about a Best of DDG archive? — User:Neonorange (Phil) 00:26, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

you will find these in the topical archives sections listedat the top. DGG ( talk ) 00:31, 21 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can we turn it into a podcast?Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 00:47, 23 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hear! Hear! — User:Neonorange (Phil) 07:21, 23 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I was mentioning to primefac that I felt the current templates we use for declining submissions could be made more pithy. Seemingly people aren't reading them, or, more likely, ignoring them; and I feel if they were either trimmed up, or made more specific (pointing to SNGs, for example) it may help. Either way, primefac mentioned you also have an interest in this, so I figured I'd reach out to get your thoughts. Thanks in advance. Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 04:40, 22 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes indeed, thanks for reminding me. I write write at least a sample in the next week or two. Not reading, because I know that when I receive obvious boilerplate that seems to contain material not directly helpful, I stop reading. Also not understanding, because only someone who actually knows how we judge articles could understand the significance of the advice--and only someone with experience here could understand the pages being referred to. And, to be sure, ignoring -- sometimes they don't care in the least about what we require--but I am not sure any change in wording can help that part. . DGG ( talk ) 06:37, 22 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again, with the holidays behind us I had a quick moment to take a stab at a template rewrite. It's just boilerplate, and I'd like more specific ones so we can point them to respective SNGs, but wanted to get your feedback to see if you feel it's going in the right direction. Thanks in advance. Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 23:00, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You certainly are a good teacher thank you for working on the essay you recommended to me on my talk page. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 00:44, 23 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In regards to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Made to Stick, did you even do WP:BEFORE? I don't think you did. I get the impression that you just spitball decisions on articles to be whatever you think it should be. You might've made some reference to WP:NBOOK in your nomination. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:08, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't list it for problems with notability, but promotionalism. I didn't refer to NBOOK because that's not the basis of my nomination. In fact, I think it most likely is notable. If I thought it wasn't I would have said so. I did enough WP:BEFORE to confirm the notability. I am fully aware that I can not discuss the notability of a book without looking at least for library holdings, which are quite high--and having seen that, I assume that there are reviews also.

As you must know by now, I currently care much more about promotionalism than notability. I rarely send to afd any more if notability is the only concern, unless it's really clear. I send promotionalism that doesn't fall under G11. There are enough people dealing with notability , and in any case I consider lack of notability a less critical issue.

I make mistakes. By my estimate, somewhere around 2% of my AfD nominations are errors. (as distinct from those where the consensus disagrees with me) Criticize me when I make the errors--I want to try to reduce my error rate to 1%, and I need the criticism to do that. But not when you just assume I make an error without looking at what I actually said. DGG ( talk ) 00:37, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so this is the crux of the disagreement. Deletion is not cleanup. I would love to just go around deleting articles I don't like. We have a bunch of articles about minor athletes and movies no one saw and the articles remain because the subjects are notable. So it must be nice to ignore WP:N. I don't think you made a case for WP:DEL4 and it's your job as nominator to make that case. So my charge isn't that you made a mistake, but that your beliefs about deletion are wrong, hence my utter contempt for you as an editor. You are one ARBCOM candidate I definitely regret supporting in the past. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:48, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Jesus, dude... I think you're getting a bit snippy with your response here... :-/ ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 01:03, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

that's OK; I take comments like this for recognition that I'm getting somewhere. DGG ( talk ) 02:42, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

'A bit snippy' ? It's downright PA. Boomerang for troutman. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:45, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Kudpung: How is it a personal attack? I have seen AfD noms like what DGG has done considered "bad faith." I'm pointing out that Wikipedia actually has agreed-upon criteria for deletion and DGG seems to think himself above mere community consensus. I agree with Aristotle's adage: He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander. Anyone who purports to enforce and define the law has to obey the law. Contempt for guidelines and policies indicates unfitness for leadership, in my opinion. Clearly, I am in the minority in my views, which is sad. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:51, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Most actual disagreements involving policy are not about what it is, but how to apply it. Sometimes the consensus is pretty stupid, but each of us has a their own view about what that applies to. NOT ADVOCACY is basic policy, but the dividing line between which promotional articles to fix, and which to remove, is a matter of judgment, with a very wide range of plausible views. I do not have contempt for those who take a different view here than I, tho I certainly continue to oppose them as opportunity offers, and I certainly intend my arguments to affect the general consensus on interpretation. WP would not be much harmed by disagreements on whereto draw the line about notability  ; it could be destroyed by being used for advertising.

I don't see what ArbCom has to do with it; it is rarely concerned even indirectly with what articles get kept or deleted; there have been a few arb cases about deletion behavior, but they were before my time on the committee. If, hypothetically, there were a supreme board to decide what articles were kept, then people would appropriately vote for the members based on what they thought about deletion-related questions. Whether I'm an arb adds no weight to my !votes at AfD, and I don't see that it discourages people from disagreeing with them. It would be more relevant to ask my views about what constitutes a personal attack, for that arb com does have jurisdiction over.

If I had deleted the article as G11 single-handed without a second admin's confirmation, you might have at least an excuse for a question about my general judgment. But this is just a nomination for a discussion. As I tell beginners, if your view is considered right by the community, the article will not get deleted. DGG ( talk ) 05:19, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"But this is just a nomination for a discussion. As I tell beginners, if your view is considered right by the community, the article will not get deleted." The problem is, this is simply not the case. All it takes is a nomination by a highly influential admin (you), and lack of participation (AfD is already a ghost town and has been for years as the noms pile up beyond anyone's ability to track), or participation from deletionists, non-neutral participants, or people with an axe to grind, for a notable article to be deleted simply because nobody, or insufficient people, bothered to do WP:BEFORE, or bothered to click the search links at the top of every AfD. The proper response to a promotional-sounding article is to (A) edit it, or (B) tag it with {{advert}}, {{cleanup}}, or similar tag. The proper response for an article whose citations appear to demonstrate insufficient WP:N is to do WP:BEFORE. It cannot be over-stressed that WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP. That's why we have cleanup tags.

All of that said, Christroutman's vicious personal attacks here are way out of line and are in violation of the final warning he received here: [21], so by all rights he should be blocked. Softlavender (talk) 23:55, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Softlavendar, that is not how I see my experience at afd. My record of success is not particularly high, partly because -- having no real need to have a perfect record as if I were running for an RfA, -- I can try to see where consensus currently lies by sometimes nominating what I suspect to be marginal cases; the way we work, there is no other way to find out except to try and see & then adjust expectations. I'm perfectly willing to withdraw a nomination or suggest an alternative, as I have done with the one that started this thread. I consider AfD misnamed--it should be seen as Articles for Discussion, and with the current variety of closures, that is more and more what it has become.

There are many regulars who have not the least hesitation in telling me that I'm wrong -- I think in fact some of them find it particularly satisfactory to be able to do so. Many beginners do also, and they can be sometimes correct as well. Of course, it is possible that I may be an adult gorilla who does not realize my own weight--I have never been all that good in judging what people think of me. .

Participation at AfD has been even lower in the past. But even as it is, it's the only process here for quality control that actually works. Again, I may be misperceiving this because I am overestimating how well it works because I have long enough experience there to know how to use it.

But here is the real problem: I am now much less concerned with notability than promotionalism. I do intend to use whatever fair methods I can find to put an end to the practice of undeclared paid editing--and if possible, to convince the community to end all paid editing. The most effective method at my disposal is deletion. (SPI also helps, but I'm just not good at it and have to depend for that part on others). Variations in notability do not actually matter very much, but paid editing will destroy WP by reducing us to an advertising medium. Even if by some miracle we could get paid editing of decent quality, it would destroy WP by driving away the volunteers. That includes me--I will not work here if it stops being a volunteer project, any more than I would work here if it were censored, or if it did not have a free license. Those are the things about WP that are actually important to me.

Consequently, I no longer fully agree that "The proper response to a promotional-sounding article is to (A) edit it, or (B) tag it with {{advert}}, {{cleanup}}, or similar tag. " It remains the proper approach for an article from a good faith editor (GFE). For an article in violation of the TOU, the proper course is deletion. We could remove these from AfD--I will support a speedy criterion; I'd even support it also applying to draft space. (I recognize there are some problems here, because sometimes a GFE will not know better than to copy the style of one of the hundred thousands of promotional articles thinking that's what is actually wanted. The solution is to remove the bad examples--all of them, regardless of how long they've been here, just as we dealt with the unsourced BLPs. It will take a few years.) For good volunteer editors to try to fix such articles makes the matter worse: they're facilitating the undeclared paid editors, they're preventing a real solution, they're doing the work so the people who want to destroy our principles can earn the money. That's suicide, not altruism.

Nor do I fully agree with the essay Wikipedia:Deletion is not cleanup. The most effective way --sometimes the only way--to get an article cleaned up over opposition for fans or promotional editors is to list it for deletion. It shouldn't be the first step for an article by a good faith editor, but it works. clumsy as AfD is, the alternative is 3O, which rarely accomplishes anything, or RfC, which can be really messy. DGG ( talk ) 02:25, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Then, in my opinion, you are, or could be accused of, nominating in bad faith. If you feel or realize that a subject has notability, but are AfDing anyway, then you are nominating in bad faith as many people understand it. Unlike other XfDs, AfD is not "articles for discussion", as you have stated/implied above. It is "Articles for Deletion". By AfDing you are stating or implying that an article on the subject should not exist on Wikipedia. If you are too lazy to edit, and unwilling to tag articles (we also have the {{coi}} and {{undisclosed paid}} tags for the issues you address), but want to remove them entirely based on your subjective opinion of how they are written rather than the notability of the subject and the well-established thresholds of inclusion established by the community, not by a single person .... then you are, in essence, taking "the law" into your own hands. I understand why you are doing it, but it subverts a lot of the established community processes under which the encyclopedia operates. They may be inefficient, but they have been established by community consensus. Softlavender (talk) 02:49, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Softlavendar: WP:N is clear that simply meeting the GNG is not enough for inclusion. Failure of WP:NOT is grounds for failing WP:N, and that includes WP:PROMO. WP:DEL4 and WP:DEL14 also apply here: a notable subject that is promotional can and should be deleted from Wikipedia under existing policies and guidelines, including the notability guideline itself, even if it does not meet the strict G11 criterion. Your view is certainly a view that many in the community hold, but so is David's. The point of AfD is for the community to decide how to apply the principles of Wikipedia as expressed in our policies and guidelines to the case of a specific article. David is making good faith deletion nominations based on promotion. While the community might not always agree with him, it often does. Consensus is built organically through local discussions such as AfD, and the work David is doing here is important. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:57, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Essentially advertising" is an incredibly weak rationale for sending something to AfD. If he had said "I can find reliable sources for this, but there is so much promotional content, I think we're better off blowing it up and starting over, and as this isn't my topic of expertise, I'm not comfortable doing it, and I can't see anyone else coming forward" then I might be more understanding. If a brand new admin candidate did this, and somebody noticed, they'd get opposed and possibly their RfA would tank. So why should an existing admin get away with things a new candidate won't? You should agree with WP:NOTCLEANUP, as the deletion policy says "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:37, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

reply forthcoming DGG ( talk ) 06:13, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You ping didn't work. Please enable your preferences settings to warn you when that happens. I only ask for userfication when the consensus is delete so I won't be touching the article, otherwise.Chris Troutman (talk) 15:31, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ritchie333, "essentially advertising" is one of the basic reasons to remove an article. Of all the rationales at WP:NOT, NOT ADVOCACY is one of the most important, for it is the very basis of NPOV. (By comparison, NOT INDISCRIMINATE, the basis of Notability guidelines, is much less critical.) Articles that amount to advocacy must be removed, and the mere promise to fix it is just as inadequate as the mere promise to fix copyvio or BLP violation. How we do this fundamentally simple thing is of course complicated, and is adjusted to circumstances by changing the written rules and the interpretations--normally, the written rules lag by a considerable amount. The interpretation is whatever consensus has it--there is no other basis for deciding content in WP. It is reasonable of anyone here to try to influence the interpretation, and I knew from the start that my main purpose here was to do that. In some things I have been successful. I always realized success would come slowly, and I think in terms of years. Sometimes change come surprisingly quickly, and there has been a major change in the last year in the extent to which we reject promotionalism and its usual correlate of paid editing. Having already changed what we do, the rules will follow. My style is to let others write them, once I've gotten the change started.

Softlavender, "Nominating in bad faith" is a remarkable term to use for giving my opinion, and then asking the community to determine just where the present boundaries of consensus lie. I have never nominated without the intent and hope of getting something deleted because of WP:NOT. Nominating in bad faith means nominating maliciously or to be a nuisance, or based on prejudice, or relying on spa or sock support, not merely having an opinion others disagree with. It can also include nominating repeatedly and persistently despite knowing that the consensus is firmly against one. I try not to do that, tho sometimes I make an error in moving more quickly than the circumstances turn out to warrant. More often I think I make an error by letting things slide, but both are inevitable in anyone doing a large amount of non-obvious work here.

If we are to trade charges, those who try to fix the work of promotional editors, especially promotional paid editors, could be considered complicit in helping them destroy WP. I don't go around accusing my opponents of doing that deliberately, though I do sometimes remind them that such will be the effect of what I consider their misguided work. Perhaps eventually they'll realize; I've changed myself, as I too did not realize the danger initially, and I hope the continuing revelations of the extent of promotional editing might affect them, as it did me.

one of the prerogatives of one's own talk page is the ability to have the last word in an exchange. There will be dozens of opportunities each day to continue elsewhere. DGG ( talk ) 06:07, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I know this not Wikia, but please give me your explanation here.

Sincerely, Wiki-Ikiw (talk)

are you seriously asserting that all fanfic is notable if the underlying fiction is? DGG ( talk ) 23:34, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

SwisterTwister (talk · contribs), This editor follows you quite closely, the problem is he tends to remove sources before he nominates things for AfD. I gave him two warning for this here and here. He reverted both, how should I take care of this. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 07:44, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, this is the edit in question, no understanding as to why an established editor would remove the information which gives the subject notability. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 09:41, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is on John's Roast Park, and it has never been nominated for deletion by ST or anyone. As for the deletions made,

para 1 as worded is advertising--the quote should have been shortened.

para 2 should not have been removed

probably para 3 also should have been kept .

But he did not nominate that article for AfD. I'm not sure why--I might. As for the notices, remember that removing a notice is permitted, and taken as evidence that they have been read. If someone removes one, there's no point placing it a second time. ST does seems follow me; so do a number of other people. That does not mean he pays attention to my suggestions, or that we agree. We tend to work differently--I try to work on as many articles as possible, he concentrate -- sometimes in my opinion excessively-- on a few. We both have a similar view of promotionalism , but so do at least a few dozen other very active editors.

But more generally, you raise an important point:
the problem of whether to remove somewhat promotional material from promotional articles before listing from AfD is a dilemma. I have come across articles that I try to improve, and then after sharply editing content, decide they are unsalvageable, and take them to afd. If I leave them in their improved but still inadequate state it doesn't give a fair impression of the promotional intent and overall promotional writing. If I return the contents, i am deliberately making the article worse than it needs to be. Since the promotional content can also contain material relevant to notability , this makes the dilemma even more difficult. (What I now usually do is leave it in the improved form and give a link to the original in the discussion).

As we know, there is a disagreement of how strictly to interpret NOT ADVERTISING, and on how bad a article has to be before it qualifies for G11 as requiring fundamental rewriting. My position here has changed over the years from considerable tolerance for anything vaguely notable--though I was always a bit hesitant about local interest material-- to an emphasis on removing promotionalism to discourage the usually paid promotional editing.

There is also a disagreement on the notability of these restaurants, and the promotionalism in them is normally from fans, not paid editors--and it is difficult to write about restaurants at all without sounding a little promotional. As far as WP guidelines go, anyone experienced at AfD could equally easily write a keep or a delete rationale for most of them, so it's basically a question of what extent of local detail we think WP should cover. I have sometimes been tempted to add every restaurant in Brooklyn that got a significant write-up in the NYT. If the current trend holds towards keeping such articles, I may do it yet. DGG ( talk ) 19:44, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your concerns. The problem is think is that sources such as Serious Eats or NYT are national notable sources which gives the subject notability, unfortunately these articles would generally be written in a way that praises the subject. I've noticed (not in this case) that some editors tend to remove sources and when sources such as Serious Eats are removed it could make the subject look vastly less notable, as a result the discussion could be skewed. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 16:14, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

restaurant and other reviews

I'm not familiar with Serious Eats, but I am a close reader of the NYT restaurant reviews. They cover, as would be expected, not every restaurant in the city, but those that are significant in some way: established favorites, currently popular or fashionable, new restaurants from well-known cooks or owners. This inevitably produces a bias towards places of some merit, but, everything considered, the reviews are generally critical, and by no means extremely laudatory. (The number and venom of bad reviews has varied over the years with their different critics).

More basically, essentially any article about any company or professional will have a promotional value. it's a maxim that all publicity is good, and having an article in WP has become regarded as a sign of importance. If we are going to cover anything in the current world, or that affects the current world, the articles will have some degree of promotional effect. This gives us a dangerous influence, about which we must take precautions. The efforts of the PR industry can only be countered by true NPOV editing, and it is absurd to expect any professional or organization to actually write or commission a true NPOV article about themselves. Therefore, we need to consider all coi editors as at least potentially destructive of our values, and, the world being as it is, they will be particularly dangerous when money is involved. The attempt at paid editinghas corruptd too many good editors here, and has attracted a remarkable number of incompetents. More and more, I think the only practical way forward is to remove them. DGG ( talk ) 01:33, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG! I was reading some of the materials on your user page and it was useful for me to read them. I'. Specially, I would like to know if the materials of "with respect to consensus at AfDs" are induced to your mind by WP's policies and guidelines or it's just a personal interpretation of them? Btw, the paragraph starts with quotation mark but I could not find where it's closed. Regards. --Mhhossein ^talk 10:26, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Would you mind shedding light on this query? --Mhhossein ^talk 12:20, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

still to reply

Hi again, I was chatting with some folks about an idea that will likely never see the light of day, but I'd like your feedback on it. An outright ban of CORP articles in AfC for a 6 mo trial. I was joking about it initially, but the more I thought about it I'm curious what the outcome would be. If I had to guess, no one would notice other than paid editors. I can't think of people searching Google for "Bizco" and having an erosion of trust because Wikipedia doesn't have it. It also has a potential interesting side effect of preventing companies that haven't been around for more that six months, which is kind of an indirect SNG for CORP. Again, no chance of it being implemented, just thought getting your views on it would be insightful. Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 00:50, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I had been thinking of something like that for companies formed after 1990 or thereabouts. There are of course other areas, such as their executives, and all the NGOs, and politicians, and the artists--all of who use paid editors almost as much. But it would be an interesting moratorium. DGG ( talk ) 01:12, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is an excellent idea, makes sense, and there is probably potential for it. Kind of lke an ACTRIAL experiment. Would need some careful thinking out though. @Drewmutt:. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:16, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Kudpung for your feedback, glad this seems more feasible than I initially thought. Any suggestions on next steps? Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 00:44, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting idea: on the whole, it might be a net positive. We'd have to flesh out the specifics, obviously. The other thing is whether or not something like this could achieve consensus and how it would be enforced. A simple decline of all corps? a CSD X criteria? There are also conversations going on now at WT:CORP surrounding increasing the notability requirements for corporations that might be relevant here. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:44, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The consensus bit seems the biggest obstacle, but I've been trying to rack my brain for any "cost" this would have to WP as a whole, and I can't come up with any. The only debate I could see (which I feel is a weak one) is driving paid editors to more nefarious methods of publishing. If nothing else, people concerned about the AfC backlog should be on board. I'd be fine with it simply being a decline template, something like, "Currently Wikipedia is undergoing a trial where new articles about corporations will not be accepted. Therefore your submission cannot be accepted at this time." Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 00:53, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Possible. OTOH, a new CSD would be unlkely. Getting new CSDs agreed is one of the most challenging aspects of Wikipedia. Everyone knows that I'm a firm proponent of a total ban on PE, Tony mentioned 'baby steps' somewhere not so long ago - this would be one of them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:01, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

for the two X criteria used so far, they were so rough and ready that there were many exceptions needed; the same would be the case with this. A new general CSd category is not a good idea; it will be more practical to adjust wording on existing ones. (G5 for example) . Similarly for 1990+, I would do it not as a speedy, but as a modification of the SNG, and say specifically that it over=rides GNG. At some point we would really have to deal with the primary obstacle to increasing notability standards, the GNG/SNG comfusion. But I do not think there will be consensus for it at this point.

What there willl be consensus for, is increasing restrictions on paid editors. Proposed wording changes,

1) on WP:COI, lede para: from "Editors with a COI, including paid editors, are expected to disclose it " to "Editors with a COI, including paid editors, are required to disclose it "

2) WP:COI section 1.2, and throughout change all the "should" to must.

3) all new articles on commercial organizations founded after 1990 must go to AfC, and any one encountering one should move it there. This includes articles by confirmed editors. DGG ( talk ) 02:26, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support -- I would support; possibly with a caveat "for companies launched after X year" -- anyone wanting create an article on a historic company would be able to do so. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:29, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• I do not support if it's a ban on entering articles, only if its a requirement to use Draft space / What we need to remember, is that at present we may be in a state of emergency, but the situation is getting better, not worse, because we now do have general awareness of the problem among WPedians.My own prefered place to work remains with individual articles, not wording of policy. oer the years, it's the only way I've had any success. The rewording sometimes comes later, once opinion has been affected by individual articles. Everyone who care needs to participate in NPP and AfD. DGG ( talk ) 02:41, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • David, I think you hit the nail on the head here (as usual). In my experience, progress on Wikipedia is only achieved by building local consensus first and establishing something as common practice and standards. What we need to do here is to make people aware of the crisis we are facing with promotional editing, and get the people to care to participate in the two processes that most directly affect it: AfD and NPP. RfCs only work if consensus is preexisting. We have come a long way on this even in the last year, but more progress is needed. That only can occur if people who care take the time to work in these areas. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:09, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If this were taken up, how would it affect new articles about noncommercial corporations or associations? You could use Oregon Psilocybin Society, which I created, as an example. Would it have had to go through AfC? ☆ Bri (talk) 03:16, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I won't characterise on Oregon Psilocybin Society right now because I haven't gone through all the sources, but at first blush it seems to have attracted enough attention for notability. However, non-profits are notorious for attempting to promote themselves through Wikipedia, and most of them are written by someone with a COI. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:36, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking about this over the last couple days, and essentially what I came to is that "if having a Wikipedia article leads to an increase of money exchange, than it should be sent to AfC", which includes donations, so I'd vote, that yes Bri it would go to AfC. Not that it would have a problem getting approved, I just don't want to burden folks with determining if something is for/non-profit. Logically, that expands to BLPs as well, but I feel that CORP is a more pressing issue. Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 23:36, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Support I think that's a very elegant solution to a non-elegant problem. I mildly feel that 1990 is a bit too far back, but I trust your judgement over my own. Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 23:36, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Wow. I can't believe what I'm seeing. Surely there must be a policy against using Wikipedia to conduct arbitrary "thought experiments". Especially ones where we just don't know what the possible side effects are. I think we've all gone mad. Huggums537 (talk) 20:15, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I created my first page, but not sure what I did wrong. I'm trying to understand what it's needed. Can someone help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MVelez71 (talk • contribs) 18:21, 8 December 2017 (UTC) still to do [reply]

I will try to incorporate the advice.

Can you give advice on the article on JHUBME. It is posted for being taken down due to conflict of interest. Can it be rescued. It is factual. Overexhuberant new Chairman trying to follow Stanford Computer Science and Oxford Computer Science both top ranked departments. Is it possible for editors like yourself to sharpen it up and remove individuals who are not noteable etc given the history is all documented and BME at JHU is largely considered to have created this modern field of BIomedical discovery. Thank-you in advance. Mim.cis (talk) 02:47, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I can remove the Prod tag, but I expect it will then be nominated for a discussion at AfD, and the consensus there will decide. There are two considerations: promotionalism, and notability , and either reason is sufficient for deletion. I can help with the promotionalism--at the present time it's not particularly outrageous--more a matter of tone than anything specific, and I've made what I think to be the necessary adjustments. Notability is a more difficulty question. We have no good standards for academic departments. but most submitted articles on them have been deleted, and I've almost always agreed with the decision. It's very difficult to write one without promotionalism unless the department is actually world-famous, and that's my personal standard, and the standard I argue for. It's relatively easy to decide this in the more general and longstanding fields, like for example physics. It's harder in the more specialized and newer ones, ones, like Biomedical Engineering. I cannot predict how the discussion will go.

the problem is to provide third party documentation of your statement "largely considered to have created this modern field" and each individual statement ones in the article, especially the ones already questioned with citation need tags. I point out the USNWR rankings are considered of rather dubious reliability here, certainly not as a measure of research importance. We include them because the public uses them.

Unless you can find material to document the statements, I do not think that the article will pass AfD. If you can, it probably will. If you provide them on the article talk page and let me know here, I will remove the tag. Otherwise there is no real point in trying in keep it. DGG ( talk ) 05:01, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank-you very much. I looked at several things. First, I appreciate that noteworthy is not an absolute metric.

I wanted to just share some thoughts on possible noteworthy measures indicating that Biomedical Engineering as a discipline is significant and within the field JHU BME is noteworthy. (i) Currently we have 8 faculty over 60, 12 faculty with h-index greater than 50, and 19 over 40. While h-index is not an absolute measure of noteworthiness, Wikipedia says and I am quoting "an outtsanding scientist has an h-index of 40, and a truely unique individual an h-index of 60". For comparison, I looked at Duke, Stanford and GTech in this manner, none have as many. GTech and Stanford have 5 greater than 50.(ii) We have 5 listed members of any of the National Academies. According to Wikipedia "Election into the National Academies is one of the highest honors in the scientific field. (iii) The size of our discipline is significant and of the scale of the departments of Biomedical Engineering are similar to other outstanding program which have wiki pages. For example Georgia Tech, Duke, UCSD and JHU have 40 tenure line faculty in Biomedical Engineering. (iv) A noteworthy measure of the importance of our undergraduate program, the acceptance rate of 7.8% into JHU BME is currently more competitive than CalTech and MIT based on U.S. News and World Report.

If there are other measures that Wikipedia uses of noteworthiness we would be happy to address. We agree that any statements that you feel are inappropriate because of inadequate 3rd party referencing should be taken down. At the time of our founding in 1962 there were no other departments. We are currently looking for 3rd party referencing to that effect. It seems appropriate that the statement "Johns is credited as ..." can be taken down until we find further referencing. We are proper the proper reference from U.S. News concerning continual ranking. Mim.cis (talk) 17:06, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Notability for the purposes of wikipedia does not correspond to the way the word is used in the Real World--it can only be thought of as a term of art -- language used in a special way by those within a field. I am giving you advice about what will be needed to keep the article, which requires dealing with the artificial manner that is used here. I also have my own opinion, but the advice I give you is based on my experience of what actually happens, not what I think ought to happen.

Officially, the measure Wikipedia uses for determining notability is the WP:GNG, whether there are references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements. If you have such material the article will be kept, whether or not it would rationally make sense to have it in the encyclopedia. If you do not, it won't, again would rationally make sense to have it in the encyclopedia. The key words to pay attention to are substantial, independent, and reliable. To the extent that it will help influence how people consider the references, the best way of making the case for your deprtment is to focus not on present quality however high it may be, but historical significance, where it may be unique. DGG ( talk ) 10:27, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank-you for these clarifications. I am slowly learning. I may have clunkily tried to remove the prod based on my understanding of correct procedure. I left comments on Bfpage talk since BFP was the individual who tagged it. I hope the page can stay up and be edited and improved. Thank-you in advance in whatever you decide.Mim.cis (talk) 21:51, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 7 – 15 December 2017 A new bibliographical landscape At the beginning of December, Wikidata items on individual scientific articles passed the 10 million mark. This figure contrasts with the state of play in early summer, when there were around half a million. In the big picture, Wikidata is now documenting the scientific literature at a rate that is about eight times as fast as papers are published. As 2017 ends, progress is quite evident. Behind this achievement are a technical advance (fatameh), and bots that do the lifting. Much more than dry migration of metadata is potentially involved, however. If paper A cites paper B, both papers having an item, a link can be created on Wikidata, and the information presented to both human readers, and machines. This cross-linking is one of the most significant aspects of the scientific literature, and now a long-sought open version is rapidly being built up. The effort for the lifting of copyright restrictions on citation data of this kind has had real momentum behind it during 2017. WikiCite and the I4OC have been pushing hard, with the result that on CrossRef over 50% of the citation data is open. Now the holdout publishers are being lobbied to release rights on citations. But all that is just the beginning. Topics of papers are identified, authors disambiguated, with significant progress on the use of the four million ORCID IDs for researchers, and proposals formulated to identify methodology in a machine-readable way. P4510 on Wikidata has been introduced so that methodology can sit comfortably on items about papers. More is on the way. OABot applies the unpaywall principle to Wikipedia referencing. It has been proposed that Wikidata could assist WorldCat in compiling the global history of book translation. Watch this space. And make promoting #1lib1ref one of your New Year's resolutions. Happy holidays, all! Links WikidataCon: Giving more people more access to more knowledge, report by Peter Kraker of Open Knowledge Maps This is a story of my knowledge adventure in New Zealand moths via Wikicommons, Wikipedia and Wikidata, @SiobhanLeachman Wikidata and Arabic dialects, research paper, DOI: 10.1109/AICCSA.2017.115 c:Commons:British Library/Mechanical Curator collection/georeferencing status, Mechanical Curator project on Commons hits 50K maps milestone Historical dataset on the provenance of Wikipedia text: Who wrote this?, by Tilman Bayer, WMF blogpost "Anyone can edit", not everyone does: Wikipedia and the gender gap (PDF), journal paper, Heather Ford and Judy Wajcman Alpha Zero’s "Alien" Chess Shows the Power, and the Peculiarity, of AI, MIT Technology Review, by Will Knight, December 8, 2017 To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see below. Editor Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him. Back numbers are here. Reminder: WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata are at WD:WFM.

Regarding this[22] edit, you just redirected the page to a non-existent talk page. Why did you even redirect it in the first place? Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 01:10, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Thats what we do with accepted drafts. It keeps the records straight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs)

Now, I'm really confused. Somebody else changed the redirect after you made it, and I think this article was a duplicate of an already existent article. Boomer Vial^{Happy Holidays! • Contribs} 19:22, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

still to check

Hi David,
I don't think this article meets the WP:G11 speedy deletion criterion, as it seems to me neutral enough in tone. Whether it meets the WP:GNG or any other of the notability policies and guidelines is another matter, of course.
Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 10:04, 16 December 2017 (UTC) still to check[reply]

Hi! So my article on Dave Sanders, the Columbine High School coach that died during the massacre was rejected, and the reason was "not memorial". I'm not sure what this means. I wrote details on his life (there's not many), and a quick summary of his death. There's no other way to write it and if every other victim got a wikipedia article, he certainly deserves one (as does Daniel Rohrborough!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Genevejuneau (talk • contribs) 19:46, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We do not make articles on people whose only notability is having died in a disaster. I'm not sure I agree with that, and I've sometimes argued otherwise, but such has been the consensus. Two of the other victims only have articles, and in each case its because they have individually been the subjects of books ( and for one of them, songs) .But my decision is not final--another admin might accept it and it might conceivably be kept in an afd, and the decision is made by the community consensus in that afd discussion . Before you do that, try to find references providing substantial coverage about the individual in particular from third-party independent reliable sources--if you can find more and better material, there's abetter chance. DGG ( talk ) 04:52, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG: Could you please move Judaism in Mexico to History of the Jews in Mexico as this needs the help of an admin. The article is almost all about the Jewish history of the Jews in Mexico and its heading should therefore follow the format of all the other articles about "History of the Jews in ____". Thanks so much for all your help. IZAK (talk) 20:07, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

done DGG ( talk ) 04:44, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@DGG: Hi, it still has not been moved as of this note. Thanks, and happy new year. IZAK (talk) 23:37, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

recheck

14:31, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Hello DGG. I saw your comment at WT:CSD regarding error rates on G13 nominations, and I was wondering what kinds of errors you were referring to. Do you mean technical errors in not meeting G13 criteria (e.g. pages that actually have been edited within the last six months)? Or do you mean pages that are potentially worthwhile and ought to be allowed more time to work?--Mojo Hand (talk) 03:27, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I mean results which are clearly wrong according to our current standards. and that includes- both the printed guidelines and the accepted standards of interpretation. No policy or guideline, however absolute it sounds, provides an automatic answer for all situations. Every administrative action at WP relies upon following consensus--in the case of deleting at speedy, the implied consensus of what other admins would reasonably do. If you examine WP:CSD, you will find each criteria has a qualifying word, such "credible" "unquestionably" "unsalvageable" "good faith" essentially", "implausible" and the like. There is an accepted range of interpretations for all of these, and a variety of accepted exemptions or inclusions in practice that are not specifically written. My % does not however include items that do fall under the accepted interpretation, but where I wish it were otherwise. Nor does it include instances where another admin interpreted it differently than I, but both of us are within the accepted range of interpretation. And it should be noted that for many of these, the accepted practice changes with time in one direction or another. Almost always in WP, the written rules are revised after the practice has changed. Furthermore, specific and general policies can contradict each other--for example, the details at CSD and the general rules at NOT are both policy, but can be harmonized in many different ways--some are within the accepted limits, some are stretching things, some are entirely unreasonable abut attempted nonetheless. Even more broadly, our fundamental WP:IAR could be interpreted to permit anything, but in practice is used also within accepted limits.

You will notice I'm not directly addressing the point you have in mind, G13--this is a case where the standards have apparently been changing. I think it is now accepted that it does not apply to material that would just as it is pass AfC; it might possibly exempt also material that with reasonable improvements would meet AfC, but I wouldn't say that someone was wrong who thought otherwise.

for clarity, I should add: When I give people advice about an article, I try to make certain my advice follows very conservatively the clearly accepted standard--I would consideranything else irresponsible. When I argue for doing something, that's different, and I sometimes do argue for adjusting the interpretation — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talk • contribs) 07:18, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your thoughts. I generally tread lightly with G13s and only deleted the easy and fairly obvious ones. So, I was curious about the thought process of those who look at the harder candidates.--Mojo Hand (talk) 15:51, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Sir,

Greetings!

When the legal age is not matching to give consent, assent is obtained in research. This is an important concept, hence an article can be created in my opinion. May I request you to kindly guide further?

Thank you.

- Dr. Abhijeet Safai -- Abhijeet Safai (talk) 11:25, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

still need to look at this

Dear David. When I first started writing entries you were very helpful and I would like to do the same for new writers on Canadian Art by starting a separate wikiproject or category to the Canadian article page. This would include general information on Canadian notability and key awards, institutions, sources of published articles etc as well as preview on request or review new entries. I – and hopefully others – would add information and rescue those entries with notability or stub tags, but not deletions. Does this sound like a good idea to you and, if so, could I send you my notability criteria who you to have a look at. Best regards, Heather HeatherBlack (talk) 20:14, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

certainly I will look at anything you send, preferably on wiki but email is OK if you think it more appropriate. However, I remind you that no project has any authority over the community, and any rules the project may make regarding notability are mere suggestions unless the community chooses to formally add them as a Special Notability guidelines--which is rather rare, or tacitly adopt them by following them at AfD--which is more likely. It helps if they are consistent with existing guidelines, particularly WP:CREATIVE, and I am not sure I see the need for anything else, except for such details as which museums or publications count towards the conditions there. Other projects have made similar definitions, and they are usually respected.

I would also suggest that it be worded, "try to add information and evaluate those entries with notability tags etc .. "rather that necessarily rescue." The proper approach is to call attention to challenged articles in a field, but , not take a one sided approach to them. I'm confident you didn't mean to imply this, but meant to say to defend the articles that should appropriately be defended, but it has to be carefully worded to be unmistakably neutral. DGG ( talk ) 06:35, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you David! Yes my intention is to include and refine the Notability Creative Text with the Canadian institutions etc with a few suggestions that you passed on to me. And I agree it's important to use the proper words, so thank you, I will send you a short draft here within a week or so. Best wishes for the holidays. HeatherBlack (talk) 13:10, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your talk page is currently 336,914 bytes long. Please archive most of it, in smaller chunks, and consider setting up a bot to do so on a regular basis (I can do that for you if you wish). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:32, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

my current talk p is 1/3 the length it was a month ago, and I have received comments that I should return some of the material I removed. Expect it at 450. DGG ( talk ) 17:34, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

i regularly visit dgg's talkpage and benefit from reading the instructive and interesting information that i find here. Wikikit stalker - meowr! Coolabahapple (talk) 22:42, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, David, can you check whether Srikanta Patnaik and Bhagaban Das passes NACADEMIC and/or GNG, esp. in light of possible paid-pupptry at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Amitbhb12.Personally, while I think B.Das misses inclusion guidelines by a mile, I am some doubtful about S.Patnaik in light of this.Though, I also feel that it might be a very good option to nuke the obviously-paid-promo-messes and let someone start it de-novo.Regards:)Winged Blades^Godric 06:06, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you on notability , and they are both entirely promotional to the extent they could not be fixed without total rewriting, and I therefore tagged them for G11. There was once a time when I would have done that total rewriting for S.P., but no longer even for academics. There are too many undeclared paid editors soliciting them and we need to do what we can to put an end to it. DGG ( talk ) 07:32, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely agree.Winged Blades^Godric 12:22, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG, I'm writing regarding Articles_for_deletion/Lily_Jay. You mentioned that every Inc article may have to be checked in order to remove Inc profiles. I think there's no reason to be worried, as Inc Profiles are meant for companies to have their standalone business profiles like this [35] or [36], similar to Bloomberg company profiles. Having an Inc Verified profile for $30/year does not give them the ability to publish and contribute on the Inc magazine itself.

Taking that into account, I'm trying to understand for myself what exactly made you think that this [37] Inc article was published by an Inc Profile?

Moreover, why do you consider Gold Coast Bulletin and Inc Magazine as unreliable? Do they fall into the category of self-published articles or press releases?

Thank you.  ⚜ LithOldor ⚜  ^(T) 17:20, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bloomberg profiles are not reliable for notability either, just for verifying the basic facts about the company or individual. As for Inc Profiles. , to quote from their web site "we independently confirm that businesses are operational, websites are functional, social media links and phone lines work, content is appropriate and no obvious red flags exist. Inc. Verified Profiles are meant to save purchasers a little time by showcasing businesses that are part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. They are not an endorsement of products or services, nor a guarantee of quality." If I open a grocery store, once I've got my social media set up, I'd be qualified. They could be used for the above facts, and nothing more--all other content in them is written by the firm or its PR agency.

You are correct that this is not a profile. It would be more accurately classed as a press release. The give-away was the author: "by Wanda Thibodeaux, Copywriter, TakingDictation.com", and the expected line at the bottom: "The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com." DGG ( talk ) 18:13, 27 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You'll find this rather surprising. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:03, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I've been wondering about Trampton.. I know ST well enough that I will try to clarify this privately. DGG ( talk ) 01:08, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

confirmed. DGG ( talk ) 03:04, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ya, there was something odd about this Hey you yeah you! account, maybe the username but they always struck me as not-so-new. Incidentally, I never thought that it could be the same person as SwisterTwister, their AfD arguments struck me as fairly different. And now I wonder how many AfDs were tainted by this socking. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:45, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt there were very many at AfD where the ST vote made the difference, because their arguments were somewhat incoherent at times. And I don't think that if the problem is that he was the one who raised the argument for deletion, there was no deletion unless other people said similarly--but those do have to be checked. But what we need to check first AfDs where more than one of them appeared. BTW, I recall an analogous instance in the inclusionist direction Useer:A Nobody, better known as User:Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles DGG ( talk ) 16:05, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think most have been examined - and so far I know two have been overturned from deletion to no consensus or keep. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:06, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Galobtter, can you help me here--who have been examining them, and which have been overturned? DGG ( talk ) 16:15, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion is at User_talk:Bbb23#Question_about_sock_cleanup - the two are Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Hattie_B's_Hot_Chicken and Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Taziki's_Mediterranean_Café. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:18, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am a bit more concerned about quorum. Many AfDs attract very few votes (I use 3 votes nominator included as my cutoff, and that is cutting it fine) and I saw Hey you yeah you! in several such bare-minimum AfDs. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:46, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Per the RfC earlier this year that updated NOQUORUM, the default here is to treat as an expired PROD, so it shouldn't be an issue. If someone raises it to you in an AfD where there were minimal votes, I would just restore at your discretion like if you had soft-deleted it. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:50, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I will delete with one additional delete argument if it's unopposed, and the reason for deletion is obvious. But I agree there may be some that need to be revisited. DGG ( talk ) 16:52, 29 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• DCLawwyer (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Executive Order 12866 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

See notes at top of article.

DCLawwyer (talk) 16:09, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You speedily deleted the article Corey Maison under A7 at 00:05 on 2 January 2018 (UTC). I went to WP:UNDELETE to request the userfication of the last version I edited. Even though that project page says, "[t]his page is also intended to serve as a central location to request that deleted content be userfied, restored as a draft or emailed to you so the content can be improved upon", SoWhy (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) declined my request saying,

this page was deleted in accordance with criterion for speedy deletion A7. If you believe that this decision was made in error, or that significant new information has come to light since the deletion, please contact the administrator who carried out the deletion, user DGG (talk · contribs). […]  Note: While the deletion was in error because I had previously declined the A7 request for good reasons, you need to contact him directly for a restore.

I have questions: (a) Despite the A7 deletion, why couldn't SoWhy userfy per my request? (b) Why does SoWhy say that your deletion "was in error"? (c) Can you fulfill my original request? — fourthords | =Λ= | 17:33, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It was an error for me to delete it because once a speedy request has been declined by anyone, it may not be restored. Speedy is designed for uncontroversial deletions, and if someone disagrees, it is not uncontroversial. I had not noticed the previous request. To avoid the appearance of conflict, it is normal to let the original admin deal with the revert. That way I have the chance to correct my own error.

It is now at User:Fourthords/Corey Maison.

However, it seems there's a significant copyvio problem, and I revision-deleted the versions with the copyvio according to the notices placed on the page. But I notice that the current take consist about half of quotations,. Though they are sourced, we do not normally build so much of an article in this manner, because it is a little too suggestive of copyvio in the very expansive way we use the word, so you probably should try to use only a smaller amount of the quotes

I continue to consider the article not suitable for mainspace, under the policies NOTNEWS and NOTTABLOID. What I suggest it needs is expansion with references showing continuing interest. Even so, I reserve judgment. And remember not to leave it in userspace without improvements.

because of the various problems, I would probably not have restored the article had you been a new editor; but since you are an experienced editor with considerable very good work to your credit, I feel confident in trusting you to deal with it properly. DGG ( talk ) 19:32, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've actually had very little experience with speedy deletions, so thanks for the explanation! As for the current state of the article: I wouldn't ever put such a piece in the articlespace myself. The article'd already been made though, so I was just endeavoring to bring it up to snuff as quickly as I could. I knew it still wasn't great by any means, but I'd hoped it was enough to stave off speedy deletion for the short-term. Thank you very much for the praise, and thank you for the userfication! — fourthords | =Λ= | 20:59, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hey! I see you turned down the draft for Datari Turner due to the article being Written by a known paid editing firm without declaration of conflict of interest at the article and asked to resubmit. I declared that Datari is a client on my userpage but where else does it need to be declared? Thank you. JacobPace (talk) 19:57, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest either as a note at the top of the article, or a note at the bottom, or on the article talk page. I am of course well aware that anything from your account is or is likely to be paid editing, but not all potential reviewers will be. DGG ( talk ) 20:40, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Happy New Year, David! As I had mentioned I am sending you the text for your comment before I format the page. You will notice all of our Royal Societies and such Canadian anomalies as a provincial gallery called The Rooms, as well as Auction Houses called Galleries as individual's cannot be an art dealer in Canada, only galleries. Also, if you don't mind having a look at two recent ones that I did. Alan Klinkhoff Gallery, which is my third auction-artist estate house, hasn't been reviewed and I'm wondering if it's because of the "gallery name" although I wrote a comment in the talk page. Like Heffel's it's an office when you go in there are four desks crowded in a front room with no art, with a back room open to the public only for exhibitions of artist or collector's estate sales or "not-for-sale shows" complete with hockey sticks. With Annie Baillargeon, I'm wondering if I'm a little OCD when it comes to referencing as I'm a history major as well as designer-writer-educator. Thanks again. HeatherBlack (talk) 21:24, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiproject Canadian Visual Arts

...

Thanks for your help. So, if I understand correctly, I'll move National Gallery of Canada (some biographies and/or works), Order of Canada, SASKART, museum catalogues, and Canadian Dictionary of Biography to notability. Under biographical information sources, I'll add media reviews (over two-paragraphs) together with the Note: use commercial artist catalogues, blog interviews, web or unpublished CVs for background information only, artist statement or technique. Does that make sense? Also as I'm doing more clean-up with only three or so new (all notable RCA, FRAIC, OCs or auction-related) and want to advise others, any comment on my own work, re Alan Klinkhoff Gallery and Annie Baillargeon (since 2014 my sole non decorated artist) is appreciated. HeatherBlack (talk) 14:01, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Saw this too late to do anything as nobody notified me about it or the other articles that were deleted, but in response to "promotional article for someone whose job is promotion. I tend to look at such articles quite skeptically. There is very little here that indicates any actual notability, and a great deal that indicates a self-indulgent bio, ("Fergusson-Stewart honeymooned on Islay and named his firstborn daughter Islay."--which happens to be where the Scotch he promotes is produced) known to be written by a declared paid editor, who is by training a PR professional .I think this is one more instance that paid editors, declared or undeclared, regardless of their good intentions,are generally not likely to write a NPOV article. The references are PR, and that;s all there is. DGG ( talk ) 17:58, 30 December 2017 (UTC)"

The Scotch he promotes is Glenfiddich which is a Speyside single malt produced in Moray. It is not produced in Islay, one of the southernmost of the Inner Hebridean Islands located off the west coast of Scotland. Did you really need to fabricate something in order to get the deletion? You disappoint me. I'm Tony Ahn (talk) 22:08, 7 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

my error on the Scotch. I should have said "where Scotch is , famously, produced" sorry. But a self indulgent bio it certainly is. But it is true one might write such a bio merely because one likes the whiskey. And it is also true that people without a direct coi often write articles indistinguishable from coi because they copy the model of the great many promotional articles on WP. Some have even told that they thought that's what WP wanted. DGG ( talk ) 15:09, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Are you watching them tell me that editing in userspace is still COI editing? Do you agree with that? If so, when did you switch your position? Because you were very supportive when I first came up with the idea for the process. If you don't agree with that, please say so. I've also asked them 3 times how to get the sockpuppet tag removed from accounts that have nothing to do with mine (and from accounts that already identify their connection with me, like my own personal account, which got tagged as a sock too), and nobody will touch it. I'm Tony Ahn (talk) 23:48, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion has confused several issues. In my opinion: although editing in user space with a conflict of interest is editing with a conflict of interest, it is the permitted way to do coi editing, as long as the editing is NPOV. That was so at the time, and remains the consensus. DGG ( talk ) 16:35, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi David. Thanks for your help. I put the page up and will be sending it to other Canadian art writers. Following your recommendations, I changed the text and added the "Advice to new writers" section from the notes that you previously sent me which were so helpful. To be honest I would have stopped writing then and there if you hadn't come to my rescue. And I'm sure that happens a lot, hence this page. Please let me know if I made an error or if something is controversial. Also I'd appreciate it if you could take a look at the Alan Klinkhoff Gallery and let me know if it needs improvements. Cheers HeatherBlack (talk) 13:50, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Good work!, but there are always some details. I've adjusted the following:

(1) use lower case whenever possible: Canadian art, not Canadian Art

(2) Everything should only be linked the first time it is mentioned.

(3) Every institution name should be linked.

Still needed: be specific " set auction record" what price? If a work is a painting, say so. There are several Rene Richard's in WP--which one is it here?

Is it "Alan Klinkhoff Gallery" or "Galerie Alan Klinkhoff" or are these equally official English and French titles? Use one throughout the article, specify the other as an alternative in the first sentence., and link from it.

Also keep in mind

Normally we give last names only, or just "he", after the first mention--but this article is an exception because of multiple people from the same family. Avoid it otherwise.

Normally I tend to consider anecdotes about childhood interest leading to the career a promotional device, but in this case of a multigenerational enterprise, it's relevant.

Consider linking people who should have articles--the red links indicate what's needed.

Try to word interviews as compactly as possible. It can be tricky. If the reference gives the topic of the interview, it's not necessary to give in the text. DGG ( talk ) 05:57, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Re Alan Klinkhoff Gallery, thank-you, your comments were excellent and I adjusted the text. It is now clearer, thanks. I italicized the french version of their name as by law that's the one they have to use in Quebec. I do follow the last name use in my columns and Wikipedia but, when stuck, use this style for families. I didn't know about the link rule for first-use only, which I'll follow in the future, so I'll add it as number 4 in the advice list (*4 Try to link art institutions, museums, and other artists. Please note that text should only be linked the first time it is mentioned.). I'll also change the name to Wikiproject Canadian visual arts. If there is anything else, please let me know. And thanks again for your help! You certainly deserve the "Diplomacy barnstar"' Best regards HeatherBlack (talk) 16:13, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

	The Barnstar of Diplomacy
	I appreciate your contributions regarding my topic ban as well as your thoughts on Arbitration Enforcement. --MONGO 13:35, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What's your opinion of Powerhouse Films? I note at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion/Archive 285#List of Powerhouse Films releases you suggested to an editor that this was submitted as a draft, but looks like it has just been recreated in mainspace, albeit with a bit of an intro about the company. I speedied it, but I'm wondering if I might have been a bit hasty... --woodensuperman 10:16, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

speedyingas a recreation was perhaps not ideal, and it was declined. I just added a speedy tag for G11 advertising. If declined, I suggest AfD. DGG ( talk ) 02:52, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I am the original author of the page - how about making suggestions on how to improve the article in its talk section rather than blanket deletion (which seems rather excessive and abusive)? Cagwinn (talk) 04:22, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Every individual paragraph would have to be rewritten to omit promotional phrases and write in plainer sentences. And there still remains the original problems with the catalog, which is still half the contents. DGG ( talk ) 05:37, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Powerhouse Films. --23:41, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi DGG. I'd contested the speedy deletion of this after pruning it right back. Shouldn't there have been some discussion before it was deleted? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 09:31, 12 January 2018 (UTC) to reply[reply]

• Draft:Oil on Water (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

You made a minor edit to this, is it worth keeping any longer? It has had no substantive edits since May. Guy (Help!) 17:15, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

three significant awards, major writer. I'm reluctant to try to cut down the plot section of a book I haven't read, but that's the only reason for not accepting it. Maybe I'll eliminate the plot section entirely. DGG ( talk ) 19:48, 12 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

• Draft:Christopher Freeze
• Draft:The Metalock Process

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:01, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

...

From the days of hard-copy liner notes on music albums, metadata have stood outside a piece or file, while adding to understanding of where it comes from, and some of what needs to be appreciated about its content. In the GLAM sector, the accumulation of accurate metadata for objects is key to the mission of an institution, and its presentation in cataloguing.

Today Wikipedia turns 17, with worlds still to conquer. Zooming out from the individual GLAM object to the ontology in which it is set, one such world becomes apparent: GLAMs use custom ontologies, and those introduce massive incompatibilities. From a recent article by sadads, we quote the observation that "vocabularies needed for many collections, topics and intellectual spaces defy the expectations of the larger professional communities." A job for the encyclopedist, certainly. But the data-minded Wikimedian has the advantages of Wikidata, starting with its multilingual data, and facility with aliases. The controlled vocabulary — sometimes referred to as a "thesaurus" as term of art — simplifies search: if a "spade" must be called that, rather than "shovel", it is easier to find all spade references. That control comes at a cost.

Case studies in that article show what can lie ahead. The schema crosswalk, in jargon, is a potential answer to the GLAM Babel of proliferating and expanding vocabularies. Even if you have no interest in Wikidata as such, simply vocabularies V and W, if both V and W are matched to Wikidata, then a "crosswalk" arises from term v in V to w in W, whenever v and w both match to the same item d in Wikidata.

For metadata mobility, match to Wikidata. It's apparently that simple: infrastructure requirements have turned out, so far, to be challenges that can be met.

Links

• 1lib1ref campaign starts today, see m:The Wikipedia Library/1Lib1Ref: also #1lib1ref introductory video by Felix Nartey
• Funders should mandate open citations, article 9 January 2018 in Nature by David Shotton
• From snowflake to avalanche: Possibilities of using free citation data in libraries, translation from the German original of Annette Klein, Mannheim University Library
• outreach:GLAM/Newsletter/December 2017/Contents/WMF GLAM report
• Why Mickey Mouse’s 1998 copyright extension probably won't happen again: Copyrights from the 1920s will start expiring next year if Congress doesn't act, Timothy B. Lee, 8 January 2018, Arstechnica

---

Charles Matthews, suppose term v in V is only a approximate match to term w in W. Not all shovels are spades or even usable as spades. One cannot dig a hole in earth. with a snow-shovel. The article Schema crosswalk that the newsletter mentions explains this in a more detailed way. I'm aware you understand the problems of using wikidata to map from commons to enWP, or from one language WP to another. We should not pretend this is a trivial exercise. DGG ( talk ) 00:33, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, indeed. The "structured data on Commons" exercise is rather more demanding, and the ramifications of the current category structure on Commons will take effort to translate. The same phenomenon is visible in fact closer to hand, when one compares typical subcategory structures used on the German Wikipedia, which tend to be purist, with those here that lapse in the direction of the baroque.

I don't see, however, that these "facts on the ground" undermine the simple point that this editorial is trying to extract, from Alex Stinson's posting. Different, rather strict systems can be compared, if one takes some trouble. Wikidata is not committed to a particular ontology, and can handle complex subclass structures. Its query language is very expressive. The precondition is to get everything over a common denominator, first of all. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:51, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello David. I made a few improvements to the Wikiproject, and if the information is of use to you, please feel free to pass it on. Also I was wondering if you had a chance to look at the improvements to Alan Klinkhoff Gallery, and if everything was okay, could remove the new, unreviewed tag. In the past, I found that it was faster to use the "move article" but I have a few backlogged so have now returned to "submit draft" for review. Thanks again for all your help. I really appreciate it. Best regards HeatherBlack (talk) 13:48, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Lipo-flavonoid. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. --Zeamays (talk) 21:59, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Could you have a look at this for me please. I PRODed it because I thought it was a no brainer for not meeting WP:PROF. It was dePRODed by its author on the basis that ' all professors are notable'. Maybe she is. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:35, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree with you that she doesn't meet PROF (based on what's in the article). I haven't looked into general claims of notability, but being the head of a department often means you've just been around longer than everyone else. Just because an editathon created the page (or vetted it) does not mean that the PROF rules have changed (and no, not all professors are notable). Primefac (talk) 15:04, 17 January 2018 (UTC) (talk page stalker)[reply]

I'm looking at the publications in some more considerable depth. My comments will be on the article talk page. DGG ( talk ) 22:59, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Based on your AFD comments for Danielle Fong's article, can you look at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Women#May_Tha_Hla and see if they did any better in digging up secondary sources for that? It's leaning on similar notability as I discussed with mainly BBC 100 Women and similar lists but expanded from there. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 17:04, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's time we eliminated placement on lists as a criterion in notability determinations. Thee have been too many instances of borderline `y decisions based on such factors. (I want to say, that although I sometimes evaluate material a little differently than you, I greatly respect your attempts to bring some realism and common sense to these discussions.) DGG ( talk ) 21:04, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I appreciate it. The Danielle Fong article has a better chance at notability than some of the AFD, AFC and New Pages Feed articles I've had to deal with, even if the overall media and apparent rush of new advocate editors is biased towards promoting her causes. Feel free to chime in at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(people)#BBC_100_Women which is the general thread I have going on, regarding such listings. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 01:03, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

From the pt of view of notability I agree there have been much more unlikely articles. But check my nom. I nominated it because of the repeated promotionalism, which seemed unfixable--I did try. Unless it's protected, it'll soon be back at 40,000. Opinion varies on how we should handle situations like this--none of our methods are fully satisfactory. DGG ( talk ) 20:32, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If it survives AFD then it definitely needs protection from promotionalism. Another editor has already upped the talk page to mention DS-level sanctions. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 18:04, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello David. Thanks again for your help with Alan Klinkhoff Gallery. Is there anything more that I should do to finish it and have "new unreviewed article" removed? Also I'm doing my first cleanup where there is a notability tag. Once I rewrite it – there are journal articles to back up notability on technique plus featured interviews in cultural magazines – do I take it off myself, ask someone for a review or just leave it on? Best regards HeatherBlack (talk) 15:30, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry David. I didn't receive an email alert from the Alan Klinkhoff Gallery page, so didn't read your comments until today. I fixed the links and changed the text to: "In 2017 the gallery, a successor to Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, reported the sale of a Lawren Harris painting for $9.5 million." Thank-you again. HeatherBlack (talk) 22:55, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not able to add neutral information to page Manhattan Associates because of old deletion actions. More information on Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Manhattan_Associates. I can provide many sources to enhance this page. For instance this article from technologyevaluation.com (https://www3.technologyevaluation.com/research/article/manhattan-associates-momentum-2017-active-solutions-for-an-active-supply-chain-world.html). Or this comparison between Supply Chain software suppliers: http://www.mmh.com/article/top_20_software_suppliers

Could you please let me add content?

EspA34 (talk) 16:49, 20 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

To start with, this request in the context of your previous contributions makes it reasonable to ask you if you have any relationship with the company: in particular whether you are a member of its PR staff, or a PR or advertising firm doing work for it, or are otherwise being paid to write an article. If so, you must declare it--see QP:COI for the details.

Second, please read our rules on WP:NPOV, The previous article and article draft were the same sort of promotional material that would go into a company web page, without reliable third party sources. The reference you suggest above, is essentially a press release, slightly disguised, but nonetheless an advertorial. If you have more objective sources than that, it might be possible to write a new article draft, provided you declare any connection. Let me know. DGG ( talk ) 20:30, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Zelgizbog (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:SPARX Group (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hi DGG. Thank you for the pointers. I have added new references to the article. I believe # 2,3,4,5,7,9and 11 would be considered notable and non-press releaseish. I have deleted the awards sections as well. Would appreciate any other pointers you think would improve this article. I have resubmitted for review in the meantime. Thank you!

Zelgizbog (talk) 12:19, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

preliminary question: were any of the activities in the "Activism" section successful? DGG ( talk ) 04:42, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Pentax is a harvard business school case study and was a very successful case. the other one is ongoing. im sure there are many that were unsuccessful that didnt make the papers....Zelgizbog (talk) 14:06, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG. Just checking in to see if I can do anything else for this page. Thanks Zelgizbog (talk) 03:37, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

...Zelgizbog (talk) 04:32, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• • RECHECK

Hi, I am braniac2000, I was just wondering why my pages Miss National Sweetheart 2011, Miss National Sweetheart 2012 are being deleted. I really put a lot of effort in those pages, and I wouldn't want it to go to waste. Would you please tell me all errors to avoid from being deleted. Thank you and appreciate your time.

Have a great night Braniac2000 (talk) 02:01, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I see no evidence that the entire series of events are notable--that they have received substantial discussion in reliable sources--except for press releases or local notices, neither of which count. I'll just mention that the main article on the event might not have been noticed if you had not decided to start articles for the individual years. The main article was written many years ago, when our standards were much lower. DGG ( talk ) 02:29, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Is a new article. In June of last year you deleted List of Mercy College (New York) people under A10 as it duplicated the Mercy College article's notable alumni section. Do we have a new case of just that with the new article?...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 02:39, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's an improvement--the current article is limited it to the ones with WP articles, and makes an attempt at distributing it by field . But normally the list in the main article contains only a very few of the most important. Either the section in the main article should be edited, or the list merged. I don't think at present that there's enough to justify a separate list. DGG ( talk ) 02:55, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've been editing out the entries without articles on both the article and the list. The article's alumni section was getting real bad on two occasions before I cleaned it up. I think this list is an attempt to bypass the article. Now both are on my watch list....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 02:59, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for your acceptance and comment about the article on Hugo Gottesmann.Mary Jane Doerr (talk) 21:23, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You have been so kind in helping me through this and to be successfull. Deep Appreciation.Mary Jane Doerr (talk) 11:55, 27 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Can you give me the location of how to change m user naame? Again you have been most helpful.WS114 13:42, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

00:56, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your contributions

CanadiaNinja (talk) 14:27, 25 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG, I have deprodded Simple Energy because it's been previously kept at AfD. I only did this for procedural reasons and have no prejudice against you taking it back to AfD. Cheers, —KuyaBriBri^Talk 16:02, 26 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I recently made this close to an AfD. I am not seeing any consensus here, Spartaz has questioned the close. In normal circumstances I would revert, however Spartaz has been less than neutral when dealing with me and far from cordial. I noticed you voted delete in this case but it appears that another editor Northamerica1000 (talk · contribs) has edited it after me close which appears to be consensus through editing. I have no qualms if you elect to reopen it and as you voted delete Spartaz should not have any issues with my request from you for a neutral third party opinion. I can't see any consensus to delete and his statements on my talk page are patently false. I highlighted WP:AUD and arguments which favor both inclusion and deletion, not a vote count, though the vote count was in favor of keeping. Any input from you is appreciated, for or against. Valoem ^{talk contrib} 17:33, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I can't really reopen a close on an AfD I voted in. I might be reopening it hoping for a reclose as delete. Spartaz and I rarely agree at either AfD or Deletion Review, but I think we both usually feel that it make little sense to challenge a non-consensus close unless it wholly irrational, and your close was reasonable enough (though I would advise you never to even mention the vote count in a close, even in a general way). I presume the request is because of the principal of WP:NAC; NAC is not clear in this situation, except for the general requirement not to do NACs of contentious AfDs. The simplest thing is to revert the close yourself. DGG ( talk ) 20:26, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you believe delete is a better outcome I will reopen, but Spartaz would be bias here already suggesting he would delete, and 100% votes against anything I've done, I would prefer a neutral admin close if that is possible or DRV. Do you feel this to be reasonable? Valoem ^{talk contrib} 20:33, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I was going to close it as keep but nevermind we can leave it as nc and someone will no doubt relist it later. Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:20, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

User:DGG, I sent this same question to User:PhilKnight, on his Talk-Page, but he had no answer. Based on the directives given by WP:ARBPIA2, are we as editors of Wikipedia who wish to mention the location of a city, say, in Samaria (such as Havat Gilad), required to write West Bank as its geopolitical location/region, or can we simply write Judea and Samaria Area, based on either one of the six Administrative Districts of Israel? As for the name of the country, are we permitted to write "Israel", instead of "Palestinian territories", for places located on the former Jordanian side of the pre-1967 Demarcation lines between Israel and Jordan, known as the "West Bank"? The reason why I am asking you is because an article written by a former editor for Wikipedia had initially listed all of the towns in the country according to region as found in Districts of Israel, but then after six years, another editor came along and changed all regional locations to "West Bank" and "Palestinian territories." Is this proper procedure? If not, can we restore the original edit?Davidbena (talk) 19:10, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is no reason why an arb should know better than anyone else. What is needed for this is community agreement. DGG ( talk ) 23:47, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. So, should I add on that relevant Talk-Page a RfC in order to gain a consensus about the edit?Davidbena (talk) 00:35, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

DGG, despite all the respect I have for you as an editor, I was somewhat surprised (and, to be honest, not too pleased) when at John Cabot University you moved a draft written by an employee over the previous content (some of which I had written). I had thought that we had similar views on the pernicious and destructive influence of corporate advertising on this beautiful project. But that is nothing to my amazement at your move of Galleria d'Arte Maggiore G.A.M. into article space. I couldn't see any way of dealing with that ill-written, ill-referenced promotional screed, almost certainly written by the gallery itself, other than complete removal – so that's what I did. I've written a couple of sentences, with refs, and sent it to AfD (you may have seen, I don't know); presumably you thought it notable, but I could find no evidence that it is. A plea: if a page is so bad that it will take longer to clean up than to write from scratch, please don't move it to mainspace; if you think the topic notable, why not create a stub on it yourself, and save other editors the time and trouble needed to sort out a mess?

I see that you've put a men-at-work sign on Leoncillo. Leonardi is indubitably notable, but that page is more or less unrescuable; there's also the possibility of translational copyvio (NB his wife Maria Zampa is called "Maria Paw" in our page, that's indiscriminate machine-translation from Italian – but from where?). There is plenty on him in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani alone, quite enough to write a proper page. I'm more than happy to contribute to that if you would like; I'd suggest removing the current content, probably in its entirety. Regards, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:51, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

John Cabot has continued to dissatisfy me, and you are correct that I need to take another look at it. I have a very long list of things to go back to. Doesn't everyone?

Galleria: of course I'm aware of the promotional nature, and I stopped several times to consider what I should be doing, and hadn't really decided. Nowadays I usually do not rewrite things as promotional as that. Earlier I did, but the sheer amount and nature of the promotionalism has tending to discourage me. (But even in removing promotional articles, I concentrate on those likely to be by paid editors, who are deliberately trying to subvert our principles, and not the more benign direct editing by the subject, which is usually much more transparent and very likely to be a misunderstanding of the way we work, rather than defiance.) I decided to do this one because I judged it to be clearly notable enough to be worth the trouble--and a little interesting in its possibiltiies. See theafdforfurther comment.

Leoncillo--my principle with these has been to improve it enough to 1/ see that they stay in WP for future improvement 2/ try to clarify the notability 3/ have them read like English, 4/ fix at least some of the broken internal links 5/make sure that references are at least copied over 5/ try to resolve any ambiguities or contradictions --or if necessary remove the obviously defective parts I've done this for the first part, and started the second. If you want to do the rest, please do; I'm somewhat literate in this field, but certainly not an expert,.

People have different approaches to things like this. Mine is that I try to rescue what can be rescued quickly. I'm much faster and copyediting and rewriting than writing from scratch. When I came here, I initially thought what I would do is work on bringing articles in my field(s) to a high quality and writing what was missing, but I very quickly found I enjoyed more trying to rescue the possible and remove the impossible. So I never in 11 years here have actually worked on trying to bring an article to the best I could do with it. Maybe I will someday, but for now I plan to keep going, and I regret the current immediate need to concentrate more on removing promotionalism than rescuing notability--it's relatively rare I can even do as much as I did here.

I'm aware of the possibility of translational copyvio. There surely was some here, and of course its a machine translation as shown by many indications. Therefore I tried to reorganize as well as correcting to avoid too close a paraphrase. And, as I said, other approaches are welcome--and necessary. I don;' really think it helpful to deprecate complementary approaches. DGG ( talk ) 05:11, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

• Draft:University of Strathclyde Centre for Sport & Recreation

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:01, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:36, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I gather you came across this page some way or another after seeing Lookout co-authored a report with the Electronic Frontier Foundation exposing a major state-sponsored hacking campaign. Given the company's recent press coverage, why prod the page now? Mark Schierbecker (talk) 23:34, 31 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I removed the product listing. It might help to expand the last sentence into a description of the firm's role. DGG ( talk ) 00:41, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Could you provide a link to the article that was delete? Thanks--A21sauce (talk) 15:56, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean Joseph Betesh, the article is still right there, during the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joseph Betesh. It will not be deleted until the end of the 7-day discussion period, and then only if the consensus is that it should be deleted. If you think it should be kept, comment in the discussion. DGG ( talk ) 19:10, 1 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the {{proposed deletion/dated}} tag from Research software engineering, which you proposed for deletion. I'm leaving this message here to notify you about it. If you still think this article should be deleted, please do not add {{proposed deletion}} back to the file. Instead, feel free to list it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Thanks! I've added more information that shows how RSE differs from SE and it's a topci by itself, more will be added in the coming days. Let me know if you still think this is not enough. Thanks Dvdgc (talk)

Hello, if you examine the page creator's talk page and contribution history, the user has a history of edits which are to add information from and links to his book on the subject of air transportation. That's why I tagged it as promotional, they are talking up their own book and linking to it, I respect your decision and am not challenging it in any way, I simply wished to explain. 331dot (talk) 22:36, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly I've never heard of the term "airline product" which sounds like an industry insider term; perhaps there is a better name. 331dot (talk) 22:38, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm aware there are likely to be problems of that sort. First thing to check , tho, is whether it should be speedy deleted for duplication of existing entries. That would be the simplest way to deal with it. DGG ( talk ) 22:39, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That is good advice. Thank you 331dot (talk) 22:40, 3 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

DGG Stop reversing the original "Letters to John Law" citation for the language relating to the duel of John Law and Edward Wilson on the Bloomsbury_Square page. You have clearly lost both your objectivity and credibility as a Wikipedia editor in relation to that edit as you have invented several incorrect reasons to justify your edit: justifications that are simply incorrect and baseless. Firstly, you claim the book is a "self published source" - that is simply incorrect. It is not. It is published by an established independent publisher. Secondly, you claim the book is "almost unknown" - again, that is simply incorrect. It is not: is on the reading list for the history of economics course at MIT (http://lawandrevolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Finance_and_Fraud_Syllabus_3-7-14.pdf). Thirdly, the language stated in the article is taken from the Adams book - it is not from the Gleeson book you seem intent on incorrectly citing for the language from the Adams book, and that is because the Gleeson book does not deal with the duel in anywhere near the same extent as the Adams book. Fourthly, that citation and its corresponding text was inserted on the page in question (not by me - check the history) 5 years ago, and has quite correctly stood as the correct text and correct citation since that time, before you arbitrarily decided to erroneously remove it. Might I suggest you take a step back and attempt to regain some objectivity about that edit as you are damaging both the integrity of the article, and your own integrity as an editor by making inaccurate and unsubstantiated edits and inventing incorrect reasons for making them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Siolio (talk • contribs) 01:22, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As I asked you, did you or an associate write the book? DGG ( talk ) 01:25, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

DGG As, I responded to you - NO. I read it at MIT. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Siolio (talk • contribs) 01:30, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'll deal with this later. DGG ( talk ) 02:00, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

DGG You can 'deal' with whatever you like, whenever you want to. But I suggest you take an honest reflection of your edit on this article (especially given what you say about editing on your own user page - as your position here goes completely against the standards you claim to maintain) as you will see that you have completely lost objectivity over a perfectly legitimate source (which was not inserted by me) and have made erroneous edits in relation to it and attempted to substantiate those erroneous edits not with facts and objectivity but with completely incorrect and contrived statements that are baseless have zero credibility. In this respect, your edits are doing a disservice to the page in question, a disservice to the Wikipedia community, and damaging your own credibility.

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

• Draft:School of International Studies, JNU

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:00, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Racial views of Donald Trump. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I have a question about anon editing from public libraries in general and NYPL in particular.

Background: The purpose is for awareness and for workarounds at our Cascadia Wikimedians events where e.g. King County Library System seems to be blocked more often than not. I went to my local branch today and verified it is currently in this state (206.188.32.0/19 rangeblocked, I think) for a system with 700,000 members and ~2 million in its service area.

Just a bit earlier today, I saw a contrib from a NYPL anon and was a bit surprised as I thought they were usually rangeblocked too.

The questions for you: Is NYPL usually or just sometimes blocked? Do rangeblocks pose a problem for you at public events such as editathons? Is the workaround simply to have an account creator at the editathon? ☆ Bri (talk) 05:30, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: If you didn't know, KCLS and NYPL vie for busiest system in the U.S. [40] We pulled ahead in 2010 or 2011 but are now back at #2. ☆ Bri (talk) 06:21, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bri, could you please check: Ido not find it on our lists of blocked sites. The usual block prevents only anonymous editors. If you are blocked again when you edit with your username, please email me a copy of the message you receive.

At NYC we have about 10 or 12 admins (+ 1 crat + 2 arbs), and are able to deal with this sort of thing. Cascadia seems to have very few. (more about that on your user page). Otherwise, there are various methods available, but first I want to see what the situation is. DGG ( talk ) 06:22, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply. I emailed the IP block message to you for checking. ☆ Bri (talk) 06:25, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hiya, hope you don't mind but I stumbled across and de-PRODded this primarily because I felt that while it had issues, it's not a clear cut case of non-notability or using exclusively primary sources. Please feel free to AfD it, I think additional input would be helpful on this one. In the meantime, I've tagged it for issues. Have a nice week!--Newbiepedian (talk · contribs · X! · logs) 06:28, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

never a problem.Thanks for letting me know. DGG ( talk ) 09:58, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Facto Post – Issue 9 – 5 February 2018 m:Grants:Project/ScienceSource is the new ContentMine proposal: please take a look. Wikidata as Hub One way of looking at Wikidata relates it to the semantic web concept, around for about as long as Wikipedia, and realised in dozens of distributed Web institutions. It sees Wikidata as supplying central, encyclopedic coverage of linked structured data, and looks ahead to greater support for "federated queries" that draw together information from all parts of the emerging network of websites. Another perspective might be likened to a photographic negative of that one: Wikidata as an already-functioning Web hub. Over half of its properties are identifiers on other websites. These are Wikidata's "external links", to use Wikipedia terminology: one type for the DOI of a publication, another for the VIAF page of an author, with thousands more such. Wikidata links out to sites that are not nominally part of the semantic web, effectively drawing them into a larger system. The crosswalk possibilities of the systematic construction of these links was covered in Issue 8. Wikipedia:External links speaks of them as kept "minimal, meritable, and directly relevant to the article." Here Wikidata finds more of a function. On viaf.org one can type a VIAF author identifier into the search box, and find the author page. The Wikidata Resolver tool, these days including Open Street Map, Scholia etc., allows this kind of lookup. The hub tool by maxlath takes a major step further, allowing both lookup and crosswalk to be encoded in a single URL. Links What galleries, libraries, archives, and museums can teach us about multimedia metadata on Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Foundation blogpost, 29 January 2018, by Jonathan Morgan and Sandra Fauconnier m:The Wikipedia Library/1Lib1Ref/Connect, 2018 institutional participation in the #1lib1ref campaign Newspeak House queries, created at 3 February 2018 event in London led by Magnus Manske Cochrane–Wikipedia Initiative, Wikipedia Signpost special report 5 February 2018, by JenOttowa What is the Last Question?, 5 February 2018 To subscribe to Facto Post go to Wikipedia:Facto Post mailing list. For the ways to unsubscribe, see below. Editor Charles Matthews, for ContentMine. Please leave feedback for him. Back numbers are here. Reminder: WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata are at WD:WFM. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:50, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG, my name is Marco Krohn and I am one of the co-founders of "Genesis Mining". I just tried to create a stub about Genesis Mining, but noticed that the article is blocked because it was not considered noteworthy in the past. I have not edited Wikipedia for a long time, so please bear with me, if I do not follow the right route by directly asking you to unblock the article. Any guidance would be highly appreciated! Please note that my intention is only to create a stub for the company. I do not want to be involved in the article itself; this should be done by the Wikipedia community.

The reason why I think that "Genesis Mining" is fulfilling the criteria as per Wikipedia:Notability by now, is the extensive coverage by international media, including:

• CNN, Quest means Business
• CNBC
• Galileo ProSieben - major German TV channel
• ARD - majore German TV channel
• Forbes article about the founder of GM Marco Streng
• The Telegraph

Any help/pointers from your side would be highly appreciated. -- mkrohn (talk) 13:44, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the frank disclosure, so I assume you have read WP:COI. The protection was because the article was re-created twice by the sock of an editor who had been banned as a undeclared paid editor. I have just deleted the version that was in draft, because it was also created by a banned editor. I am glad you realize that is not the way to proceed. You can proceed to write an new article in Draft space, and when you are ready we can look at and see if the protection should be lifted to create it.

But interviews with anyone associated with the company are not reliable sources, because they are not truly independent--the person can say whatever they please. The company however is prominent enough that you should be able to find real news articles that discuss it in a substantial way. DGG ( talk ) 05:23, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

DGG - need your thoughts on travel promotion and use of travel destination "key words" or "coined phrases" such as Blue Cruise and Greek Island Hopping. Will it end up like what we've got in schools, geographic locations, and the music & film industry - almost anything goes? ^{Atsme📞📧} 14:03, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

see my comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greek Island Hopping;I haven't checked the other yet. DGG ( talk ) 05:54, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• JaneStrauss (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Barry Beck (entrepreneur) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hi! Thank you for taking the time to review my submission. I've read the feedback, but it seems a little broad. I would appreciate some specific pointers as to how this can be improved. I appreciate your help. JaneStrauss (talk) 14:09, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Thanks for declaring the coi. The manner of writing here is very distinct from PR. As a rough guide, anything suitable for a press release or newspaper interview or company web page is unsuitable here. More specifically:

1. You can not rely on interviews in alumni magazines or trade magazines to be reliable sources. In such an interview , the subject says what they please. This is in fact true of all interviews with the subject, which can really be used only for routine facts about his life and career. They're not independent.
2. It's over-focused on his opinions and feelings about the various steps of his career, all based upon what he says in interviews, e.g. "The Beck's distaste for the department store model" "left Beck dissatisfied". And watch out for adjectives--many of them are better removed
3. Material such as "Beck oversees all operational aspects of the company including ..."is true of COOs in general.
4. It's over-focused on his opinions and feelings about the various steps of his career, all based upon what he says in interviews, e.g. "The Beck's distaste for the department store model" "left Beck dissatisfied"
5. As minor points, everything in the infobox needs to be in the article too and justified by a citation; and, use his name only once a paragraph at most. "He" is the best substitute.
6. The material about the growth of the company belongs in the article on the company, not repeated here. The material about him personally belongs here, and not in the article in the company if there are going to be two articles. I'm not sure there really is enough material for two.
7. In a positive direction, try to get a photo of him that can be released under a free license. A photo of one of the company'sstores would be appropriate for the company article.
8. Much of the above also applies to the article on Bluemercury, which I consider over promotional and would not have acceptedas it stands. Fix it also. You can't use phrases like " noticing the appeal of Apple's white stores" but , "The store design was modeled after ...." if there's a good reference from a third-party independent source. Remember that most interviews are not fully independent. If not fixed, I or someone is likely to nominate it for a deletion discussion. I would not have accepted it from draft. DGG ( talk ) 17:22, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Much clearer now! May I get back to you once I take care of these draft modifications? When you say "fix it also", regarding Bluemercury, should I request these edits at the article's talk page? Or perhaps I could provide the code for you to review that too? Thank you, JaneStrauss (talk) 20:00, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

for Bluemercury, suggest either corrections or a completely revised draft on the talk p. But first consider if you really have enough for two good articles. DGG ( talk ) 05:56, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you again, you have been most helpful! I will request the edits on the talk page and make modifications to the draft. As for the photo, am I correct in following the instructions in Wikipedia:Requesting_copyright_permission? JaneStrauss (talk) 16:56, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

yes. It should be uploaded to commons. See also Wikipedia:Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia:Uploading images Remember to do one for a company location--one good one only for that article. DGG ( talk ) 17:12, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'll see how that goes! Are you saying that the Bluemercury article needs only one image? I found a few already on Commons, luckily. I will take care of the request then and wait for the new photo to be uploaded for the biography, finally proceeding to resubmit after significant modifications. Thank you, JaneStrauss (talk) 23:18, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Jmpinnell (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Nebraska Wesleyan University History 1988 - (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Our question is this: How big is big enough to be a separate page? We are just getting started with this page and have hundreds of events that we will be adding. We have a couple hundred newspaper articles that we've collected and will be referencing. We even envision subpages being necessary. This page will cover 40 years of history. We started this page because it would make the Nebraska Wesleyan University page too long and actually push other elements down page in an extreme way unless we restructure that page to have the history at the end, but even then the history section will be small book length. We will have sections on students and student life, buildings and grounds, faculty and staff, administration and governance,campus activities, alumni and advancement, and athletics. We get questions all the time from alumni, students, faculty and staff asking for this information. Having it be accessible via Wikipedia would be a god send for us all.

What size should we build to before asking for a re-review? Thanks! I appreciate your guidance in this. Jmpinnell (talk) 17:20, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:SPLIT. But in general, there is no need of it except for the very largest and most famous universities, usually the state flagships. I see no comparable articles in WP. Equally important, it is almost always better to put this sort of material in paragraph form, not a list. A list emphasizes minor events and does not highlight the major ones--and many of the items on the current list are minor indeed such as individual campus lectures. For an example of a good university history articles, see History of the University of California, Santa Barbara. There is some material that should go on the main page: the list of presidents of the college.

WP is a general encyclopedia , and its material is meant for the general public. Material of primary interest to people at your university should be published elsewhere. The library web page might be a good place for this. Even better, who owns the copyright of the book? Could you put it on the web?

The draft gives the impression that it has been written partly for the purpose of emphasizing the role of the Dept. of Special Collections at the library. It would deemphasis it a little to put the explanation of the source at the bottom, not the top. And Please see WP:COI. You need to explicitly declare your connection with it on the draft talk p. as you do on your user page.

For general information on what's needed at WP and how librarians can help, see Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library/Research libraries,our principal current project , general advice and contacts. We are still experimenting with the best way to base WP pages on library archival descriptions. I'm a (former) librarian myself, (and many other wikipedians are librarians also). I'll be glad to help you further. DGG ( talk ) 21:10, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm interested in what you'd have done, if anything. Camilleri follows a classical pattern I have observed numerous times, often over several years, where an expert contributes his expertise only when accompanied by cites to his own work, but I am a nasty suspicious bastard and I completely accept htat I may well have been excessively impatient. Guy (Help!) 18:56, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've just checked his contributions, including the UTRS. You're right. I had previously seen just the new article. But now I see the prior placements of the references to his work in various articles, and then the talk p. warning, and after that the new article. The UTRS says nothing helpful. All in all, this does mean that he intends to ignore the rules, or that he not know the rules and does not want to learn. Either way, there's nothing useful here. I had hoped for better. DGG ( talk ) 04:44, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Even a cynical bastard like me would like to be pleasantly surprised occasionally. This was not the day. Guy (Help!) 16:42, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Mursimon (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Tom Palazzolo (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

This is a question regarding your rejection of the page on Tom Palazzolo.

  You said “first, you need to show notability by substantial 3rd party published reviews of his work”.  It is unclear to me why the published articles I included aren’t sufficient.  I have listed articles from The New York Times, Washington Post, PBS, Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Film Archives, Light Millenium & Film Studies Center, Chicago Art Magazine, Facets Multimedia, The Smart Museum & the Chicago reader.
  Your comment indicates that these aren’t  “substantial 3rd party published reviews”.  Please tell me what you consider to be substantial reviewers. 

Thanks for your continued objective evaluation. Murray p.s. I couldn't find a "Save page" button as indicated in the instructions for this page, but I did find a "Publish changes" button. I hope that works.

Mursimon (talk) 22:36, 6 February 2018 (UTC) Mursimon (talk) 22:36, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mursimon, Yes,the publish button is the save button. We've tried both wordings, but neither avoids misunderstanding.

Sorry. I didn't see them because you forgot to format the reference to show the sources, and I didn't notice they were in the external references. Please use the cite news template, --check WP:REFBEGIN. References to sources that documentthe aticle go in as references in the text--links to freely available websites thatsupplement the article go in the external links -- and the external links can contain only one personal website of the subject, no additional social media links. After reformatting the ones you have, the next step is to try add an exact reference for as many of the screenings or shows at major museums-their web site will do, or any other published notice). Otherwise, we assume you are just citing you published CV, which is not a reliable source. You also need a source for the grants.

You need a reference to WorldCat or equivalent for the books. It would really help if there are reviews of them.

In the descriptions of the videos, there has to be a source for them--extensive descriptions like for Rita on the Ropes need to be shortened. .

As for the connection, if it was a non-financial connection you should just mention it somewhere on the article talk p.

Sorry to have been unclear. DGG ( talk ) 07:09, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Mursimon (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Tom Palazzolo (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

I forgot to indicate that I have known of Tom Palazzolo since the 1980s. I became more personally acquainted with him about 10 tears ago. Since then, I decided that he was significant enough & should be included in Wikipedia. So I started a topic on him.

Mursimon (talk) 22:43, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I just edited the Bluemercury article to remove advertising-like tone, and as you were the editor who added that template, I wanted to check with you to garner your support before I attempt to remove it, which I will not do without your OK. Please have a look at the website at your earliest convenience and let me know if I may do this. Thank you for your time! Spintendo ᔦᔭ 01:42, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to both of you! Please also review the photos in the talk page's hidden text and consider if you'd place them when you have the time. JaneStrauss (talk) 12:29, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. I worked very hard on the Livin Lite RV article to source it and be objective. To the extent that it could be perceived to read like an advertisement, that is due to the limited sources that are available (though I don't agree with the advertisement assertion). All content must be verifiable. I've written and edited many Wikipedia articles (not that that makes me any good). In working on this one I looked at other RV manufacturer articles. This new article is one of the best out there. It contains basic facts about the company that are all sourced and verifiable. I request you reconsider this tag or advise me on what I can do to meet the standards as you perceive them. Thank you.--Utahredrock (talk) 16:22, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

PS--I went ahead and removed some of the external links.--Utahredrock (talk) 17:08, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I see you've been working on a number of companies in this field, among other topics, so it's clear that your intent is not promotional. But compare this with the article on Thor Industries. The key problem here is is the repeated emphasis and excessive detail about the lightweight construction. When you fix it, let me know. . DGG ( talk ) 00:41, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I made a number of edits. One thing is, the lightweight construction is something that makes this product different so it seems particularly noteworthy to discuss it--as long as it's sourced. Thanks for your work on wikipedia, I hope you'll find the edits acceptable.--Utahredrock (talk) 03:56, 8 February 2018 (UTC) Also, dealers are saying Thor/KZ is on the verge of shutting down Livin Lite. There isn't much material other than talk in chat groups and one dealer did a blog post about it. It's not enough I don't think to add that fact yet, but as soon as an RV news outlet covers it (as it seems likely that they will) I will add it to the article. I found the company interesting because it appears they produce something unique in the RV industry, which is notorious for poorly built products. I am a huge fan of Airstreams, but in some ways the Livin Lite products seem to be even better built than Airstreams. At any rate, the way they construct their trailers is what got my attention and what got me interested in it.--Utahredrock (talk) 04:02, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is still too much emphasis on detail, and I may edit it further myself. DGG ( talk ) 05:18, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I'm working on an article about this rather well known "eco-model" at User:GRuban/Summer_Rayne_Oakes, but noticed your comment about "need an increased level of scrutiny" at the epitath for the previous incarnation, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Summer Rayne Oakes, and respect your opinion.

So, said solicitation: scrutinize! Starting sources - some silly, some seriously substantial. Seemingly sufficient? --GRuban (talk) 18:03, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As a general comment, remember that in many recent afds we considered interviews with subjects where they say what they please not to be truly independent sources, but rather primary sources, with all their usual limitation. But I think almost any press on an entertainment or society figure or model or the like, is instigated by PR, but in theses field insisting on real freedom from PR might make it almost impossible to have an article, unless the person is actually famous.

My general view is to adapt the requirements to the field, to some degree, and interpret them so we can justify articles on the most notable, without requiring actual fame with academic books on them. I am not one of the people who want to adjust standards to decrease our coverage for fields in which they have no interest. We all have different ideas about what fields are important, and we need to accommodate each other. I don't want to impose my own views about importance to the world upon others--and I expect others will do similarly in return.

For specifics, see the draft talk p. DGG ( talk ) 05:57, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you --GRuban (talk) 15:16, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DDG, I noticed you had deleted my page on Introduction To Modern Application Development. I would like to understand why. You had given the reason as 'unambiguous promotion or advertising', but everything in the article was sourced from independent, highly reputed news sources. Could you please explain why? Tanmaig (talk) 15:47, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted it after it has been listed by another experienced editor. It is indistinguishable from a straightforward advertisement for the MOOC, including an outline of course content and information of getting academic credit for it. This is not encyclopedic content.

I'd say just the same for your article on The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. The book is notable, but the absurdly over-detailed article is promotional--it is 10 times the length of the articles on his other books. Articles do not have to be intended as an advertisement to be promotional --we cannot judge intent. We judge content. DGG ( talk ) 18:54, 8 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG. I've put Nancy Appleton up for proposed deletion, and notice that you reviewed it in draft form, saying it was probably notable. I tried to get someone to work on it from FTN, without response. I'm not sure what to make of the WorldCat info you added, and don't see anything else in the article that indicates notability. Any help would be appreciated. --Ronz (talk) 03:51, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I consider that books widely held in libraries indicate probable notability as an author, because they almost always indicate the presence of significant reviews. (About 80% of the time I use the argument , the article gets kept, though not always) .But the article is too promotional to keep without complete rewriting, and she's not notable enough to be worth it. I added a prod2. promotional,and that's reason enough for deletion DGG ( talk ) 21:06, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you think the sources already in the article aren't enough to establish notability? Also, why do you think the article as written seems like an advertisement? Let me know so I can try to improve the chances of the article getting accepted. Every morning (there's a halo...) 13:41, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I changed my comment to just be about notability . It would help to get some source from out of the immediate area.Or just ask for another review. DGG ( talk ) 07:38, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Example source: Thurm, Scott (February 23, 2009). "McKinsey Partners Pick Barton to Lead Firm". The Wall Street Journal.
Article-text this source is used to support: Dominic Barton "was hired by McKinsey & Company to work in the Toronto office in 1986."
Question: Does WP:AGEMATTERS prohibit using this 2009 source for events taking place in 1986?
Context: This is regarding the feedback I got from @Spintendo: on a draft I prepared for the Dominic Barton page (see Talk). This feedback effects most of the content covering his career before he became famous in 2009. CorporateM (Talk) 14:13, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Finding a contemporary source for bio details before anyone is taking notice of the subject will be tough, and the source would be primary. TKe it back further. Unless you can find a newspaper birth announcement, a birth certificate would be the only contemporary source for a subject's birthdate. Legacypac (talk) 17:34, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Age does not matter for a source for factual information such as this. Nothing in the section quoted has anything to do with this sort of situation. Furthermore, a birth certificate is a primary source,and does not definitively seytle the question of birthdate in any event--they can be misdated accidentally or deliberately. I will take a look at the article. DGG ( talk ) 21:10, 10 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Example source:Thurm, Scott (February 23, 2009). "McKinsey Partners Pick Barton to Lead Firm". The Wall Street Journal.

Draft article-text this source is used to support: "He was hired by McKinsey & Company to work in the Toronto office in 1986 and worked in Toronto for eleven years."

Clarification: I reviewed this claim statement and was concerned with its mentioning events taking place in 1986. The claim statement in the draft version said that the subject worked at the Toronto office for 11 years. But according to the source proper, the subject worked in Asia for 11 years. Both claims cannot be true, unless the source meant that Barton worked in the Asia sector department at its Toronto office for 11 years. The WSJ does not ultimately specify which was the case. It was this discrepancy and the uncertainty surrounding it which led me to mark the Thurm source as unapproved for use on its first claim, which I felt needed clearing up, while marking it as approved for use on its second claim (that Dominic Barton won the election in 2009 and became Managing Director of McKinsey & Company on July 1st). Regards, Spintendo ᔦᔭ 09:18, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi David. Just wanted to check-in and see if this was still on your radar. No rush. CorporateM (Talk) 14:35, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I saw you nominate several articles for deletion so in order to find your individual reasoning behind what I had assumed was a deletionist attitude I started reading your user page and found that you want "AfD" to stand for "Articles for Discussion"... Well, on Dutch Wikipedia I've seen this in action and it (unfortunately) doesn't work, many people are confused about the rename (from years ago) and think that if they nominate articles to the "Articles for Discussion" (well, a more literal translation would be "Articles for Assessment") that other users will give valuable input on how to improve them, but in reality it remained a deletion list, and articles that would've otherwise have been improved get nominated because the nominator genuinely believes that they are just brainstorming with the community so such a name change will backfire. I encourage you to try and change it, but judging from how things have turned out on Dutch Wikipedia I wouldn't trust the name change as anything other than cosmetics. --Donald Trung (Talk) (Articles) 10:37, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• MSKTC (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Burn Model Systems (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hello, on January 6th the Wikipedia entry 'Burn Model Systems' was rejected. The reason stated was because it reads too much like an essay. I was wondering if you could provide me with specific examples from the entry. I think this would help me visualize how it needs to be re-written.

MSKTC (talk) 23:47, 12 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That was probably not the best term. I re-reviewed it to indicate the actual problems. The article is promotional, and in addition lacks references to show notability . It promoted the work of the Program, as shown by the discussion of the harm caused by burns--in a press release that's a major component, in an encyclopedia article one just makes a cross reference. It relies on a presentation of accomplishments in bulllet points, another technique suitable only for a press release. It included such directly promotional language as "See "Development of the life impact burn recovery evaluation (LIBRE) profile: assessing burn survivors' social participation". and learn more about the LIBRE project at http://sites.bu.edu/libre/" As for notability  : a WP article needs to show notability by references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements, but everything here is from the organization itself. DGG ( talk ) 06:46, 13 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was having a look at Category:Chess grandmasters (over 1,000 entries) because I came across a new article with only one source and I nearly PRODed it as an insufficiently sourced BLP. Don't they need to meet GNG? Are they considered inherently notable? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:30, 13 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

there's a current discussion at WT:Wikiproject Chess. Just as I think we should have extensive coverage in areas that interest me, I think this is also true of those areas others find of interest. Just as we've figured out criteria for what counts as encyclopedia - worthy for academic faculty ,they can do the same fo chess. More limited coverage in some fields can be best justified by limiting the opportunities for 1promotionalism, or lack of sources for WP:V. There's also the possibility of a general feeling of the community as a whole that some areas are simply not encyclopedic if carried to the extent their fans desire. This tends to get worded as problems meeting GNG, but in my view, it in practice is actually done by adjusting the meaning of the GNG to produce the desired result. I don't think the coverage is that outrageous: Personally, I think it perfectly reasonable that in the world in general there have been 1000 notable chess-players. There seem to be about 9000 bios of basketball players. Though I have never watched more than a few isolated minutes of a basketball game, and have never in my life wanted to know anything about any of these 9000 players, other people are as entitled to their interest as I to mine. DGG ( talk ) 02:00, 13 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Brief statistical comment here (I will copy this to the WikiProject discussion): if you look at List of chess grandmasters (1780 entries, of which 184 are dead [of which there are 17 without articles], so there are around 1596 living GMs on the list), you will see that the article says that there are currently (November 2017) around 1594 grandmasters on the FIDE rating list (the figure for the February 2018 list is 1595). If you assume that all the blue-links on the list are the 1066 articles in Category:Chess grandmasters, then you get a figure of 530 red-links at List of chess grandmasters, and presumably 17 of those are the dead ones without articles (some of which should definitely have articles) and there are around 513 living GMs with no articles. Some of these will be very obscure, certainly in English-language sources, though all will have some record of their chess-playing activity and the award of their titles can be sourced. Carcharoth (talk) 16:13, 13 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to repair this page Draft:G Fuel after another editor had submitted a page that was fairly advertorial. I believe I added enough reliable/reputable third party sources to establish notability, and tried to write the article in a neutral tone. RHaworth deleted the page as unambiguous advertising or promotion so I reached out to him to see if he had any recommendations as to how I might be able to rewrite the article. RHaworth suggested that I reach out to you to determine notability. Would you mind reviewing and let me know if there's any additional info needed to determine notability? --Bughunter92 (talk) 02:50, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

the New Yorker ref is a mention in a general article, the abc is an interview with the founder, which is not independent, and the NYT is also inclusion in a general article. Npmne of the others are usable. You'll have to find more than this. And when you do, don't have the article mainly consist of a list of flavors. DGG ( talk ) 04:42, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG! Thank you for taking the time to review my submissionDraft: Pradip Sawant. I've read the feedback, but it seems a little broad. I would appreciate some specific pointers as to how this can be improved. I appreciate your help. And also please tell me some example of good 3rd party references, cause i have used Times of India as reference — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sunnybcn1 (talk • contribs) 09:47, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG

Would you be able to apply some of your professional expertise to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 February 15#Category:Information_storage?

It may be straightforward, but I thought it would benefit from the wisdom of a professional librarian. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:47, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi David, thanks for your edit to Carter G. Woodson. However, I just had had to do a bit of cleanup to it. I'm especially concerned that I had to fix up the heading; could that be a VisualEditor problem, or something else? Graham87 01:31, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

yes, it is one of the things that it makes easy to do wrong, like references or placing illustrations. I try to check, but I must have missed it. DGG ( talk ) 02:31, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG, Many thanks for your many productive contributions to the Wiki community. I'm a noobie here and am working on my first contribution, Draft:Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop (Thanks for the helpful suggestions). I've cited a mix of notable and non-notable sources (more of the latter), since the non-notable citations provide useful information. Does including a large fraction of non-notable citations detract from the article, per Wiki standards? Should I remove the non-notables (almost) completely? I've resubmitted my draft, and it's awaiting review. ~Cheers~ David Fieldsde (talk) 15:03, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The requirement for sources is not that they are notable, but rather that they are reliable; for material in an article, the rules are at WP:RS, with details discussed at the very large number of discussion in the archives of [[WP::RSN]], the Reliable sources noticeboard. The special conditions for sources that are suitable for showing notability are at WP:N, which can basically be summarized as references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements. The interpretation of that general phrase varies with subject, and to some extent tends to reflect general feelings about what our coverage ought to be.

With respect to Draft:Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop: We generally have been relatively reluctant to make articles of series of conferences,or organizations that sponsor them, unless there is very firm 3rd party evidence that they are regarded as the most important one in the subject. The sources in the draft are almost entirely publications by the organization itself or very closely related organizations, and therefore not independent. My role in screening AfCs is not to decide on accepting the article, but to try to estimate whether the community will accept it. The place where that decision is made is in an AfD discussion, and it goes by consensus. The way we do things here, nobody can fully predict the result of such discussions, but on the basis of my experience in many thousands of them, the article is unlikely to be accepted in its current form. DGG ( talk ) 06:02, 16 February 2018 (UTC) ←[reply]

Thanks for clarifying that the need is for more reliable (independent) sources that show notability. Please continue contributing to the Wiki effort. Best regards. Fieldsde (talk) 15:44, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If my memory serves, is it not customary to not include BLPs for single event notability for children (teens included), including National Spelling Bee winners, National Science Fair winners, National teenage beauty contest winners, and so forth? ^{Atsme📞📧} 21:29, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

List_of_Scripps_National_Spelling_Bee_champions has a few linked bios, but generally not only for the win. Interesting, a search for "Ananya Vinay" turns up a heck of a lot more substantial RS coverage (major news outlets) than "Sophia Dominguez-Heithoff" does (social media accounts, youtube, pageant and fan sites). Legacypac (talk) 21:58, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

[41] - not sure where this link goes, but it broke the section title so I'll add it here. ^{Atsme📞📧} 23:01, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you that WP should not cover them, but there have recently been at AfD keep decisions for a surprising number of bio of young people who have had some press coverage for accomplishments which would not have made them notable had they been adults. I am therefore somewhat reluctant to bring AfDs for the people listed in the table. We would need a rule similar to that for sports, where only adult competitions indicate notability--but those who believe in the unthinking application of the GNG without considering the subject field would probably oppose that also.

Of the spelling bee champions, the only one who I consider clearly notable as an adult is L. E. Sissman, who became an unquestionably notable writer. Frank Neuhauser as winner of the first bee might be another exception. The other with articles had at most minor roles in the very notable film Akeelah and the Bee about the spelling bee. (Of course others without articles might prove to be notable also.) DGG ( talk ) 02:45, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to understand why you deleted the above referenced page - the cited reason was promotion/advertising. This page provided all factual statements about the company supported by independent sources. While the page is about a particular tequila brand, not unlike the numerous other tequila brand pages on wiki, all of the statements were factual and pertinent to the new brand. Can you specify more particularly the issues and concerns? If these were legitimate reasons for the deletion, then why are the other brand pages not also deleted? Thank you in advance for any guidance you can provide.\Philacevedo (talk) 23:03, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

when it's a new brand, there is very likely to be nothing to say but advertising. With established brands, eople may sometimes write about it, if only with respect to the cultural significance. What was available here was either very specialized awards whose very purpose was allowign for promotion, and local notices, which are indiscriminate for local industries. DGG ( talk ) 02:49, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the clarification. Though, still a bit dismayed, as the rule seems to be selectively applied and this particularly brand targeted. Additionally, there does seem to be some distinction and societal importance to this brand which sets it apart from some of the other new brands with pages. That is; it seems to be one of the few created and owned by a woman. This in a male dominated industry seems important. Philacevedo (talk) 22:14, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Many articles were accepted in earlier days when standards about notability and promotionalism were much lower. It will take us many years to remove them, but the least we can do is not add to them. DGG ( talk ) 22:23, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, David. I see that at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nuri Katz you said that the creator of the article, EricFisch, is "now banned", but I can't find any record of a ban for the editor, and the account has never been blocked. Is there a ban recorded somewhere where I haven't been able to find it, or was your comment a mistake? The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:37, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

sorry, meant "blocked." DGG ( talk ) 18:04, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but as I said above, the account has never been blocked, as you can see in the block log, here. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 12:17, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DGG, can you take a look at these editor contributions and advise? Hmlarson (talk) 19:14, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I am not fa,iliat enough with this field to say anything useful. DGG ( talk ) 20:59, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wednesday February 21, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at Babycastles gallery by 14th Street / Union Square in Manhattan. We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery! Wednesday December 13 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at Babycastles gallery, 145 West 14th Street (note the new address, a couple of doors down from the former Babycastles location) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Megs (talk) 22:19, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply] P.S. You are also invited to Africa and the Diaspora Edit-a-thon @ Schomburg Center for Black Culture on Saturday February 24!

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

• Draft:Ali Muhammad

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:01, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I recently recreated Rahul Verma (social activist) after Allow creation decision in deletion review/Log/2018 February 9 with sources that have appeared since the AfD (specifically the front page NY Times article about the subject. NYT international print edition). Closing editor stated that There was also a somewhat theoretical discussion about whether an allow recreation result makes the new article G4 proof, or whether there's always an implied right to recreate an article if it's not salted. No consensus on that, but I'll state here that any new version certainly will need to meet all of our requirements, and if anybody finds the new version is still lacking, they can bring it back to AfD. During the discussion one editor stated that Also, if the circumstances have changed: recreate the article and let's see if an independent admin thinks it passes G4. DRV should not be used to G4 proof articles where editors on the "losing" side of an XfD think it has changed. I should have created this article under WP:AFC to get some review but since it was not mandatory I took a chance.

You were one of the admins who voted Delete during AFD. So is it possible for you to please have a look and if you feel it really need G4 or any other discussion related to deletion. Actually I am asking you this question because since last year I was looking for some sources and finally I got some and not sure if it meets the notability standards or not. Sorry for taking too much of your time. Thanks Shibanihk (talk) 13:49, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would only consider using G4 if an article was almost unchanged, and even then I'd prefer AfD, since the situation is obviously contestable.

As for the article: I will not usually try to delete an article with a directly relevant NYT first page story. However, it is the only usable reference, and it is equally about him and about the overall problem. The NYT International Edition account is just an abridgment of the NYT account, not a separate item. The Gulf News article is a reprint of the NYT. The 3 together make one source. The Asian Age article is a brief promotional article about the cause. The CNBC item is a primary source: a statement, not even an interview with a reporter--just a video statement. It was misleadingly described in the Del Rev as a " video featured about his work by VNBC-TV " It's no different from from any other charitable promotion. So are all the other sources in the present article. I have not looked again in detail at the sources in the previous version, but almost all of them were at best advocacy. DGG ( talk ) 07:14, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your valued feedback. I will keep on adding more appropriate sources as and when appears. Regards Shibanihk (talk) 12:03, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

• Draft:Niraj gera

Thanks, [[User:Hast

What we feared is happening, users are now trawling school articles looking for ones to delete. You can tell these rampant deletionists this: Thank you for patrolling new pages. As a New Page Reviewer, you are expected to know our deletion policies inside out. Please see: WP:ATD-R and please note that this is a policy, not a mere guideline. Thanks. Change the wording if they are not NPR rights holders. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:35, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's also just a suggestion (may have a title that would make a useful redirect, emphasis added). You're obviously welcome to ask users to curtail their "rampant" nominations (if they're doing so) but to require them to abide by a suggestion in a policy is a bit much. Primefac (talk) 17:57, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And for what it's worth, the "you" was referring to Kudpung but I have a bad habit of using the royal "you" for general instances anyway. Primefac (talk) 17:59, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• The policy that we should redirect rather than delete if a suitable target is available is one of the most ignored parts of deletion policy, almost as much ignored as the part that says for subjects that might be notable with no significant information, a combination article can be preferable. I'm not really sure that any of the section on alternatives to deletion is actually followed enough to make it an accepted policy. I prefer to use policy vs guideline arguments for only the most basic policies, such as NOT ADVERTISING. DGG ( talk ) 20:30, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Primefac:, who's talking about 'requiring'? Just pointing to a policy is not the same as handing out orders. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:48, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I often word it as "suggest" . or, "you might also want to consider" in giving advice, especially when it's a question of trying to tell people they should be doing something differently. Even so, it is sometimes seen as a little aggressive. Sometimes it is helpful to simply correct it, and see if they get the idea. DGG ( talk ) 00:36, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:01, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have tried to do major clean up. Still not sure if any further clean up required. Pls see if you can remove advert tag now or suggest what needs to be done. Thanks HelloDolly89 (talk) 07:59, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt is enough non-repetitive non-promotional content for both an article on the sponsor and on the foundation. But I will take another look DGG ( talk ) 06:19, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for consideration. Removed almost majority of text and link. Regards HelloDolly89 (talk) 07:13, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You speedy deleted this page as unambiguously advertising, but the page talks about recall of the product and so I think it is not. If RSs for the recall can be found, then the article might survive an AfD, in any case, I think it should go through the AfD process. — Charles Stewart (talk) 09:35, 22 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Wood Lock Medicated Balm is imported by T.C.UNICORN LTD in Toronto. The genuine Wood Lock Medicated Balm is packaged in a 50mL bottle" is representative content. I consider that such blatant advertising that I will not restore. . DGG ( talk ) 06:19, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK, fair enough. My request came was on behalf of someone who had asked on WP:RfU; I've informed them there. — Charles Stewart (talk) 11:13, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A large section of this draft was added by a user (on your suggestion) to the text of Main Library (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign) but in such a way that no indication of its origin was given and thus no credit was given to the original author(s). That needs to be remedied either through a history merge or through a deletion of all the subsequent revisions of the merge target, removing the copyvio content from the history (otherwise it is only too likely to be restored).

My suggestion would be to (1.) merge the history of Draft:The Rare Book & Manuscript Library with that of The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign), then (2.) delete the copyvio-violating edits from the history of Main Library (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign). If you still think the latter to be unsuitable for an article of its own, the third and final step step would be to (3.) redirect and re-merge parts of The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign) with The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign) but with an edit comment indicating the origin of the content. --Hegvald (talk) 06:04, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article should be rather of the Libraries of the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, and I will make the appropriate merges and links. The history may have to remain for the time being in the history of the redirects, because the only times I have done so, I have made a total mess out of it. DGG ( talk ) 06:17, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

		The Civility Barnstar
		Hello DGG. I give you this barnstar for your comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American Eagle Airlines destinations [42], which was just awesome and keeps the spirit of Wikipedia alive. Thank you.--Jetstreamer Talk 13:03, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Starting a DRV is probably equivalent to peeing against a strong wind.... but I'm minded to do so because, had I seen that discussion, I wouldn't have closed that yet. While there was a clear majority vote to keep, the majority of the keep arguments weren't grounded in policy, and much of the delete arguments were. Therefore I don't see that a real consensus grounded in policy had emerged by the time you closed it. Many of the arguments were "already survived 3 other AFDs" but the counterargument would be "been nominated 3 other times which suggests we have a problem." And that problem of whether the list is a noteworthy topic hasn't been addressed.

I would like to see the discussion re-opened and continued. ~Anachronist (talk) 23:49, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, that article should die in a fire. It freely mixes people form a period where being a member of an organised church was the default, people who are professed Christians but not in any way active in promoting that, and people who are outliers in their field by virtue of religious faith. It exists solely to promote one religion, and actually largely to support the anti-science end of that religion. Being a Jewish Nobel laureate 100 years ago was a big deal. Being a Christian Nobel laureate in the field of evolutionary biology now would be a big thing. Virtually everything about what it means to be a Christian and a Nobel laureate has changed from the earliest tot he latest entries in that list. Its like a list of poeple who believe the white race is inherently superior. It will include virtually everybody at one point and virtually nobody at another,and tells us exactly nothing about either category because the same would apply if you replaced Nobel laureate with doctor, engineer or anything else. Guy (Help!) 00:41, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking it over, I realized I am not neutral, and to avoid any doubt, I have reopened. I do not think I would have needed to do so, since I was closing according to what I think a very clear consensus, with which I happened to agree. I usually do agree with the consensus at AfDs that I close. None of us limits our closes to the ones that close against our opinion, or therewould be no admins atall for most AfDs. DGG ( talk ) 05:01, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

btw, JzG, I don't see that any Nobel prizes were ever awarded for evolutionary biology, so I'm not sure of the relevance of your example. DGG ( talk ) 16:16, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi - Would you be kind enough to have a look at the above. I've tried to tag it for MFD, as I don't think it's suitable for SD, but I don't think I've got it right. Many thanks in advance. KJP1 (talk) 07:40, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page watcher) @KJP1: I've fixed the {{mfd}} template. You'll need to create the discussion page. — JJMC89 (T·C) 11:20, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

JJMC89 - Much appreciated. I'll head off to attempt that. KJP1 (talk) 11:23, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Polyandry. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Good day DGG! Why was "Le Palais Royal" deleted without an AFD if the article that I wrote was not promotional? --Jax 0677 (talk) 20:49, 25 February 2018 (UTC) "Because I consider it entirely promotional in its current form: "has spent more than ten years designing and developing the castle with the goal of creating “something completely different than what’s been done in America." ; "With more than $7 million in 22-karat gold leaf" ; and "Also included is a room for your dog with an computerized watering system included ." Any article written in the second person that way is indistinguishable from an advertisement.[reply]

I recognize that was not your intent, but that was the state of the article; I could restore the article in the state you originally wrote it in 2014, and semi-protect it. Would that be OK? DGG ( talk ) 23:14, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Reply - The entire history should be revived, but the page should be brought to the latest revision that is not promotional. We can discuss the matter at WP:AFD if there is disagreement as to whether to keep, redirect or delete the article. --Jax 0677 (talk) 14:38, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reluctant to restore advertising even in the history, but I've restored the whole thing, and I hope you will keep a watch that it does not get re-added. If you want meto semi-protect, ask me. DGG ( talk ) 18:34, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Reply - Please feel free to semi-protect the article, and to report those who advertise on it. --Jax 0677 (talk) 18:40, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

awni-protected. but if thee are further problems, please let me know--I work on too many individual articles for me to effectively watchlist them. DGG ( talk ) 22:19, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

• Draft:V Rajesh

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:01, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think the page creator simply re-spawned this page at a redirect diff. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 21:34, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

thanks, dealt with DGG ( talk ) 22:16, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Howdy. Just a heads up. Ya ain't suppose to post on the Workshop page of the Civility Arbcom case, now that it's already been closed :) GoodDay (talk) 16:43, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GoodDay, you do realize that DGG is an Arb, right? Primefac (talk) 16:58, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I still shouldn't post on a closed page, if only to avoid confusion. I've reverted them, & will post them in a proper place. GoodDay, thanks for letting me know. DGG ( talk ) 17:17, 27 February 2018 (UTC) .[reply]

No prob. GoodDay (talk) 18:08, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

...@ Cambridge Univ. Press (and accepted for major book publication @ Norton). Should his recreated blp become deleted a 2nd time, anyway?

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Benjamin_E._Park_(2nd_nomination)

If you recall, at the time of the original deletion, you'd said in a thread this:

There are a few areas where we actually do have rational standards, though ewe sometimes call them only "presumed" notability . The most distinct one, and established as not presumed but definitive, is WP:PROF, which is based upon the actual criteria which those in the subject field being covered use themselves to determine significance. It's the soundest and most rational of our guidelines; it does have its limits--the decisions people make sometimes do show prejudices against areas that some people here have considered unimportant or of lower quality (the most notorious one is the bias against academic areas where women have traditionally particularly numerous, such as education or nursing or home economics.) You are arguing above in effect that Mormon Studies is one such affected area, and I have indeed detected some bias against the academic field of religion. But it is still a more rational guideline than the GNG, and we need to establish other similar guidelines (In practice we already interpret "presumed" to be definitive in some cases, as for Olympic athletics, or populated places.) However, it is unreasonable for those who dislike the result in a particular individual case to try to change the general rule to favor the particular person or other subject that they want to include. Bias here is best fought by making people aware of it, with the assumption that most of us here -- to some extent more than in the world in general-- have a predisposition to correct it when pointed out to us.) It is furthermore unnecessary to change the general rules to accommodate particular cases, for we do apply the fundamental rule of WP:IAR in determining notability. Whether we apply it depends upon whether people are convinced by the argument, and under our general system for making decisions, there's no other possible basis. (Whether the result is one I would agree with in the particular instance being complained of is totally irrelevant. It is better to have a fair & definitive manner of decision even though the result in any one particular case may be wrong, than to try to manipulate the system to get what one personally wants in a particular instance.) DGG ( talk ) 04:15, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:32, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

commented at the AfD. DGG ( talk ) 21:54, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a snip from the start of a roundtable discussion sponsored by the Organization of American Historians.

"Trade publishing exists in the commercial economy. Here, you try to expand your audience, rather than more deeply penetrate a closed market, as in academic publishing. You do that not by dumbing down, but by maximizing the reading experience. The ultimate goal of the trade book is not to advance the state of the field, though it certainly may do that, but to succeed as a book—as an organically complete and satisfying work. In trade books, the emphasis is on reading pleasure. That can come from many sources—not only storytelling, but also provocative new research and arguments. You can still engage in debates with important scholars and situate your work within current historiography, but unless it serves the experience of the reader, relegate all that to the notes."

Another snip from further down:

"due to challenges in the marketplace, I get the sense that trade publishers are taking on fewer "small" and midlist books. My hope is that this means university presses are able to sign up more of these books that may have some crossover potential, to help their bottom line."

LINK--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 04:52, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

you have found a good quotation to show that writing general books is a second-level publishing venue in history if one cannot publish an academic research book.

I've seen instances of prejudice here against academic studies of religion, and of Mormon studies. The AfD in question is not one of them. You made the argument that he's influential within Mormon Studies. But his book on Mormon history is not by the major specialized published of such titles--or by any of those listed in Mormon studies. If you wish to write additional articles on notable scholars in this field, the easiest way would be to take the 5 named chairs in Mormon studies that are given in that WP--every individual holder of such a chair is explicitly notable by WP:PROF. DGG ( talk ) 07:30, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Park's book won't by any stretch of the imagination be a popularization of existing scholarship. He's been soaking up a lot of the era he's to cover's sourcing a good percentage of his time for years now. Indeed, per the proposal his agent shopped around, "It draws from a broad collection of primary sources, most of them overlooked and some of them used for the first time...." And Rob't Weil, the renowned ed. @ Liveright, bit!--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 10:18, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think WP is improved with a Park blp but your opinion differs.

In any case, I'd imagine that what's now been reborn as this literary/scholarly imprint at Norton, Liveright, will be considered exponentially more prestigious among the Mormon studies community than, say, Signature Books of Salt Lake City, and any of the half-dozen Mormon studies chairs would give eyeteeth to be published there. Scholars published there certainly can garner reviews, too.

Here LINK is a Google Scholar search for scholarly reviews/citations of Annette Gordon-Reed's 2016 tome pub'd at Liveright.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 08:39, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a link to Liveright.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 08:45, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

According to Wikipedia: "Books published by Weil for the Liveright list include, Edward Sorel's Mary Astor's Purple Diary, S. Jonathan Bass’s He Calls Me By Lightning, Jack Davis's The Gulf, Jim Holt’s Why Does the World Exist, George Orwell’s Diaries, Max Boot’s Invisible Armies, Jules Feiffer's Kill My Mother, Harvey Sach's Toscanini (all of which were reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review review), as well as Gail Collins’ As Texas Goes, E. O. Wilson’s The Social Conquest of Earth and The Meaning of Existence (National Book Award Finalist), Michael Gorra’s Portrait of a Novel (Pulitzer finalist) and Allan Gurganus’ Local Souls. Other books edited by Weil that were reviewed on the front-page New York Times Book Review include, SPQR by Mary Beard, The Complete Works or Primo Levi, and "The Most Blessed of the Patriarchs" by Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf." -- "Robert Weil (editor)"--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 10:25, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

and not a single one of these are academic books at a research level. (it's a odd argument anyway, because the NYT has never or almost never put an academic book on its front page, & very few Pulitzers or NBA awards go to such books. I never said they were not an important publisher in what they do. DGG ( talk ) 19:47, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2018).

Administrator changes

Lourdes†

AngelOfSadness • Bhadani • Chris 73 • Coren • Friday • Midom • Mike V

† Lourdes has requested that her admin rights be temporarily removed, pending her return from travel.

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---

This (Annika Connor) is an oddly contentious AfD which has generated some rhetoric in the discussion. Would be interested in your take and/or those of TPWs. Softlavender (talk) 04:25, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]