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3rd party request

Hello. I have noticed you and you seem a fair and competent admin. Trying to stop an edit war over at Circumcision. Request your opinion on if last source added to article constitutes UNDUE. Garycompugeek (talk) 01:53, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. The addition of the source to the article does not give that particular position undue weight; however, adding it to the lead is more complex. My suggestion would be to move the last paragraphs of the lead (starting with "The American Medical Association...") to a more specific section. The lead of an article is intended to provide a general introduction to a topic, not summaries of detailed statistical studies. The primary arguments of the opponents and proponents of circumcision are already covered in the paragraph that begins with "Neonatal circumcision advocates claim circumcision...". I hope that helps. –Black Falcon (Talk) 16:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes indeed. Thank you for your time. Garycompugeek (talk) 16:42, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Black Falcon, thank you for agreeing to provide an opinion to help us resolve this dispute. I'd like to understand your opinion better. I hope you don't mind if I comment here. I'd appreciate it if you would take the time to elaborate on your opinion in response to my commente below.
The position that circumcision may not necessarily have a preventative effect against HIV probably does belong in the article somehow, and is currently sort-of represented by the sentence "Before there were any results from randomized controlled trials, reviews of observational data differed as to whether there was sufficient evidence for an intervention effect of circumcision against HIV", which is based on two review studies (meta-analyses), and for inserting which, incidentally, I was accused on my RfA of being "anti-science" (see "...is the first anti-science edit I found..." by OrangeMarlin.) However, having represented that overall information based on the review studies, I think it violates WP:MEDRS and WP:UNDUE to cite one individual observational study: why that particular study rather than any of the others covered in the review studies? While you say that adding it to the article doesn't give that position undue weight – which I agree with, depending on how it's added – nevertheless I think it gives that particular source undue weight. A better way to give more weight to the position, if that is to be done, would be to lengthen and make more prominent the material summarized from the review studies.
To confidently assert an alternative opinion, we would need sources published after and commenting on the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and stating an alternative opinion. Coppertwig (talk) 17:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Like this one, maybe. Blackworm (talk) 17:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I apologize, Black Falcon. I was confused when I wrote the above message. I shouldn't have posted it. I'm sorry to have taken up your time. Don't feel you have to reply to it unless you want to. Coppertwig (talk) 01:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Sapo National Park

Hello, I put the GA nomination on hold. comments are on the talk page. I hope they can be addressed. Renata (talk) 01:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Polyclonal response—Reply

Hi,

A personal matter has come up, and I won't be able to invest much time into Wikipedia over the next 2-3 weeks. That means that I won't be able to offer a detailed review of the Polyclonal response article. So, I want to offer to you the comments that I've drafted so far.

Aside from the suggestions I've posted at Talk:Polyclonal response/GA2, I would like to suggest three other changes:

  1. Various sections of the article need referencing (for example, "Proliferation and differentiation of B cell", "Clonality of B cells"). If you've retrieved the information from the sources that are already cited, then you could still add in-text citations to clarify this.
  2. While shortened footnotes are not required per se, they could help to make the "Notes" section more readable. See Wikipedia:Citing sources#Shortened notes for more details.
  3. I've had some difficulty making up my mind on the issue of the "Explanation of difficult terms and concepts" section, but ultimately I would suggest removing the section and instead making more use of in-text wikilinks.

Best of luck, –Black Falcon (Talk) 16:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi!
Thanks for the attention and time you gave to the article. I'm typing out this response immediately. So, will require to go through the sections. Yes, you've rightly mentioned that I should have inline references for the sections you pointed out. That won't be difficult at all.
I've decided to weed out the section dealing with difficult terms as it is proving to be so contentious.
I'll decided about the footnotes. It's more of personal preference to keep them in the current form, but if there's consensus about abbreviating the notes, I will. Somehow, this would sound weird, but I'd feel that the other authors will not get due credit if I abbreviate the references (particularly, Goldsby, et al "Immunology", in which the author who actually started the book is mentioned last in the list--even on the cover of the book).
Your response was most helpful. Wish you a happy Wiki-break.
Regards.
—KetanPanchaltaLK 17:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The Thing About Jane Spring

Updated DYK query On 6 June, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article The Thing About Jane Spring, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 10:03, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

For your userpage

Hi, I added a few small things to Sapo National Park while it was being reviewed for GA, since you seem to be on a wikibreak. The article passed the review, so this is for your userpage. All the best, Bláthnaid 17:37, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

{{User Good Article|Sapo National Park}}

Need help

Hi, there seems to be a problem in the article Talk:Tamil Eelam can please help us out to settle the dispute. Thanks Nitraven (talk) 15:01, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

National Parks

Hi great work on Sapo National Park. I don't know if you;ve noticed but I've been creating a national park series of templates by country. I started or expanded a few articles too such as Minkébé National Park andNechisar National Park. What my aim is, is the get all of them up and running and connected and try writing each of them to B class. It also ties in with my work on Wildlife of Africa which I will get around to. I was considering proposing an African ecology or African national park task force of WP:Africa. If you are interested let me know ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 19:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, the above article has undergone extensive copy editing, a final look through would be helpful. ThnaksTaprobanus (talk) 03:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I've made some minor edits, and I'll take a closer look when I have some time. Cheers, –Black Falcon (Talk) 01:45, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 16:59, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for your edits and comment. You had asked that we should get someone to copy-edit the article per FA comments, however, one thing that those reviewers fail to see is that 141 edits done by Anna was all copy edits. Anna had done a through copy edit of the whole article. Just thought it might help clear things out. Also we can use all the help in the article :) Watchdogb (talk) 18:21, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
I personally don't see the serious problems that are claimed to exist in the peer review; on the contrary, I see a good number of mostly minor issues that should be fairly easy to fix. I'll try to do them as I notice them. –Black Falcon (Talk) 18:28, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Ioffer

Hi! I created a page called Ioffer. Here's the link: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Ioffer Would you mind editing it? Thanks! Neptunekh —Preceding undated comment added 16:30, 18 July 2008 (UTC).

Welcome to WikiProject Botswana!

Botswana Welcome to the Botswana WikiProject! Thanks for joining. We look forward to your assistance in improving articles related to Botswana.

Feel free to visit our project page, where you can see a list of tasks, or just start editing. Thanks for your time!!

Vladimir2008 (talk) 18:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back

Good to see you back Black Falcon. Have been desperately seeking your boldness in a couple of article :) Watchdogb (talk) 16:48, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome, and I'm happy to hear from you. I had a lot to do over the past two months, but I missed the fun of editing. Anyway, I have more time now and will resume editing, though not at the same level as before. I will be checking my watchlist over the next few days to find out what I've missed.
By the way, I'm sorry for the lack of response for so long, but I'll try to pay a visit to the Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism page when I can -- if the issue is still unresolved, that is. Since I had to leave so abruptly, I didn't notice your last comment in that section until yesterday. However, I received a book which may (I haven't read it yet) contain useful information about the Federal Party and Dr. Naganathan. Best, –Black Falcon (Talk) 00:52, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
I would happily welcome any comment from you on the Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism page. The issue seems to have been resolved for the time being but your comment, I am sure, will help the issue from appearing again. For now, there is no reason for you to hurry anything but your comment is welcome when you do have time. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 17:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, welcome back. I hope you will come back to UCFD, as it appears jc37 is taking somewhat of a Wikibreak from that, so it's been mostly just me making the nominations lately. The topical index also desperately needs updating, and you seem to be the only one who can tolerate making updates there :P. VegaDark (talk) 02:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, it's nice to be back. I'm still playing catch-up with all of the changes on my watchlist, so I haven't had the opportunity to check UCFD (or any of the other XFDs). However, I do intend to come back, and the topical index is actually something that I've been putting off for the last few days ... never do today that which you can do tomorrow, and all that. ;) Anyway, I'll pop in for a quick look now. –Black Falcon (Talk) 15:59, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, yes indeed, welcome back : ) - jc37 10:00, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Cessna

There were serious questions about balance and undue weight brought to my attention which had real-world implications/consequences for individuals who were not Wikipedia editors, and there was a reasonable suggestion, with evidence provided, that competing businesses may have had a commercial interest in seeing the article stay. Those were disclosed in the OTRS complaint and in subsequent correspondence. The BLP issue I addressed in the first edit was more like a "first pass" - I had a quick look and resolved the most obvious issue. Further to that, I saw, on analysing the local media on the topic, no less than five similar incidents in the same state affecting a range of drop zones, none of which related to the same business operation, and I don't doubt if I'd gone beyond Queensland I would have found dozens. My first attempt at rewriting the article from reliable sources (which I never pressed "save" on) still had major concerns - quite aside from the fact I had very limited media to draw on, as it was not extensively reported. I believed that raising a AfD or DRV on this matter would have resulted in public debate which may cause further offline damage, and process for process's own sake should be avoided.

To the actual mechanics of the situation - the AfD was more than a year earlier, and none of these concerns were raised within it - furthermore, the AfD predated the BLP policy, which deals with marginal-notability topics like this. It says in part: "Wikipedia articles that present material about living people can affect their subjects' lives. Wikipedia editors who deal with these articles have a responsibility to consider the legal and ethical implications of their actions when doing so. An important rule of thumb when writing biographical material about living persons is "do no harm"." In June 2008, ArbCom gave administrators the authorisation to "use any and all means at their disposal to ensure that every Wikipedia article is in full compliance with the letter and spirit of the biographies of living persons policy." Orderinchaos 04:15, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Parks and templates

Hi glad you like the idea. Incidentally i came across your name at the TFD for Template:Status. I was jsut about to list this Joan Crawford navbox This has been appearing in the following articles: Navbox

It isn't even a proper template but WP:Actors is against nav boxes for actors. If we have a nav box for Joan Crawford why not many of the other "legendary" actors who star alongside her. Before you know it we'll have a tleast five different templates per article. If people want her filmography they visit her article.

However the template nomination page seems to be messed up. Could you help sort it out and add my nomination of this nav box. Thanks ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 09:00, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Muchas gracias. I wonder what we should do about that national park group. It would be good to have a full set of Gs for national parks wouldn't it!! ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 15:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The thing is I don't know how many are interested. if there are only four or five probably best for a task force. I know Bláthnaid was interested. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 16:01, 30 July 2008 (UTC)


I've made an announcement on both project talk pages. Could you notify the users who you think would be interested (including Blathnaid) and request them to comment Thanks ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 16:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Could you sign your name at the request? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 17:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Great. I've just in the middle of translating some Salvadoran articles such as Culture of El Salvador and La Palma, Chalatenango. It really is quite an interesting country. Once the group is set up I'll make anote to develop some of those African national parks. I don't know if you noticed but I began creating templates for around half of them. I think I got up to Gabon. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 15:45, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I;ve been using the wikipedia lists but for some countries I have a feeling that there are some national reserves or locally protected areas which may be missing. If possible it would be best to check with some of the sites such as Africa Parks and WWF. I'll probably get around to creating one for Kenya later. Unfortunately for the Ivory Coast there doesn't seem much online to expand them. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 15:58, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Good catch. Thanks ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 16:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I've created Template:National Parks of The Gambia. Now look what I found here. German wikipedia has all 66 forest parks and we didn't even have one national park. English wikipedia in many of the most important areas is quite an embarrassment. I've lost count how many times I've used other wikipedias to get articles on real world content on here which the germans and the dutch seem to regard as rightly more important. Every other day on here there is a FA on the front page on a cultural article or some related to children. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 19:58, 31 July 2008 (UTC) That would be awesome if you could. I've also just created Category:Protected areas by year of establishment. It should be a task to coategorize eveyr national park or protected area with the year it was established. By the end of it we have a world chronology of national reserves in order of creation.

What would be good would be for us to work together and get some regular DYKs and some project collaborations ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 20:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC) Could you translate this I just started? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 20:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC) Brilliant. I've also found a beauty here which I;ve just stubbed. it amazes me how developed the Germans and the Dutch are at times. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 21:00, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Ioffer

Hi! Could you help write the article for Ioffer? I don't know what to say.And you should talk to this user: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User_talk:CultureDrone he is the one who deleted the article. Can you please help me Black Falcon? Thanks! Neptunekh (talk) 21:48, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Re: Sapo National Park

I'm glad to see you back! Sapo National Park was no biggie, as the article was great to begin with. I just added some little things here and there, and the GA reviewer was very helpful. Bláthnaid 18:36, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I've signed up. Thanks for letting me know. Bláthnaid 18:48, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I created the cinema templates across the world and also the film lists. The decade templates are intended to connect to films of that decade to improve browsing between articles of that period. I don't see any harm in them personally and I fail to see how a skinny template clutters an article. Rather I'd be concerned about some of the huge director and award templates ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 10:36, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

P.S good job on the translation!! ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 10:43, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah I see the 1900s one was the only one I didn't create so it is understandable why you didn't contact me. The idea is that after reading an article you suddenly have a link which is supposed to connect to the "Encyclopedia of American films" e.g rather than just a enormous A-Z of American films in the category you have the option to puruse other films of that year or decade in a detailed list, In my view this helps to connect a vast area together and eases connection between articles not only on films but actors and directors which feature on the lists. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 15:58, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

There are of course many ways in which you can improve connection between articles. the see also section etc, but at the time creating decade templates seemed a logical way to do this ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 16:02, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Imagine you are relatively new to wikipedia or are unfamiliar with WP:Films. Imagine you came across the article The Docks of New York. Personally I would like after reading it to have the option to access other films produced in America in that year. As none of the categories specifically do this there is nothing to follow on. On the other hand a Template:Americanfilms1920s connects to the whole bank of films not only of that year List of American films of 1928 but decade so with one mouse click you suddenly have the possibility of accessing hundreds of articles during this period. I think that is a positive thing. It doesn't matter whether this is achieved by a see also section, as long as they are connected. It might be better to add a See also section and just add one link to that year, but they seemd a good idea at the time and I'm not going to go through every article and do this!! Theres like 12,000 American films on here! ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 16:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Would the see also section I;ve added to the Docks article be more appropriate do you think? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 16:30, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes that might be a better option I agree. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 16:41, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

By how much do their descriptions differ? By enough to impact any of these edits? I mostly go by the lay descriptions that are used casually by conservations simply for the convenience of differentiating soil types, topography, climate impacts, and these place the park firmly in the Western Guinean forests. I hesitate still on the use of primary forest, but that is what it is known for having the largest and most intact regions of primary rain forest, in amongst the clear cuts, deforestation, civil war descruction.... I'm filling in red links around the edges of the article. I don't know if that matters for FA status, but I would love readers, if this made FA, to have all of this information. --Blechnic (talk) 00:45, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if I ever knew that. The researchers I work with use the finer subdivisions, as they're necessary for agriculture. I will try to get the article on the Upper Guinean forests and the Western Guinean and Western Guinean lowland forest to a better state, also, if we try to go for FA, which I think is an excellent idea. --Blechnic (talk) 01:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I din't know the Sinoe formed the western boundary, I just thought it was the smaller portion of that river on its lagoonal or final stretch. I thought it is a bigger river further inland where the park is? Still, this one needed created, thanks. I know so little about Liberia.
The biggest issue is on the park is to get a coherent narrative of the species information into the article, establishing why this national park is so important. These parks in West Africa are funded, researched, and protected solely because of their biodiversity. Sapo is known for being a center for endemism among plant species, for example, more than for anything else. In addition the pygmy hippos are a big deal and a paragraph about their conservation should be in the article. The chimpanzees are also important, forest elephants, crocodiles, all of the big animals that attract so much attention. This is what will save these remaining portions of rain forest. I should copy this to the article talk page also, and will try to remember to. I disagree with your reversion, but I think these articles need clarified first. In my opinion it is better to be specific, give a see also on the Upper Guinean forests, or include both, as one is more specific, the other better known to the lay literature. --Blechnic (talk) 01:24, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't catch that. It's hard to read the article for editing when the references are laid out that way, and I should not have been reading it while editing. A confusing edit by me, you might have thought .... --Blechnic (talk) 01:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
No, I don't think it's near its heart, as its a coastal river, I just thought it was a coastal tributary of a larger river that formed the western boundary of the park. It's a vague thought, the river needs an article, whether for the park or not, as its one of Liberia's urban rivers, so I appreciate your putting up a stub on it. I need my African topos to go any further. --Blechnic (talk) 01:58, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Portinaro DYK nom

Hey, thanks! I always feel a little weird about nominating my own articles, so I'm particularly grateful when someone else notices. (Feels a little not-right, like fishing with maggots, or shooting a sitting bird, .. might be just me.) your hook is very good; the only other eye-catcher I can think of offhand would be in relation to his association with Vincenzo Galilei, the father of the astronomer, -- but the association may have been accidental (I can't find any evidence the two even knew each other, after pillaging just about all the sources). Antandrus (talk) 16:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Bahá'í Faith in New Caledonia, Tropical Storm Kiko (2007)

Updated DYK query On 3 August, 2008, Did you know? was updated with facts from the articles Bahá'í Faith in New Caledonia, and Tropical Storm Kiko (2007), which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 14:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Francesco Portinaro

Updated DYK query On 4 August, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Francesco Portinaro, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Mifter (talk) 01:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Buttertubs Marsh

Hi! I created a page called Buttertubs Marsh. Here's the link: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Buttertubs_Marsh Could you edit it please? Thanks! Neptunekh (talk) 05:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Request for Comment

Hello Black Falcon. Looking for and uninvolved admin's opinion on a matter. If you are busy or merely do not wish involvement is no problem. To be fair I would like to say as little as possible but direct your attention to Talk:Female genital cutting. Two questions...

  1. I do not believe admin Coren handled this correctly and have not heard a response on ANI.
  2. Am I using the NPOV tag properly?

Thank you for your time. Garycompugeek (talk) 21:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Since I have only a general idea of the essence of the dispute (I have only read the comments on the talk page and the "History of terminology" section; I have not consulted academic sources), I will limit my response to the technical questions that you pose.
  1. Page protection is usually a less-than-optimal solution to any problem, but it was effective in this case at moving the discussion from edit summaries to the talk page. I have to wonder whether this notice alone (i.e. unaccompanied by page protection) would not have succeeded in stopping the revert war, but anything I write on that point would be pure speculation.
  2. While I do not think that it is unreasonable to keep {{POV-title}} on the page (since, technically, a consensus was not reached), I also do not think that there is much to be gained from keeping the tag. The possible uses of the tag (to invite attention to the issue and solicit comments from other users) have largely been exhausted by the discussion that has taken place so far and by the WP:RM poll. I don't quite agree with Coren's suggestion that the no consensus outcome should preclude re-adding the tag, but I do agree with him that a RfC or formal mediation seems more appropriate at this point.
I hope I've been able to help. Cheers, –Black Falcon (Talk) 00:06, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Majdi Halabi DYK

Updated DYK query On 6 August, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Majdi Halabi, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Congratulations! PeterSymonds (talk) 01:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

And if I may, congratulations! I am very glad to see this article on Wikipedia. Ecoleetage (talk) 01:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much! :) I knew that Israeli MIAs tend to receive a lot of national and international attention, so I was surprised when I found that this page was a redlink. –Black Falcon (Talk) 01:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
There is a picture of him in the he wiki [1], if you want to add it... 89.0.21.94 (talk) 05:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. I've asked another user with some more experience in this area whether he could possibly obtain a free image of Majdi Halabi. If he is unable to do so, I will upload the image from he.wikipedia. Thanks again, –Black Falcon (Talk) 05:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Task force

Hello! I was wondering what you think we should do about it. Shall we propose it at WP:Councils or shall we take th initiative to create a task force ourselves? ♦ Dr. Blofeld ♦ "Talk"? 12:25, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes I know I'm not sure of a way I can change it. Many of the articles I've created are good but it isn't always possible to find a decent tag line for it. For this article I am basing it on what the info and references are on spanish wikipedia so I couldsn't assert "why" it was importance unfortunately. Yes I think I'll propose the task force at WP:Councils just for "official" documentation. If the process takes too long for anybody to respond then I'll say that we should create it and leave a notice ♦ Dr. Blofeld ♦ "Talk"? 16:26, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Hans Wärmling DYK nomination

Hi, many thanks! I altered the first hook very slightly, it would be very nice to see it on the front page if it is used. Hans was a redlink on The Stranglers page and I spent an afternoon going through my books trying to build an accurate picture of him, which I hope I have done. Thanks again. Nimbus (talk) 23:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Great! He was a bit of a mystery man to me, searching through three books there was not an awful lot to go on. I just had a look for him on the Swedish Wiki, he is a redlink in their 'Stranglers' article. I thought it was an AfD nom when I first saw your message, I've had one of those (which was kept). Cheers Nimbus (talk) 23:28, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Yep, it was this one which is now B class, it was all a bit silly and disheartening at the time (it was my first contrib) but I know how it all works now. I don't write many articles but I'm always looking for obscure (but notable) subjects that I know something about whilst trying to dodge the edit wars in existing articles that I try to improve . Nimbus (talk) 00:03, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
Ah, 'Les Stranglaires'! I feel a Wiki growing! I translated and created this but it took some doing, I tried the official translation process which was even harder to navigate. It's a shame poor Hans is not around to see this, maybe he has relatives, something which I thought about when I wrote the article, have to be careful with a 'bio', I don't know the rules but common sense seems to apply. All the best. Nimbus (talk) 00:13, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
And there it is on the front page!! Marvellous! I noticed that he was left handed (from a photo of him playing guitar in the link by his brother), would it be WP:OR to mention that somewhere in the article?? Thanks again for nominating and all the best. Nimbus (talk) 09:56, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

DYK: Hans Wärmling

Updated DYK query On 9 August, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Hans Wärmling, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--PFHLai (talk) 05:01, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

1RR violation on SLDR

Please see this incident. Per SLDR, violators should be dealt with harsher than normal. Watchdogb (talk) 13:56, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Give me some time to catch up on some of what's happened at SLR and I'll comment at the section. Thanks, –Black Falcon (Talk) 17:25, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Per your comment on WT:SLR: It seems that I had nominated a category too early after another CFD resulted the category as keep. I was unaware that such a CFD took place. Is there something I can do now ? Watchdogb (talk) 23:42, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
I could close it early as a "procedural keep" if you don't object. (I've suggested discussing standards for categorisation at WT:SLR and will post another comment there soon.) –Black Falcon (Talk) 18:08, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, please do. I was not aware of the CFD and it was not posted on the category talk page. I will start a discussion on WT:SLR. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 02:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 DoneBlack Falcon (Talk) 16:21, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Group tagging

Do you know anyone who runs a bot (or scripting) which can tag multiple articles? And possibly make a list of all those in a tree so tagged?

In the past, I might have asked User:After Midnight, but he appears to be on indefinite WikiBreak.

Any help would be welcome : ) - jc37 20:27, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I could do it with AWB if the number of pages is not too big (if the task is not complex, and tagging generally isn't, AWB can reach a rate of 15-20 edits per minute). BetacommandBot might also have article tagging as an approved task... –Black Falcon (Talk) 20:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
I almost hesitate to post the link due to size...
Category:Fictional characters by occupation and its subcats. (Except the "Lists of..." cats.)
And (hopefully) a list of the cats for the nom.
Thoughts? - jc37 09:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
I think that's doable... What tag do you want placed? –Black Falcon (Talk) 15:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
subst:cfd
I'll start writing the nom. Let me know when you might be ready. (And ty, this looks like a fair amount of work.) - jc37 23:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
How far into the subcategories do you want me to go? For instance, do you want a category such as Category:Star Wars Sith characters to be tagged, or only categories that start with Category:Fictional? –Black Falcon (Talk) 23:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Intersections of "Fictional character" and "occupation".
I don't think Sith (and Jedi) are occupations, but I suppose they could be tagged for a separate nom discussion.
Do you have a simple way to make a list of the subcats? (CATTREE doesn't work for me.) If so, I'll be happy to go through the list to double check for inappropriate categorisation based on the intersection. - jc37 23:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
So, if I understand correctly, you want to include (at least for now) only the higher-level categories, and not those that are specific to particular TV programmes or book series. I've had no trouble with CATTREE before, but it'll take me a few minutes to compile the list. I'll post it here shortly. –Black Falcon (Talk) 00:14, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I've pasted the list here (the numbers in parentheses represent the number of direct subcategories that a category has). I've removed any that are not direct intersections of "fictional character" + "general occupation", and have alphabetized the list so as to remove duplicates. Let me know if there are any that shouldn't be tagged and I can start tagging the rest. –Black Falcon (Talk) 00:46, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow. there definitely were quite a few.
I went through and (hopefully) removed all of the following:
  • criminals - intending a separate nom, to prevent confusion.
  • leaders and officials
  • military personnel and "secret agents"
  • religious
  • martial artists
  • spell casters
Though a few could arguably be called occupations, I'm not sure that they would quite match my intended reasoning for the nom when considering fictional "chosen occupations".
What do you think? - jc37 23:35, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
I noticed just a few that you may want to take another look at:
Since I don't know your intended reasoning, I can't know whether the categories listed above match it, but they seem to be the only remaining ones that could be classified in one of the six groups you listed above. Let me know if you want them to remain in the list, and I can start tagging the categories whenever you're ready to post the nomination. –Black Falcon (Talk) 00:18, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
Good catches. I pretty much agree.
A couple thoughts:
Archers is anything from a martial artist to a sportsman to a hunter. However, since I removed swordsmen we should probably remove this too.
Mercenaries is probably more along the lines of military/agents, but either way...
People in fashion is still an occupation intersetion, except that it's so vague as to includes several occupations. So it should stay. Are there more like this?
The rest that you noted should be removed.
Anyway, thanks again for your work on this.
I'll attempt to finish the nomination text and post it here (for your perusal). - jc37 01:14, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm happy to be able to help.
On closer examination, there seem to be a few others that are similar to "people in fashion": Category:Fictional media and journalism people, Category:Fictional medical personnel, Category:Fictional radio personalities, Category:Fictional school personnel, and Category:Fictional television personalities.
Once you're ready to post the nomination and can specify a section header (so that all of the "this category's discussion" links point to the appropriate section), I can start tagging the categories. (With less than 200 pages remaining, it should take about 10 minutes with AWB.) –Black Falcon (Talk) 03:26, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, all of those and their subcats would seem to qualify as well. (Excluding the TV series character sub-cats, of course.) - jc37 05:15, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
OK. I've removed the ones that you mentioned above (diff). If I made a mistake, please revert me. –Black Falcon (Talk) 05:24, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
Looked good to me. - jc37 05:50, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I've tried to write this several ways (write, get distracted, write, get distracted, ad infinitum).

The main idea is that the occupation of a fictional character is at the whim of an author. How many summer jobs did the Hardy Boys have? Or how about Hal Jordan? And attempting to require a limitation to just those which are "notable" means subjectivity, since "notability" requires references, which we can't do in categories per WP:CLN, etc.

While I wouldn't mind seeing some of these listified, I think quite a few of them would fail notability and be deleted hemselves. But I suppose that's not something that necessarily would have to be determined now...

The ones I excluded were ones that I thought might "muddy" the nom, and might lead to more confusion. (For example: "X is more than an occupation!" or "X isn't an occupation!")

Anyway, I'd welcome some help with the text (Especially those links to references that you seem to be famous for : ) - jc37 05:23, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

It makes sense, especially given the fact that (temporary) occupational changes are often used simply to accomodate the plot of a single episode of a TV series, chapter of a book, issue of a comic, etc. Sources could theoretically be provided within the article, but the work itself is likely to be the only source in most cases.
I think it's almost certain that the nomination will run into opposition, which makes me think a test nomination may be useful. Then again, a test nomination is virtually guaranteed to be opposed by some on the grounds that it singles out a single category.
Another possible argument against the categories is that they categorise characters based on a purely in-universe characteristic, which may or may not be comparable across fictional universes (e.g. the duties of "firemen" in Fahrenheit 451 differ substantially from those of traditional firemen). –Black Falcon (Talk) 18:02, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the second paragraph. These days (in most cases) it's better to have a group nom (or a few focused group noms) than try to "test" with one or two.
And your last argument, while it makes sense, I'm guessing that it would likely be misconstrued, among other things.
The best I can think of is to try to keep the nom as straight forward, and worded as succinctly, as possible. When dealing with fiction, things can be confusing, and definitely subjective. This is part of why I think in several cases, fictional x categories should be listified. I'm kinda working on a version of WP:CLN for fictional things (persons, places, objects, concepts). But it's still in really rough draft stage. (I've discussed this with User:Emperor recently.)
Anyway, How about something similar to this (merging some of your comments in):
The main idea here is that the occupation of a fictional character is at the whim of an author. And especially given the fact that (temporary) occupational changes are often used simply to accomodate the plot of a single episode of a TV series, chapter of a book, issue of a comic, etc. For example, how many summer jobs did the Hardy Boys have? Or how about Hal Jordan?
And attempting to require a limitation to just those which are "notable" means subjectivity, since "notability" requires references, which we can't do in categories, so this should be a list. (See WP:CLN.) Besides, the work itself is often likely to be the only source in most cases.
What do you think? - jc37 04:15, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
It looks good, and you're probably right about the issue of length. If the nomination is too long, people are likely to pay less attention to the arguments. My only suggestion would be to consider mentioning listifying, since that seems to be the direction toward which you're leaning. –Black Falcon (Talk) 16:37, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I've added that. If you think it's acceptable, I'll post/paste it at CfD, and you can start the tagging. (Then, it looks like it's time to restart the prog language discussion/work. The page may need updating. Who knows how many have been created/renamed/merged/deleted in the meantime : ) - jc37 10:27, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I'm ready to start tagging. (As for the programming language categories, the list is probably quite a bit out-of-date, given the amount of time that has passed. Only two categories on the list have been deleted and two others renamed, but a good number more were probably created.) –Black Falcon (Talk) 14:31, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Ok. I'll list the nom then.
A quick question, though: Did you add those cats/subcats from above? (fictional x people/personel/etc.)? If not, please include them. - jc37 21:56, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Ok, it's added. The header is "Intersections of fictional characters and occupations".
Please post the list at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 August 19/List of categories of fictional characters by occupation (Unless you think that on the page would be better. I'll defer to your opinion.) - jc37 22:05, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
I've moved the discussion to the daily log page for August 20, so that the "this category's discussion" links point to the correct page, and I'll start tagging right now. Once I've finished tagging, I'll post the list and update the link as needed. –Black Falcon (Talk) 02:14, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
I've added the list of categories on the CFD log page using {{hidden}}; the categories are listed in three columns, so the entire list doesn't take up too much space. I tried two display resolutions and it worked fine on both; however, if it's hard to read at other resolutions, it could be converted into two columns (for two columns of (approximately) equal length, the cutoff is "junk dealers"/"lawyers"). –Black Falcon (Talk) 02:48, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, templates don't display for me currently, so I suppose it doesn't matter to me anyway : )
Also, you may have missed the question above: Did you include the fictional x people/personel cats you noted above? - jc37 02:52, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Sorry about that, I only noticed your last comment. :)
Yes, they are included in the nomination; all 169 categories listed here are listed as part of the nomination. –Black Falcon (Talk) 02:55, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much. What was a few minutes for you would have taken me quite some time : )
I wonder, would it be smarter to do another similar group nom now, or to wait until this one finishes? (Criminals, for one thing. The intersection between fictional characters and nationality/ethnicity, for another.) - jc37 03:06, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
The discussion might highlight issues that are applicable to the other categories, so waiting might be useful; then again, nominating the others now might present a clearer picture of how you propose to change categorisation for fictional characters. I would wait to see whether the response to the nomination is generally positive, but then again I'm often over-cautious (such as here), and big changes usually require bold actions.
If/when you decide to proceed, please let me know if I can help with generating a list of categories for different intersections (fictional characters + criminals; fictional characters + nationality; etc.). –Black Falcon (Talk) 03:33, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
You're probably right. Though (depending on the discussion) I may nominate the other two groups afterwards anyway (as other additional issues could be considered, as well).
Will do. Thanks again : ) - jc37 03:50, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

CfD nom

Well, I suppose there wasn't a whole lot of surprise in the answers. (Did you laugh when Otto responded exactly as we thought someone might concerning firemen? : )

And that's concerning, btw. If even Otto, who, in my experience, would normally vote to delete such cats (skip even listifying), voted to keep, then something was apparently problematic in the nom.

In this case, I think it was simply that I didn't explain fully enough. For example, that this was to listify all such intersections, not just those who may be deemed "non-notable".

Anyway, I welcome your thoughts. - jc37 20:31, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I was surprised that the size of the nomination was brought up by so many editors; I was expecting that to be a problem in a smaller nomination. I agree that there was likely some confusion regarding the full intent and/or scope of the nomination. I think your comment of "20:07" and "20:20, 20 August 2008 (UTC)" ([2][3]) get at the heart of the matter. Perhaps they will help to clear up any confusion and focus the discussion. –Black Falcon (Talk) 20:40, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't surprised, but I was hoping to be surprised. (I still recall that that was one of the main complaints of the last time I nominated the alma mater usercats.) Addressing the size of the nom, is apparently useful as an excuse, or misdirection, in order to not address the actual contention of the nomination. (And yes, I understand that in the past large noms of disparate items have been problematic. However, AFAICT, this wasn't one of those, merely due to the simple criteria of the intersection.)
And I do hope that others read those responses, but I have a feeling (fear) that we'll see more of the same due to tl;dr... - jc37 21:02, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Judging by various comments since 20 August, it seems that your clarifications had some effect, though perhaps not as much as hoped. –Black Falcon (Talk) 00:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, unless the closer weighs arguements rather than counting "votes", this is likely to be "no consensus" (and may be anyway).
I left a note on Otto's talk page (which he's either waiting to respond to later, or ignoring) concerning his opinion, but that aside, what's yours on the "way forward"? - jc37 23:05, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
To be honest, I'm not sure. Since most of the opposing comments focus on the number of categories, either directly (e.g. Otto's comment) or indirectly (those comments that essentially state: "while the categories are non-defining in some cases, they are defining in others"), perhaps it's worth trying a more limited nomination of one or just a few specifically-chosen categories? –Black Falcon (Talk) 03:02, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, at this stage, I think it would be helpful to re-tree the cats and see about making some separate group noms.
I've been involved with a ReOrg of the Category:Comics. For that, to get an idea of the tree I used asterisks.
  • Comics
    • Comics terminology
      • Comics genres
etc.
Is this something your tools would be able to do with the cats? - jc37 06:30, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Can you clarify, please? AWB can re-tree categories, but the specifics of what you have in mind are not clear to me. –Black Falcon (Talk) 16:02, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Just a list of all the cats nominated (as well as the ones we skipped over), but instead of alphabetised, listed in "tree" heirarchy.
Since these will be broken up into smaller group noms, might as well do them all (criminals, and so on). - jc37 18:47, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
As far as I know, this is not something that can be done with AWB. I tried doing it with Special:CategoryTree, but there are so many subcategories in Category:Comics that I eventually encountered a "error on page" message and could not complete the category tree. Someone with a bot might be able to do this fairly easily; I can't think of a particular bot offhand that handles this task (maybe Betacommandbot?), but a notice at WP:BOTREQ might do the trick. –Black Falcon (Talk) 19:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. I find it interesting that even a part of Category:Comics can't even be done. ("Interesting" just in the "idle thoughts about AWB" sense.) Hiding attempted to do this with all the subcats of Category:Fiction, and had the same trouble. And Betacommand seems to not be an option atm (See Hiding's talk page.) Looks like we'll have to find someone else. - jc37 20:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
To be honest, I don't know much about AWB's capabilities for producing reports/lists; I generally use it only for editing. However, using CategoryTree, I was able to do a part of the "Comics" tree (probably about 10%) before the error, and I can post that 10% if you'd like (I have it copied to my text editor). –Black Falcon (Talk) 20:15, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Sure. Though I guess my next question is: Can you do Category:Fictional characters by occupation? Or do you have to do the whole fiction tree to get to that? (Same question for Category:Comics characters.) - jc37 20:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
I think I'll be able to do those; let me try (it may take some time to format it). –Black Falcon (Talk) 21:32, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Is something like this what you have in mind? –Black Falcon (Talk) 22:13, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. (wow). - jc37 22:20, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
OK. In that case, I'll finish up Comics characters by company and will post a list for Fictional characters by occupation in another section. –Black Falcon (Talk) 22:22, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Comics characters by company is done. –Black Falcon (Talk) 23:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Wow.
That looks like I'm going to have my work cut out for me for some time. Would you mind if I had this as a sub-page? You may need your AWB page long before I'll finish with these : ) - jc37 04:36, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
A lot of it is repetition, but a lot need renaming (e.g. Category:Spanis comics characters) and possibly deletion.
Not at all. I'm almost finished with the Fictional characters by occupation tree, and will be posting it soon. Feel free to move that to a subpage as well. :) –Black Falcon (Talk) 17:00, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 DoneBlack Falcon (Talk) 19:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much : )
I moved the page to the link above.
What a mess. - jc37 21:16, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
You're welcome.
I've already made a few CFD nominations, but it appears that there is a lot of work to do (categories to create, recategorise, rename, merge, delete). :) –Black Falcon (Talk) 21:23, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

iOffer DYK

Updated DYK query On 9 August, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article iOffer, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Congratulations! PeterSymonds (talk) 00:03, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

LGBT rights in Zambia

Updated DYK query On 12 August, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article LGBT rights in Zambia, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 08:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Updated DYK query On 13 August, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Endicott Pear Tree, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:38, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick

Thanks for expanding the Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick article. I was going expand it myself in a few days as I'll be putting it forth as a DYK candidate and don't like to choke the system with too many submissions from me at once. Have you added this to DYK submissions yet? You can, or I will, it doesn't matter. Happy editing. - House of Scandal (talk) 20:11, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

African economy

Hi. I've started a full set of templates for each of the African economies at Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/Economy templates. Basically I see them as a good instrastructure to develop each of the economies on wikipedia. It gives us the chance to link case studies on many of the main exports/industries in the country was is very important as a vast proportion of the population is often involved in such industries. See for example Pineapple production in Côte d'Ivoire and how the template is used. Any help you can give on building up the templates with potential articles related to the economy, distributing the templates in the articles linked or filling in the red links for be much appreciated! For instance Template:Economy of Ghana has some notable content already but potentially these templates can be crammed full with articles related to the economy by African country. Regards ♦ Dr. Blofeld ♦ "Talk"? 16:18, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much time I'll be able to devote to this, as I already have a rather long backlog of tasks, but I'll probably try my hand at turning a few of those redlinks blue. –Black Falcon (Talk) 19:25, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

CfD Undo

Hi Falcon. Just thought I'd drop a quick note to inform you that your CfD of March 22, 2008, is back up on the block for an undo (see CfD's August 16). I'm not sure if that's of any interest to you, but assume you may appreciate having the opportunity to share your comments. -- WikHead (talk) 00:41, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for giving me a 'heads up'. I don't check CFD quite as often as I used to, so I really do appreciate your notice. Thanks again, –Black Falcon (Talk) 01:15, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

South Mountain College

Hi Black Falcon You recently wrote asking me not to use copyrighted material for our entry, however, I am the original author of the posts that I put in for South Mountain Community College and I am also an employee there. Is there any way that we can put that text back up on Wikipedia?

IF not - how do you recommend that we proceed? Do I need to recreate the complete entry for SMCC? Can we instead reference their website? I'm afraid I'm not sure how to move forward and they were expecting this to be completed...

Wolf110 (talk) 02:35, 18 August 2008 (UTC) Stacy

I have responded on your talk page. Best, –Black Falcon (Talk) 04:04, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

African Protected Areas

This user is a member of the
WikiProject Africa Protected areas task force.

Welcome to WikiProject African Protected areas!!

Please add Template:User African Protected Areas to your user page.

The Bald One White cat 13:58, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I;ve also created

Can't believe it took 7 years to create!!

I got tired of waiting for a reply at WP:Councils. We'll need to sort out the assessments too. One of the project aims should be to try to get everyone beyond a stub class I think The Bald One White cat 14:52, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought it would be a good sort of project logo. Do you like it? The Bald One White cat 15:23, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes I did think about an elephant which would be the first you'd think of but I thought that image was more symbolic of the environment with the mountains and the park in the background and the height of the giraffe looked majestic with the mountain. I didn't know we have five GA's already. Thats good news. I take it you authored all? The Bald One White cat 15:31, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I've started with Algeria with tagging which is now done. If you could take charge of most of the tagging whenever you have time I'll try to get all those templates and articles up and running soon The Bald One White cat 17:24, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Cool. I think the new project is looking quite attractive isn't it! The Bald One White cat 17:31, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes remember though we are missing many protected forest areas by country at present though evne in the lists. The best thi8ng we can do it get the forest parks listed at the protected areas database like Gambia and get them all onto here so they are all covered. I;d imagine there is near 500 in total if not more including forest parks. Either way, this is a great way to organize them and work towards complete coverage, consistency and greater quality. The Bald One White cat 17:37, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Olive green generally isn't my colour but I think it works well with the wildlife and "khaki" scheme of things. I reached Mauritania, but I am just going to blue link the others until I add the parks to them later. The Bald One White cat 17:39, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry I'm getting server trouble too. I was adding Gambian town articles this morning and had to stop because I kept losing my work when I saved. Wikipedia now over 2.5 million is kind of getting to the next stage now where they probably need new hardware. We've had a new 17,000 articles in only a few days really. Its growing really quickly. The Bald One White cat 19:55, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Break

Have fun : ) - jc37 04:17, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, I'll try.
Wait a minute, I'm on wikibreak. I'm not supposed to check my talk page!
I guess this is what they call a wikibreak break - maybe I need to take a break from that too... :) –Black Falcon (Talk) 17:45, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

dyk

Updated DYK query On 21 August, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Victuallers (talk) 17:22, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Updated DYK query On 24 August, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article No Connection (band), which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Victuallers (talk) 11:34, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

User/ userbox examples

I was not sure quite where to put it or them, I am trying to go through ALL of the "Template:User *" and

  1. . provide a visible example,
  2. . document "undocumented" features/parameters,
  3. . try to get misspelled redirects and templates deleted or renamed
  4. . document "broken", non-standard user box templates - too tall, too wide, "side-effects" ...
  5. . get "User-specific" templates moved to User: space (i.e. those only usable by 1 user)

I got interrupted with some other Wiki things needing attention...

Perhaps renaming them to Template:Userbox/ ? The "catch" is that they all start off "Template:User *" i.e. User followed by space and then the rest of the template name, thus why under User/. I can add some additional information to User/doc explaining the difference between Template:User and the rest ... LeheckaG (talk) 17:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The usage of "Template:User_" has previous consensus.
That said, I wouldn't personally oppose a bold action to change it to "Template:UBX_"
I've found that having "user" in the userbox names actually creates issues with searching the User namespace. - jc37 00:33, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Just to clarify: you mean that the usage of "Template:User" for individual userboxes has consensus, don't you? See here for context. –Black Falcon (Talk) 00:37, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I seem to have misunderstood the comments above.
I was indeed referring to the current naming convention of all userboxes. (Which I think should be changed, as it can cause searching/navigation issues.)
Sorry for the confusion : ) - jc37 00:44, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

UCFD comment

Happens to the best of us (looks sheepishly above).

It may be little consolation, but thanks for the first genuine laugh today : ) - jc37 01:10, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

At least it had one useful effect, even if it was unintended. :) –Black Falcon (Talk) 02:17, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Sri Lankan Tamil people

Congratulations on writing a most informative article! Is there anything I can do to help with the FA review? I don't know much about the FA process (I know the criteria, but I have had little experience applying them to actual articles), but I'm willing to help where I can. –Black Falcon (Talk) 17:21, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Reading through the FA review, I noticed that the main issue seems to be some concerns about the prose. You may find it useful to contact a member of the Guild of Copy Editors (see the list of members) or one of the peer review volunteers. –Black Falcon (Talk) 18:10, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
I did and he wants to wait till the dust settles down. So I will await Sandy's call as to whether the changes have been satisfactory, if not I will call upon my help and then resubmit. Also you have to strike out the comments that we took care of :)) Taprobanus (talk) 18:27, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
OK, I'll do that.
Would you take a look at this edit? I made it as a copy-edit, but I want to be sure that I understood the sentence correctly, and that the new wording still accurately represents the content of the source. –Black Falcon (Talk) 18:43, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
I did and it does reflect the meaning correctly. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 13:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Two and a Half Men Portal

Nope, your right, I wanted to create a Two and a Half Men portal, but I couldn't find enough GAs of FAs for the selected article. I was planning on nominating it for deletion but you beat me to it. --Music26/11 18:47, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead, thanks. --Music26/11 18:57, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Greetings from the Opera Project/Music Project etc.

Greetings! How is life? Are you busy? I have an AWB job I'd like to ask you about. Is this a good time to ask? Best. --Kleinzach 08:02, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Is it this job? If so, I'd recommend User:GargoyleBot, which is specifically designed to orphan templates. If it is something else, I'd be happy to try to help. I've had some success in reducing my personal backlog of tasks, so I'd be OK with taking on something else. –Black Falcon (Talk) 15:56, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
You guessed right! I'll ask User:GargoyleBot. Thanks. --Kleinzach 16:01, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
OK. If he is unable to do it for any reason, let me know and I will take on the task after the TFD closes. I may not be able to do it quickly (i.e. within a few hours), but I will work on it. Cheers, –Black Falcon (Talk) 16:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

DYK help

Would you mind updating the main page with the next set of DYK hooks. It's time and we have a backlog. Thanks for any help you can give.Nrswanson (talk) 00:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see this in time. However, to be honest, I've never updated DYK before, and I'd need to read all of the instructions before I felt comfortable doing so. –Black Falcon (Talk) 17:14, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Walter G. Alexander

Updated DYK query On 31 August, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Walter G. Alexander, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 14:14, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

New tagging request

It's a lot (again), so I'll understand if you'd rather not make the effort (especially considering how last time turned out), but if you'd be willing, it would be appreciated : ) - jc37 01:10, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll compile the list and start tagging. –Black Falcon (Talk) 01:18, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Should I also tag all subcategories of Category:Characters in written fiction by nationality, Category:Superheroes by nationality, and Category:Superheroes by race? –Black Falcon (Talk) 01:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I have tagged all categories except Category:Fictional Atlanteans, Category:Fictional Aztecs, Category:Fictional Celts, Category:Fictional Gypsies, Category:Fictional Incans, Category:Fictional Māori, Category:Fictional Martians, Category:Fictional Mayas, Category:Fictional multiracial characters, Category:Fictional ancient Romans, and Category:Fictional Post-Soviets. –Black Falcon (Talk) 02:00, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
The first 3: yes, though probably each in a separate nom.
So essentially for the rest: Fictional nations and ethnicities, and Historical (possibly mythical) nations and ethnicities? Probably split them into four separate noms.
Multiracial for its own nom.
Since these require separate noms to be written, I'll write them asap. (So that they manage to be listed on the same day. Perhaps that's one way we can diffuse some confusion.) I'll post here when done. Thanks again : ) - jc37 02:24, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

list

All of the following could be listified/deleted (either in one group nom, or split into 6 separate noms):

Others:

This is at least a start. Still trying to think about the text of the nom statements. Help welcome : ) - jc37 12:30, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I've added Category:Superheroes by nationality to the nomination and tagged all subcategories. –Black Falcon (Talk) 15:11, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I've now added the noms. (Just under the wire : ) - jc37 23:04, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I tagged all of them. –Black Falcon (Talk) 00:51, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Jōmon Sugi

Updated DYK query On 1 September, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Jōmon Sugi, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 01:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:Supervillains by origin

Can you swing through Category:Supervillains by origin and tag it and its subcats and add them to the nomination? Otto4711 (talk) 12:45, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I have tagged all of the pages except Category:Extraterrestrial supervillains and Category:Native American supervillains, since I was not sure whether those should be in the nomination (they aren't strictly nationality categories, see #New tagging request). –Black Falcon (Talk) 15:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I added those two to the list above. - jc37 21:44, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

General ping

We've been involved in discussions of the following. Just posting them here for convenience : )

  • Several categories related to comics and fiction have been nominated, spread over August 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31; and September 1, 2, and 3. (so far).
  • The WP:UCfD page discussions. (Noting that it's also quite backlogged.)

That's it for now, though I'm sure I've missed some. - jc37 01:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC) Updated - jc37 01:15, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I have so many changes on my watchlist that it's nice to have all of these links in a single location. :) –Black Falcon (Talk) 02:14, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I sooo understand. (And I've already found since posting this that I'm using your page as a navpage for those CfDs : ) - jc37 02:26, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation on the notability talk page Thanks

Hiya! Thanks for the info on CSD and athletes that you gave me. I've since reread the WP:NN and WP:CSD and now understand it much better. CSD should only be used for WP:NN only if the article does not (in any way whatsoever) assert how they are notable. Cool! I've been using WP:AfD a lot more since and am assuming that the admins won't have acted on any CSD's I did that were inappropriate. Thanks!! fr33kman (talk) 18:48, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. :) Incidentally, I checked through your contributions history and it seems that all of the notability-related speedy deletion requests made by you were carried out, except Carl Misch and Kirsty Duncan (which needs a complete rewrite for tone and sourcing). Cheers, –Black Falcon (Talk) 19:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Good to know :-), thanks! fr33kman (talk) 20:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

DYK triple

Updated DYK query On 3 September, 2008, Did you know? was updated with facts from the articles Paulo Zucula, Antonio Munguambe, and National Disasters Management Institute, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Gatoclass (talk) 07:38, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Talk archive cats

This looks like a creation due to Template:Archive, Template:Talkarchive, Template:Talkarchivenav, and Template:Archive-header. And I think that there may be such a category for every namespace.

Thoughts? Suggestions? - jc37 13:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I really can't see this (or any of the other categories in Category:Wikipedia discussion archives) being useful to editors. There is no requirement for talk pages to be categorised (AFAIK) and anyone who wants to find past discussion on a topic will undoubtedly have a particular talk page in mind, in which case s/he would visit that talk page rather than these categories. The only purpose for these categories that I can think of is if they are somehow used by bots, though I see no reason for bots to concern themselves with old archive pages. Group nom? –Black Falcon (Talk) 18:02, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like a plan. - jc37 00:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
With the exception of Category:Wikipedia archives (which seems to be a bit more complex), all the others are mostly subst of the above templates. So group nom the lot, except for "Wikipedia archives", which would likely need a separate nom. What do you think? - jc37 01:20, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good. At minimum, some of the categories need to be merged (such as Category:(Main) archives and Category:Talk archives). You might want to consider a separate nomination for Category:Portal archives, in addition to Category:Wikipedia archives. There's really no reason for a category for portal subpage archives, but it is different from the other categories. (On the other hand, with only two pages belonging to a single portal, perhaps it makes no difference.) –Black Falcon (Talk) 03:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that seems to be due to different templates having different naming conventions.
Any nom wording suggestions? - jc37 18:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
For the majority of these categories, I'd suggest something along the lines of:

Categories exist to create groupings of related pages in order to facilitate navigation between them. A grouping of talk page archives that are similar only to the extent that they are archives and located in a particular namespace does not serve this purpose. Any editor interested in finding archived discussions would seek out links to these archives on the talk page where the discussion originally took place; it is unlikely that s/he would take the time-consuming and inefficient route of browsing a grouping of archives that cover different timeframes and topics, and where the title of an archive page (e.g. Wikipedia:(Page name)/Archive 3) rarely provides much information about its specific content.

For the portal archive category, I would note that there is nothing gained from grouping the archives of different portals. For the most part, these types of portal archives (common for DYK and news entries) are merely a part of the inner workings of an individual portal and have no role except as a historical record of the functioning of the portal. –Black Falcon (Talk) 19:29, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Mine was something like: "Can you imagine anyone attempting to go through these massive categories to find a specific archive sub-page?" : )
Honestly, if we just remove the category from those pages which only are members due to the subst'ed templates, these categories would probably be empty. (And this has already been through CfD once.) So I think we could probably just be bold. - jc37 21:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, if you don't want to be long-winded, verbose, and repetitive... :P
I did a quick check of about 20 pages and they were all substed instances of {{talkheader}}, so I could probably empty a number of the categories using AWB. Do you think "removing category '[Category name]' from substed instances of Template:Talkheader" would be a sufficiently clear edit summary? The main problem would be with Category:Talk archives, Category:Wikipedia talk archives, and Category:User archives, which contain a combined total of 700 pages -- potentially doable with AWB. –Black Falcon (Talk) 00:17, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Are you sure that it's the subst of Template:Talkheader? I've just gone through most of its history, and I don't see categorisation added. Though I do note that it now transcluded some archiving facility, so perhaps one of the above templates were subst as well?
  • "Removing category from substed instances of a template."
Since they will be deleted (and still viewable in the edit history of the pages modified), there's probably no need to link to the categories in the edit summary.
That aside, just be careful of the syntax. It's may be slightly different in each template. Also, be aware that many of the pages have the magic word __NOINDEX__ between the includeonly tags. It might be worth adding that to any page you find that doesn't have it, and also, on subst-ed pages, the includeonly tags would probably also need to be removed. - jc37 20:17, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant to write {{Talkarchive}}. And I think you're right about the category link -- anyone who really wants to know which category was removed can simply check the relevant diff.
I think I can account for any syntax variations through an initial process of trial-and-error. While I'm pretty sure that AWB will allow me to simultaneously remove the category and includeonly tags, I'm not sure whether it would also permit me to detect the absence of __NOINDEX__ and (if necessary) add it at the same time. I'll see what I can do. –Black Falcon (Talk) 20:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Ok. If not, I suppose you could just do the noindex run first, then do the run again to remove the cats and includeonly tags. (Though I'm not sure if that would be more work than worth it : ) - jc37 08:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I think I may have figured out an easier way to do it: instead of removing the categories, I can simply replace the substed instances of the template with a transcluded instance. In this way, __NOINDEX__ could be added to the pages via transclusion of a template. The instructions at Template:Talkarchive indicate that the template shouldn't be substed, so that shouldn't be a controversial change. What do you think? –Black Falcon (Talk) 17:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
(de-dent) - Sounds great, actually. The main concern would be to make sure that (since we're dealing with several different templates) that the one subst-ed is the one that would be transcluded in its place. (Noting, of course, that the templates may have changed since the subst-ing.)
So, unless there are any other concerns or wrinkles, go for it : ) - jc37 18:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
The name of the substed template is usually visible in a hidden comment, so that's relatively easy to check before saving. I'll just have to figure out which talk archive templates correspond with which namespaces. It may take a while to do all of the categories, but I'll empty some of the less-populated ones right now and will add this task to the top of my to-do list. –Black Falcon (Talk) 21:27, 23 September 2008 (UTC)