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Nomination of Extended Langton's ant for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Extended Langton's ant is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Extended Langton's ant until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:51, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

When I said "I find it hard to think of a topic about which I care less", I clearly hadn't thought hard enough. – iridescent 2 08:40, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Actually… I organised the framing and display of computer art back in 1986 which used (it seems to me) a more sophisticated version of the ant. I wasn't responsible for its development (not a programmer). The algorithm produced (amongst other patterns) realistic depictions of impact craters. I had to go to Radlett to buy the paper for printing- the firm supplied the carpet industry with inkjet printers and supplies, Southend for the extra RAM, and Church Gresley for a replacement ROM for the Canon printer. The ink used faded within a day if exposed to sunlight and oxygen. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 09:55, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Nomination of List of vehicles simulated by iRacing.com for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of vehicles simulated by iRacing.com is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of vehicles simulated by iRacing.com until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:55, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

My sole involvement with this article was to revert an attempt by an IP to replace it with a redirect and then nominate the redirect for deletion. I find it hard to think of a topic about which I care less. ‑ Iridescent 16:07, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

I just had to watchlist Jigglypuff in case someone reinstates a BLP violation. Admittedly a funny one, but sigh. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:50, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Because those Pokemon articles are so inherently ridiculous it's easy to forget that this is a multi-billion-dollar industry - Pokemon Go alone generates $3 million a day in in-app purchases alone and a projected $16 billion this year in ad sales, before you take into account merchandising, cartoon spin-offs, data mining of users etc. The intellectual property value of Jigglypuff alone is probably higher than that of Strawberry Fields Forever. – iridescent 2 09:16, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm a Pokemon master ;) But I also dont go anywhere near pokemon pages on wikipedia due to my hobby. Too much opportunity for engaging with fanboy editwarriors. Personally I have always thought wikipedia should just redirect off-wiki to something like bulbapedia, serebii or pokemondb. (Ditto for other subject specialist areas). Currently I have enough Nintendo hardware and software to transfer pokemon from four revisions back into the current games. Requires the use of a Gamecube, GBA, GBA transfer cable, and a 1st revision DS (where you can have the old carts in at the same time as the new carts) though. Thankfully the wife is understanding. To clean up the pokemon articles would require a lot of fighting over WP:UNDUE which is just tiring. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:27, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
On the other hand, I am feeling suicidal today so removed an inappropriate external link (to wikia) from Pokemon. I await the fallout. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:17, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
I quite like the idea of quasi-independent sub-wikipedias under the WMF banner, with Wikipedia's requirements regarding sourcing and licensing but able to go into more detail than would be appropriate on Wikipedia itself. It would allow us to hive the technically notable but totally pointless cruft like 7 & 9 Bounds Green Road and Robon off to the incubator subprojects where people might conceivably actually be interested in them, and they can be moved back when they're actually of vaguely adequate quality. It will never happen. ‑ Iridescent 21:23, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

DYK for After the Deluge (painting)

On 9 October 2016, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article After the Deluge (painting), which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that After the Deluge (pictured) was described by Walter Bayes as "a kind of sublimation of all the most poetic elements in nature"? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/After the Deluge (painting). You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, After the Deluge (painting)), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 00:01, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Help me!

Can you please help me with a list of articles where I can contribute efficiently to gain experience as well as make WIKIPEDIA a better place. With thanks. Cheers! Aru@baska❯❯❯ Vanguard 03:34, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

No, I can't. Wikipedia has 5,258,572 articles—without knowing what your area of expertise is, there's no possible way I can advise which of them you can usefully add to. If there's a particular topic that interests you, the often-overlooked category trees might be useful; just type Category:whatever topic interests you into the search box and navigate through the categories from there (so if you have a particular interest in cheese, Category:Cheese will take you to all our cheese-related articles). For some topics, there might be a particular WikiProject whose members might be able to help you further—the relevant projects are generally listed at the top of each article's talkpage.
What I will do is (yet again) advise you to listen to the assorted people trying to give you advice on your talk page, rather than just blanking their comments; Kudpung, Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi and Peridon are three highly experienced Wikipedia editors, and they're trying to prevent you from ending up in the situation that transpired here. It's obvious that your knowledge of English spelling and grammar is very limited, so I'll add my name to those telling you that you shouldn't be attempting to correct other people's writing (and please stop strewing exclamation points, bolding and allcaps everywhere). Likewise, please don't attempt to patrol new pages or enforce Wikipedia policies unless and until you actually understand what Wikipedia's policies say. (I'd also suggest—and this is explicitly a suggestion, not an order—that you delete your userpage and start again from scratch; if you put {{U1}} at the top of it, it will be deleted very quickly. The gibberish you currently have there looks astonishingly unprofessional, and is going to mean that anyone encountering you has a negative impression from the start and won't be inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.) ‑ Iridescent 14:04, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
I will certainly try my best to adhere to your generous advice.Already followed your proposal on my user Page! Also (previously in a conversation) has admitted to refrain from patrolling new pages.Thanks!Aru@baska❯❯❯ Vanguard 17:43, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Cemetery/Mass burial at Spitalfields, London

So, a question from me now, seeing as you seem to have a bit of knowledge on this topic - is there an article on Wikipedia 'bout a cemetery or mass grave in Spitalfields, London? A source on User:Jo-Jo Eumerus/1257 Samalas eruption says that mass burials took place there in the years around 1257 but I don't know if we have an article on the place. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:40, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

We have Osteology#Crossrail Project, but to the best of my knowledge not individual articles on each site. (Don't take anything that can ultimately be traced back to a Crossrail or Transport for London press release remotely seriously—TfL would announce that they'd tunnelled into the Lost World of Pellucidar if they thought it would boost their chances of more government money.)
If you're talking about Don Walker's report, that was published by the Museum of London Archaeology Service and I believe my opinions of MoLAS methodology are on record (and probably a violation of WP:BLP). As with Time Team (see a few threads up) their researchers have a remarkable ability to discover 'previously-unknown facts' that generate publicity for their museum, and rarely if ever does their research find that the accepted theory for any given thing was right all along or any other conclusion that doesn't generate appearances on London Tonight. As best I can tell, he's taken a paragraph from this page of the Chronicles of the Mayors and Sheriffs (the one beginning "In this year, there was a failure of the crops"), picked that ball up and run with it; it's worth noting that famine in this period was a very regular event (see the "Background" section of Great Famine of 1315–17) and Walker seems to be the only one trying to link the famine cycle to volcanism. ‑ Iridescent 21:14, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
TPS: it was the cemetery of St. Mary Spital, but we don't have a separate article yet, and there is nothing directly on point in Spitalfields. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.251.159 (talk) 21:21, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
(PL, is that you?) You'll struggle to write anything on St Mary Spital—you'll be better off looking for sources on Bethlem Royal Hospital which was next door and is far better documented. ‑ Iridescent 21:45, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. Tracing this back a little it seems like the source statement ultimately relies on http://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/londons-volcanic-winter.htm, which I presume is the dubious publication you are thinking of. Regarding Great Famine of 1315–17 I agree that linking that to a volcanic event is fishy - I haven't seen any academic source that analyzes volcanism or ice cores making that claim and it's a little implausible anyhow. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:28, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
If there is a proper academic source, I suspect it might be the 2012 monograph mentioned here, but you'll need to pay £28 to find out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.198.93 (talk) 16:11, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
If you have access to the Guildhall Reference Library, there's a copy there; given that it's published by MoLAS there'll no doubt be a couple of copies still on sale at the Museum of London bookshop as I can't see this one flying off the shelves. ‑ Iridescent 16:36, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Seems like a number of other sources mention famines and lethality in 1257, c.f the St Albans monk and/or chronicist, not sure which. So that bit is probably worth including. I am guessing that back then, such climate events could be caused either by extraordinary but normal bad weather and by volcanic winter conditions, but talking about volcanoes attracts more interest than about "the weather". Offtopic: Paging @Volcanoguy and GeoWriter: for the volcanology aspects. And now I am really interested in the Lost World of Pellucidar. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:10, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
If by "the St Albans monk and/or chronicist" you mean Matthew Paris, take him with a pinch of salt—his MSS are immensely valuable historical documents for describing day-to-day life in the High Middle Ages and what the people of the time considered significant, but they're fairly dubious as histories per se. Ealdgyth and Johnbod might be better placed to advise on whether his records for this particular period are credible. ‑ Iridescent 13:37, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
Ya'll know, 1250s are getting a bit late and modern for my taste. I am only vaguely familiar with Paris as a source, he really is late for my main interests. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:59, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that Matthew Par(r)is. Wonder what the preferred number of "r"s is, as an aside. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:11, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
I've never seen it as "Parris" in anything I've got from my library. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:15, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
Just the one R ("Matthæus Parisiensis" was how he styled himself, e.g. Matthew from Paris). Matthew Parris is someone very different. ‑ Iridescent 14:17, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
If people mean Paris they say so; there is also Thomas Walsingham (d. c. 1422) and Roger of Wendover (pre-Paris), and no doubt others, all St Albans monks. Johnbod (talk) 16:06, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
It is Paris, he's mentioned by name in the paper mentioned above; I was just checking there wasn't another St Albans monk involved. ‑ Iridescent 16:15, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Talk:Battle of Hastings

I seem to be not explaining myself well here. If anyone third party might step in, it would be helpful since I don't seem to be expressing myself well enough to get my points across. And I don't wish to continue to explain myself badly and just get accused of ownership for trying to explain myself. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:03, 30 September 2016 (UTC

The Parson's Cat is acting fairly obnoxious, however I'd be reluctant to consider any kind of sanction at this point since this is clearly someone who is trying to be helpful and to fix what they see as a problem of the article stating mainstream opinion as undisputed fact without making it sufficiently clear that there are alternate theories.
I can see a point to TPC's edits in this case, although not for the reasons TPC gives. The later episodes of Time Team were the epitome of dumbing down (by this time Mick Aston was long gone), and the producers had an obvious interest in promoting fringe theories ("we found xxx exactly where records said it was and there was nothing unexpected about it" doesn't make good television). However, because it's probably received wider circulation among likely readers of this article than all the books on the subject put together, readers will be expecting to see mention of the theory regardless of whether academics support it or not. (You may remember me making similar comments regarding Norman conquest of England stating only that Pevensey was William's landing site and not even mentioning alternative hypotheses, despite the fact that there's also a marker at Bulverhythe marking his purported landing site—even if it's not true, it will be well enough known that it's worth noting why historians dismiss it.)
I just had a similar issue on Hope; two Well Known Facts are "the Egyptian government distributed copies of it to motivate their troops" and "Nelson Mandela had a copy on the wall of his prison cell". There's not the slightest evidence for either of these being true, but if the article doesn't mention the claims and explain that they're discredited, well-intentioned editors will keep finding reference to them elsewhere and keep trying to 'correct' Wikipedia's omission. You can find similar examples of "a fringe claim has gained wide circulation, so it needs to be mentioned to dismiss it" all over Wikipedia (medical articles, especially nutrition, are a particularly rich seam). You could probably resolve this just by inserting a brief summary of the Time Team theory as a footnote. ‑ Iridescent 08:32, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm always amenable to being presented with sources that back up the information - but nothing I'm seeing yet supports the first part of the edit. The source being presented singularly fails to support most of the sentence it's being sourced to. We have to have sources for the information before we can insert it... It's an overview article and we really shouldn't get bogged down in the minutiae of the various scholarly disputes over how long the shield wall was or if Billy the Bastard brought along so many horses or if they did this or that before the battle. That sort of minutiae is just beyond most readers (and rightly so). Nor do I think the whole "Time Team" survey is at all relevant - to include it I'd want to see some evidence that they actually aren't just recentism, but actually reached enough people that we're into a "vikings wore horns on their helms" or "medieval people thought the earth was flat" type of thing. For example - see this scathing review of an episode of Ancient Aliens. Trust me - this show probably has a larger viewership in the US than Time Team does in the UK - so does that mean that we need to cover their theories on Nefertiti in our article on Nefertiti just because a lot of people saw it? I'd want to see evidence that the Time Team show actually generated enough press/buzz to impact on the public's consciousness. (And before you ask, no, I don't think the blog posts by the guy given above are enough to insist that we cover Ancient Aliens' outlandish theories on the respective articles.) Ealdgyth - Talk 12:29, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
My thinking as regards Time Team is that to a significant number of readers, the line of thought will be "Time Team is based on 'proper' archaeology rather than purely enthusiastic amateurs so anything they mention is likely to be significant; → Time Team mentioned this; → this isn't mentioned in the article; → I'll be helpful and add it", so if it's not mentioned at all there will be a never-ending of people either trying to add it to the article and getting confused and upset when they're reverted, or raising it on the talkpage and getting confused and upset when they get some variant of "not this shit again, go away" in response. In my view, even if something is obviously bullshit it's worth mentioning in passing if a significant number of people believe it, even if no credible source takes it seriously. (I have no problem with our mentioning "the rocks of Stonehenge were brought from Africa", "Christopher Marlowe ghost-wrote Shakespeare's plays for him", "Bush arranged 9/11 to create a pretext to invade the Middle East", "Joan of Arc was actually the leader of a band of witches trying to overthrow the Catholic Church whose memory was coopted by the French" etc etc etc in their respective articles provided we don't give them undue weight,* and make it clear that credible historians don't believe them.) Paging JzG, who's far more experienced in me in handling crank theories. ‑ Iridescent 14:45, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
*All of these except "Bush did 9/11" are in fact currently mentioned on their respective articles.

TPStalking - for a fringe theory to gain inclusion into an article it has to be notable fringe - otherwise its just random people spouting stuff. If not notable, it falls foul of WP:UNDUE. The Time Team theory was put forward by Time Team - for it to merit inclusion as a notable fringe theory, reliable secondary sources would have had to comment on it, or it be addressed by relevant experts in the subject etc. 'TV show does episode where they think something happened somewhere else' absent anyone taking it seriously does not qualify as notable fringe. There is a similar issue atm regarding Aquatic Apes and David Attentborough, the key difference with that is Attenborough is addressing an already existing notable fringe theory, rather than advancing his own. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:10, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Time Team was supported by Wessex Archaeology who would write full reports on each excavation. The reports cover background (site history and archaeology), methodology, results of any trenches and geophys, and some conclusions. These reports are standard for professional excavation work (even watching briefs). The reports are sometimes the basis of peer reviewed journal articles, but the time and effort required means that most reports never make it past the grey literature stage. They are still useful (and constitute reliable sources for Wikipedia); I use some of the reports in my own research.

The full report should always be given primacy over the television episode where conclusions are developed on the fly. In less controversial articles a reference to the episode might be sufficient, but in this case at the very least the professional report should be referred to. If that cannot be found, the fact it is not a mainstream theory means it shouldn't be included. There are two types of Time Team episode: the regular series and specials. Reports for the series are available through Wessex Archaeology but I can't see the reports for the specials. Nev1 (talk) 20:18, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything on that page for a report for Hastings. I'm not adverse to adding information if it can be shown that it's a notable fringe theory. I'm always open to being persuaded but it takes sources... and we're still lacking those. I'll note that the hubub has meant that Hastings won't run on the Main Page on its 950th anniversary, which isn't a problem for me, but probably is a shame. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:49, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
It's certainly sourceable that the Time Team theory has drawn the attention of the pop-history press. I wouldn't get too cut up that Battle of Hastings isn't running on the anniversary, given that its replacement is Norman conquest of England which has at least as good a claim to the date. (FWIW, the anniversary doesn't seem to be getting very much attention, certainly when compared with the WW1 centenary—Battle itself is hosting a couple of low-key events, English Heritage is holding a mini-reenactment, and Bayeux is having an event in the Cathedral, but there are no big commemorations in London or Caen and no state events to mark the occasion. In light of recent events, I'd imagine "they came from the Continent to try to take over the English government and to grab anything of value that wasn't nailed down" is not a fire the governments on either side of the Channel feel needs stoking.) ‑ Iridescent 16:06, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
I'll be 97 at the 1000th anniversary. I already told my son he's taking me there for it... Ealdgyth - Talk 16:34, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
If I felt inclined to place a bet despite being statistically likely to be dead by the time it came to collect it and inflation rendering any winnings worthless, I'd bet on the final dissolution of whatever's left of the UK and the proclamation of the Republic of England on Christmas Day 2066. You heard it here first. ‑ Iridescent 17:45, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
Ooh, I have to jump in here with that mention of the WWI centenary. The commemoration events surrounding that are fully justified (much more being done than was done for the 50th anniversaries - quite a bit has been written about the reasons for that, and I have several articles or sections of articles planned just on commemoration events), but it did make me wonder about the 'right' times in history for anniversaries and commemorations. I am guessing the 100th anniversary of the Norman Conquest didn't exactly result in a party (or maybe there was something to mark it?). I am guessing commemorations and 'history' was not such a big thing back then. It did also make me wonder what will happen in 2914 (the 1000th anniversary of the outbreak of WWI. Maybe 100 years isn't enough time to get a proper perspective on such events. Or rather, the perspective is still malleable and changing. Less so for events 1000 years ago (compare the commemorations of the Battle of Waterloo and maybe also Agincourt). Iridescent, you missed this (or maybe ignored it?). And for the perspective from 1866, see here. Maybe the trend for modern commemorations started with things like the World's Columbian Exposition. Are there examples of pre-modern societies going to town on (non-religious) anniversary celebrations/commemorations? Briefly, this is relevant. Carcharoth (talk) 11:47, 6 October 2016 (UTC) Last bit: Columbus Quincentenary: this if anyone is interested. Carcharoth (talk) 11:58, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
I may be wrong, but it seems the anniversary thing will finally take a bit of a break for some 20 years after 2018, with not all that much to go on about (in the UK anyway), apart from the Reformation. I don't think there will be street parties for that. Johnbod (talk) 14:31, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
1519 was the start of the Spanish conquest of the New World (or at least, the defeat of the Aztecs which turned the colonial presence from an outpost into a conquest), so I imagine the pendulum will swing across the Atlantic for a bit. (There's probably a thesis to be written on which anniversaries catch the public interest and which don't. To the best of my knowledge, there were no commemorations in 1953 of the 500th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople, which—discounting the Nativity and the Crucifixion—has a decent claim to be the most significant turning point in history.) Depending on how elections and negotiations pan out, there's a decent chance that the formal exit of Britain from the EU will fall on the 500th anniversary of the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
Incidentally, if you want a bit of Original Research, the Shard is definitely visible from the Air Forces Memorial on the hill above Runnymede. ‑ Iridescent 16:25, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
The Fall of Constantinople was certainly a very significant event, but given the state of the Byzantine Empire by then, it was surely an inevitability, rather than a turning point? As turning points go, I would have put forward the Battle of Lepanto as the prime candidate for 'most significant turning point' of the last millennium. Others may have their own favourites, of course ... --RexxS (talk) 22:20, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
There's probably (another) thesis to be written on whether it was inevitable; one can certainly imagine the situation which had pertained for the previous century, of an Ottoman Empire surrounding an independent Byzantine rump which wasn't worth either the military expense or the diplomatic repercussions of conquering, going on virtually indefinitely as an eastern analogue of the Papal States or Orange. (I can certainly provide a citation for reputable historians claiming that Mehmet II had no intention of attacking Constantinople and only took the city to reassert his authority after his defeats to Skanderbeg.) Had they clung on another 50 years or so, one can easily see a set of circumstances in which the rump Empire gets drawn into the Hapsburg orbit and the Spanish military gets pointed east in the 16th century rather than west. ("Colonisation of the new world", "invention of the multi-tube steam engine", and "Battle of Plassey" must be up there as well in terms of long-term impact.) ‑ Iridescent 22:42, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
The Battle of Manzikert (1071) at the other end of the arc of Turkish power really did change things. Johnbod (talk) 04:50, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
On current matters, I was reading this, which has two quotes from researchers and historians:

Michael Stephens (Royal United Services Institute) believes this will be the "defining conflict" up to the middle of this century, adding: "It may well be as important as World War One was."

I think allowing thousands of men, women and children to drown in the Mediterranean Sea will be seen as one of the great crimes of the early 21st century - Professor Tim Jacoby, University of Manchester

The Iraq War (wars) and the campaigns in Afghanistan may seem like big deals now, and the precursor to some of what followed. But they may have just been the beginning. I still remember when the article on the Syrian civil war started (under the title '2011 Syrian protests'): 3 February 2011. Carcharoth (talk) 11:12, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
Second-guessing history is always a fool's errand—who, from the viewpoint of circa 1988, would have predicted that the worst consequence of a NATO invasion of Yugoslavia would be the emergence of James Blunt? For all you or I know, a thousand years from now people might be telling folktales about the semi-mythical hero Nigel who saved Airstrip One from being swamped by the evil forces of Eurasia and allowed the sturdy yeomen of England to finally cast off the Norman yoke and build the New Jerusalem. Yes, there really are still people who think in "Men of England, heirs of glory" terms, and they're not all confined to the lunatic fringes of the right and left. Dig out The Last English King—or virtually anything else by Julian Rathbone—for a particularly ripe example of the "the Battle of Hastings was just the first installment in the European/Papist plot to destroy English culture which continues to this day because they're jealous that the English culture is so much more advanced than their own" mindset. ‑ Iridescent 15:37, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
That would require a lot of intervening history to be lost (some sort of digital dark age and massive loss of records in a Mad Max sort of scenario). Though 1000 years is enough time for that to happen. Scary mental picture though: I will never see Nigel Farage in the same light again after reading what you wrote... Carcharoth (talk) 22:39, 8 October 2016 (UTC) PS. If you want a really strange, mid-war perspective (WWI) see 'The War In Latin', The Times, Thursday, Jun 28, 1917; pg. 9; Issue 41516. You'll see what I mean when you read it. Carcharoth (talk) 23:49, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
You know, the impression I had is that the Battle of Lepanto did not really affect history all that much since the Ottomans did rebuild their fleet afterwards and could still perform some conquests. I agree about Manzikert, though - if Romanos had escaped the battle alive, or even won, history would have been different. Neither his capture nor the subsequent civil war were a given outcome. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:25, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
I certainly agree Manzikert was a point in history where completely different courses could have resulted - a good definition of a 'turning point'. But the Ottomans' loss at Lepanto was far more than the ships - the irreplaceable loss of trained manpower, especially archers, was crucial, and the Ottoman Empire was never again such an imminent threat to the West. I still think that makes it a very good fit for turning point. --RexxS (talk) 23:05, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
If we're still playing this game, Mongol invasion of Europe—had they not got bogged down in Hungary and pressed on into the German states and France, or managed to cross into Italy—or if Ogedai had lived a few years longer and thus not given Batu a need to head back home—either the Renaissance might never have happened, or those parts of Europe like England and Christian Spain which weren't vulnerable to a land attack might have found common cause with the Islamic world. (The exact timings of who landed where during the initial exploration of the Americas is a good jumping-off-point as well—how would things have gone had a French or English privateer sold a boatload of matchlock guns to the Aztecs or Incas before Cortés arrived?) ‑ Iridescent 18:01, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Accidental Edit

Sorry about that. I am using an unfamiliar touch screen and sometimes it suddenly goes "action completed" when I am not trying to do anything. Britmax (talk) 18:30, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

No problem, we've all done it. The "Require confirmation before performing rollback on mobile devices" ticky-box in Preferences is quite useful if you're going to be doing a lot of edits on a phone or tablet. ‑ Iridescent 18:35, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Given your Pre-Raphaelite (sorta) interest...

Thought I'd point you at this from the Met. They have a whole pile of their books online in pdf form... here. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:18, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

I find Burne-Jones fairly unappealing—he was undoubtedly extremely talented (and there's an interesting story as to how a paid-up unbeliever became one of the world's most sought-after religious artists), but to me he seems to have spent most of his life painting (and drawing, and carving, and whatever-the-hell-making-stained-glass-is-called) the same "androgynous figure with dead eyes" image 500 times. I look at him the way I imagine 23rd-century historians of music will look back on U2 and Coldplay. Besides, he was a Brummie, and I generally try to observe the unofficial West Midlands Exclusion Zone* when it comes to doing anything substantive on Wikipedia. ‑ Iridescent 21:19, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
*The WMEZ is a real and observable phenomenon; 12 FAs and 22 GAs for the West Midlands, 41 FAs and 132 GAs for the similarly-sized Yorkshire, and 42 FAs and 85 GAs for Greater Manchester with a comparable history, about a quarter the area and less than half the population.
Well, that was the only PRaph in that pile from the Met - so they may not share your views on B-J. I'm playing Switzerland on this one (grins). Nice collection of various publications for free, though. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:22, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
At the moment, my next painter will probably be Albert Joseph Moore, whom I don't particularly like but consider an interesting character, and the existing article doesn't really do him justice. (I might do a bit more on Watts as well, even though I didn't plan to. The three I've done so far—Hope, After the Deluge and Mammon—are all fairly atypical of him, and I feel I ought to balance them out.) ‑ Iridescent 21:41, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
It's a fantastic and little-known resource - there are over 1,000 titles fully online. I had a project to add links where appropriate, and the last stats I saw showed over 50% of their traffic coming from Wikipedia. See [1] and [2]. It's easier to find the stuff on google than it used to be though. It's especially good on art other than Western Europe in the last 700-odd years, though there's tons on that. Johnbod (talk) 02:23, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

The "somewhat creepy page"

Hi Iridescent. Having seen your comment on Elen's talk page and then checking that page out, I must say I agree with you entirely. (I didn't want to clutter up Elen's page with further discussion there.) The earliest versions of it, e.g. this from 2003 are even creepier. So much for the "good old days" of Wikipedia. I note that there have been 3 unsuccessful attempts to have it deleted but apparently WikiProject Editor Retention "wants and needs" the information on it. At which point I can only say . Best, Voceditenore (talk) 17:04, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

The 2003 version, I can make a case for; back then Wikipedia was small enough that everyone knew each other, so it could be explained as people legitimately wanting to honor their absent buddies (in the same way that I could nowadays imagine one of the small-but-active Wikiprojects hosting a list of retired users who'd given particular service to that project). The new incarnation, with its creepy and intrusive not-so-subtle "if you've chosen to leave, you no longer have any say on how we treat you" undertones, not so much. (I'd have no issue if it were a list to which retired users could choose to add themselves with a brief statement of their reason for leaving; that might actually be quite useful.) ‑ Iridescent 17:33, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Ottawahitech, replying here to avoid cluttering Elen's talkpage.
AFAIK the last time the question was seriously raised was at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 155#Privacy and Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians. Normally in the case of meta pages like this, someone with concerns would start a deletion debate, but in this instance it would be pointless. As with a lot of the pages like this that were salvaged from the wreckage of Esperanza, it's virtually undeletable and unchangeable because of Wikipedia's inbuilt social inertia. The small tag-team which WP:OWNs it (four editors are responsible for over 50% of the added text to that page, and for almost all recent activity, and 64% of the last 100 edits at the time of writing were by you or Graham) will turn up to vote "keep" in lockstep so no discussion could ever close as anything other than "keep" or "no consensus"; in this particular case, the WR/WO contingent will likely also turn out en masse to keep it as they have their own reasons for wanting a public and easily-searchable Mark of Cain page listing all the former editors and what their reasons for quitting were that serves as a reminder that frustration at having work removed prompts many people to abandon the project. (Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians is a good example of how to handle this kind of list with some kind of dignity and respect. The "you left Wikipedia so fuck you if you don't like it, we'll say whatever we like about you" mentality of Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians, not so much.) ‑ Iridescent 16:44, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
@|Iridescent: Thanks for pinging me and providing all this information, much appreciated. Just wondering why you chose to post this on your talkpage instead of sharing it with Wikipedia_talk:Missing_Wikipedians#"somewhat creepy page" ? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:58, 11 October 2016 (UTC)please ping me
Because this is where the conversation was already taking place? Besides, I don't see any particular point in commenting on WT:Missing Wikipedians; the only people likely to be watching that will be the four of you, so the result of any 'debate' there is a foregone conclusion, whereas this is one of Wikipedia's most-watched pages outside the drama boards themselves so if there is anyone else with an opinion for or against, they're much more likely to see it—and to feel comfortable commenting—here.

We went through all this a decade ago with Esperanza and WP:ARS; because the people within a walled garden are only talking to like-minded people, they genuinely and with the best of intentions have no idea what people outside the bubble think of them since anyone not in agreement with their purpose is unlikely to be commenting there in the first place, and if they do comment there they're immediately flooded down so the "anti" side never gets heard. (If you want to experience the feeling for yourself, head on over to WT:WikiProject Composers and try to start a debate on whether infoboxes should be standardised.) Some people would say that "those not of the body are squeezed out before they have a chance to be heard and thus the internal culture makes it impossible to have a debate on any issue" describes Wikipedia as a whole, and I wouldn't necessarily say they're wrong. ‑ Iridescent 16:13, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, I had a bash at joining the discussion. They have now made a few changes, which I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have made otherwise, but my other suggestions/objections were ignored. I was then told by one of its chief maintainers that I am "beating a straw man" and reminded that it was kept three times at MfD. So there you have it. Incontrovertible proof that there are no real problems there. Voceditenore (talk) 10:29, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
I did say the result of any 'debate' there is a foregone conclusion—I've been around the block long enough to know how these things inevitably play out. Per my comments above, no matter how much of a consensus exists that it's an inappropriate and rather stalkerish page (I note that even with the discussion taking place on the "home turf" of the page in question's talkpage where one can expect a much less hostile crowd than it would draw at RFC, the only people defending it are the two owners of the page), enough pondlife will surface at any MFD on it that it would be undeletable unless it were removed as an office action or an arbcom motion. I also note that on the most cursory skim of this metaphorical graveyard of Wikipedians to commemorate their work, I see such charming annotations as subject of many block-unblock wars and a few RFCs and arbitration cases, she left after Daniel Brandt threatened to inform her employer regarding her work on Wikipedia, Does not appear to have given any notice or reason for departure, although it may have had to do with being banned for a year by the ArbCom and blocked because of disruption on political articles and banned for a year, a ban lengthened due to socking—very 'commemorative'. ‑ Iridescent 15:45, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Why did you delete my page?

Hi Iri, why did you delete my page? There is no actual reason.It is significant enough. Products from the label are accesible to audiences worldwide... The label is LEGAL and has a Label Code... I cannot really understand your criteria. --Eralos (talk) 21:18, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Eralos, assuming you mean Janus Music & Sound, it was deleted because there wasn't the slightest indication given in the article that it was notable in Wikipedia terms. Wikipedia isn't a directory or an advertising portal; we only cover topics which have demonstrably received significant coverage in independent reliable sources. All facts in a Wikipedia article need to be cited to a reliable source (and neither of the links you provided count as reliable sources; one was the company's own homepage and the other was just a catalog entry); if the sources don't exist for something, then it can't be mentioned on Wikipedia. ‑ Iridescent 21:25, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

You mean MusicBrainz - it was not just a catalogue entry, is *the* main database and main reference worldwide when it comes to music industry products... --Eralos (talk) 21:39, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Take the label Toccata for instance. https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Toccata_Classics it presents roughly the same structure, only with 2 catalogue entries instead of one. So why doesn't that entry get deleted? This is arbitrary. Besides, the article on Toccata offers much less actual information than my article did. What we have to do is to improve the coverage of record labels on Wikipedia, not denying them. --Eralos (talk) 21:44, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

This is the page in question. There is no possible way that could be described as anything other than "just a catalog entry".
There is no point in complaining to me about this, since I am not going to reverse this deletion. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but we are not going to overturn the very first of our five pillars to make an exception in this case; if a company can't be shown to meet these criteria, its article will be deleted. If you feel another article doesn't meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria, by all means nominate it for deletion as well—you can find the instructions on how to do so here. ‑ Iridescent 21:50, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
(adding) If you really insist on challenging this deletion, go to Wikipedia:Deletion review and follow the instructions there, but I'll warn you that unless you can demonstrate non-trivial coverage in multiple, independent, reliable sources, there's no point in doing so. ‑ Iridescent 21:52, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
(adding again) Also be aware that MusicBrainz is not "*the* main database and main reference worldwide when it comes to music industry products"—it's a user-generated wiki which anyone can edit, and as such is never considered a reliable source for Wikipedia's purposes. ‑ Iridescent 22:13, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Please google "janus music & sound" and you will find enough references online. Period. Eralos (talk) 23:20, 13 October 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eralos (talk • contribs) 23:18, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Here you have 3 to begin with:

http://www.hfk-bremen.de/en/profiles/n/juan-maria-solare https://artistxite.co.uk/label/Janus-Music-Sound https://www.discogs.com/de/label/541140-Janus-Music-Sound http://www.senscritique.com/contact/Janus_Music_Sound/1169046/albums/ep http://www.medien-kunst.ch/aktuell/news/detailansicht/?action=detail&uid=445&startPage=275 http://www.presseanzeiger.de/pressemappe/229122-janus-music-sound.php

Of course, if you decided beforehand that you are NOT going to undelete it, the problem should be looked for somewhee else. Eralos (talk) 23:25, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Look, before continuing this conversation will you please actually follow the links to Wikipedia's policies I've provided above (and which other people have been regularly pointing you towards since 2003), in particular Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)#Primary criteria, Wikipedia:Autobiography and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest.
Just because you are considered notable in Wikipedia terms doesn't mean that everything associated with you automatically inherits that notability, and throwing a batch of catalogue entries at me doesn't signify anything. Wikipedia has intentionally high barriers to notability when it comes to articles on organisations and companies to avoid being flooded with spam (at the time of writing there are 955,634 labels listed on Discogs). Catalogue and directory entries don't count towards notability, otherwise we'd be hosting articles on every single business in the world, since every business—at least in Western countries with their reliance on the internet—appears in multiple directories. Following the same "please google it" test you suggest above, I can find over 70 mentions of the kebab van which parks up in the evenings in Oxford High Street (including a mention in The Wall Street Journal!) but that doesn't mean the Ahmed's kebab van link will ever turn blue. Although now I've said that, someone will probably take it as a challenge and do so.
Wikipedia only has articles on topics which meet our notability criteria, and within those articles only publishes information which has already been published elsewhere in reliable independent sources. The 'additional references' you've posted above are (1): your own biography which mentions in passing that you've released material on this label; (2) a catalogue entry; (3) an catalogue entry in Discogs.org which is itself user-generated; (4) another catalogue entry; (5) a reprinted press release and (6) another catalogue entry. As I've already said, I'm not going to ignore Wikipedia's basic rules on sourcing and notability just because you disagree with them. As you've been told for over ten years, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a web directory or a marketing portal, and if a company has not had significant press coverage, then we don't host an article on it. If you disagree, go to Wikipedia:Deletion review and follow the instructions there to get the deletion decision independently reviewed. ‑ Iridescent 09:40, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

MaranoBoy user page

I don't appreciate this aggressive edit summary. The user didn't want the banner; I respected that change and merely added the category back (which retains the redirect), figuring (again) that the user could remove it if they desired. I was not doing anything against their wishes. Chase (talk | contributions) 22:22, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't care if you appreciated it or not; you are harassing him, not the other way around. There is no obligation for him to add himself to a category just to please you, provided that the account is appropriately marked as an alt-account (which it is), and making significant edits to another user's userpage is grossly inappropriate. I strongly suggest you leave his userpage well alone; there are plenty of admins who'd have blocked you, not just reverted. ‑ Iridescent 22:25, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
How is adding a legitimate user category "harassment" in the slightest? There's no obligation for that category to be there; that's fine. I merely added a category (not a significant edit, despite your last comment) that the user had the full right to remove at their discretion, as I felt it was in the user's best interest to have it there. You could have blocked me, but that would have been a gross misuse of the mop since I made a legitimate category addition in good faith. Enough with the baseless accusations and empty threats, please. Chase (talk | contributions) 22:58, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, if they remove the category you added that should be a good sign that it isn't wanted there. There is no good reason to re-add it afterwards against the user's wishes. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:17, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
↑ That. If you're trying to force someone else to do something which you know they don't want to do, for no reason than that you want them to do it, then you are the one in the wrong, not them. Incidentally, having looked more closely the "aggressive edit summary" in question was That this is an alt account is implicit in the redirect. There is no obligation to put alt accounts in this category (mine isn't, for instance); please stop re-adding it against the user's wishes. I can't even begin to think how you get "aggressive" from that, unless there's some kind of "I'm never wrong so not following my wishes is prima facie evidence of aggression since it's impossible there could ever be a legitimate reason to revert me" thing going on. ‑ Iridescent 08:33, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Maybe you should actually look at the edits instead of blindly following a talk page thread... I added a banner that was removed in favor of a redirect. I added a category to the existing redirect. Chase (talk | contributions) 17:11, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
It's pretty much the same edit either way and more importantly it will be perceived in the same way. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:41, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Village Pump

Hi, please correct your statement [3]. Nobody was proposing to abandon WP:NPOV. Instead, I suggest you replace it with alter WP:NOTADVOCATE. --Asterixf2 (talk) 14:55, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

As I suspect you know perfectly well, WP:NOTADVOCATE is a corollary of WP:NPOV. You want Wikipedia to give increased prominence to a hyper-fringe theory; to do so would breach WP:NPOV. We don't do "teach the controversy" here; as multiple people have already told you, if you want to publicise a theory which isn't given any credence by the scientific community, do it on another wiki or a blog as Wikipedia is not the place for it. ‑ Iridescent 15:04, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Please do not misrepresent me. I insist that you modify your statement on the discussion page appropriately so that the case may be closed unless you would like to escalate. --Asterixf2 (talk) 15:07, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm not misrepresenting you in any way; you've had the interaction of NPOV and NOTADVOCATE explained to you at least four times in that thread by at least four different people, and you're doing nothing but berate them for disagreeing with you. Feel free to 'escalate' this however you see fit—ANI is thataway—although Guy Macon gives good advice when he points out that it will at best lead to a topic ban for you from fringe theories if this remains open any further. That you don't like the answer you've been given, doesn't mean it's not the answer you'll continue to get if you keep asking. ‑ Iridescent 15:21, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Please change 'abandon WP:NPOV' to 'alter WP:NOTADVOCATE'. I will accept the closure if you do. Therefore I kindly ask you to agree on that. --Asterixf2 (talk) 15:27, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
I'd recommend against that. The editing pattern you described is frequently used to circumvent WP:DUE which is something other people alluded to. So yes, NPOV is definitively related. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:31, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Of course it is related, that is why I have written in the discussion for example: For instance, I have pointed out that WP:NPOV, including WP:UNDUE are sufficient to handle legitimate cases.. Therefore I was encouraging use of WP:NPOV not proposing to abandon it... --Asterixf2 (talk) 15:34, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
For the third time, in the context in which you're using it "alter WP:NOTADVOCATE" and "abandon WP:NPOV" are synonymous, since the portion of NOTADVOCATE you're proposing abandoning is Articles must be balanced to put entries […] in a reasonable perspective, and represent a neutral point of view. (my emphasis). Any further posts from you on this talkpage regarding this matter will be removed. ‑ Iridescent 15:34, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. --Asterixf2 (talk) 18:34, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Mammon

"remove easter egg ELs from body text"? Sorry, I don't know the term. I was finding an external link for a painting reference that otherwise had no image associated with it. Morfusmax (talk) 22:03, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

(For the benefit of TPWs, the edit in question is here.)
That't not what we do on Wikipedia; with the exception of a very few older articles which were referenced in the now-deprecated embedded citation style and haven't yet been converted to inline citation format, the only links that should be in the body text of Wikipedia articles are links to other Wikipedia articles, or on very rare occasions links to Wikipedia's sister projects like Commons and Wiktionary. Because "clicking on the highlighted word or phrase takes you to the Wikipedia article on that topic" is such a well-established convention, no link outside the references or external link sections should take people to an external site since doing so would be an undocumented feature, or easter egg. When you see something in ALLCAPS in an edit summary, that (usually) means that it's the shortcut for the Wikipedia documentation for the edit, in this case WP:EL, in which you'll see External links should not normally be used in the body of an article.
In the particular case of the links you added, these links additionally fail #11 and #13 of WP:ELNO so shouldn't be used anyway. The only external links on an article should directly relate to the article's subject, which these obviously didn't. Additionally, www.georgefredericwatts.org is not remotely a reliable source, but an extremely dubious-looking site mixing user-generated content and a marketing operation selling reproductions (which I strongly suspect are just printouts from Commons), and is never going to be remotely appropriate for use as an external link. In the unlikely event that a reader does want to see what For He Had Great Possessions looks like before I get around to writing it, said readers are perfectly capable of using a search engine—we shouldn't be directing readers to a particular commercial operation without extremely good reason. ‑ Iridescent 17:32, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Jaitharia Brahmin

(Jaitharia Brahmin ) please go through restoration process , Bettiah Raj of Bihar in India was the one of the popular and largest zamindari system , they were popularly known as the Jaithariya zamindar or now known as Bhumihar Brahmin family. Pandit9999 (talk) 19:13, 5 October 2016 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Pandit9999 (talk • contribs) 19:11, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Assuming you mean Jaitharia, it read in full Jaithariya or jaitharia are the Brahmins community of Bettiah raj , Sir Gangeswar Deo are the descendent from this clan. Who got land's from the ancient Kings in the form of Alms and Became Landlords or Zamindar . They are very popular for Ayurveda knowledge from ancient times . According to Hindu Mythology , they got land's from the Parashuram because at that time , Kashyap Rishi was the head priest of the Brahmins . These people's come from Kashyap Gotra Brahmins . I'm not going to restore that, since there's no possible way it will survive a deletion debate and there's no point wasting peoples' time with a week-long discussion. ‑ Iridescent 20:19, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
Talk:Bhumihar#Evidences against Bhumihar, just in case anyone is following this. ‑ Iridescent 17:57, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

DYK for Mammon (painting)

On 17 October 2016, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Mammon (painting), which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that George Frederic Watts's Mammon (pictured) depicts the Biblical embodiment of greed, which crushes "whatever is weak and gentle and timid and lovely"? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Mammon (painting). You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Mammon (painting)), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Gatoclass (talk) 00:01, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
Heh, almost beat the TFA for pageviews. ‑ Iridescent 18:23, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Photos of memorials and monuments

Henry Pagett memorial
Edward Carr memorial

Can I get your views on the utility of photos of monuments and memorials? When I was first taking photos of such things, I assumed there would always be a use for them on Wikipedia. I'm not so sure any more. I don't know whether it is Wikipedia that lacks the coverage, or whether the sheer volume of such memorials and monuments (both in public places and in churches and other similar places) means there is a long tail of (lack of) 'notability', but it feels like only some of the photos will really be used on Wikipedia, and others will only ever be of interest to those with more than a passing interest. The example here is commons:Category:St John the Baptist's Church, Hillingdon. Twenty-five of the photos there are ones I took (all except the geograph ones of the church itself - I did remember to take an external shot of the church, but have not uploaded it yet). Most are WWI ones, given my interest in that (the main reason for my visit), but two (rather nice ornate memorials) are from a different period.

The monument to the Earl of Uxbridge is to this chap. But there seems to be no article on Edward Carr, unless he is the first of the Carr baronets? I think the memorial is to the eldest son (and heir apparent) of the first Carr baronet. (There are closer-up views of the inscriptions if that helps.) I suppose writing articles on 17th-century baronets is a stretch too far, even for some? There may, ironically, given the right sources, be more (or as much) to say about the memorials than about the person being commemorated. Commons, as is its wont, has loads of pictures like these, that will almost certainly never be more than a passing footnote in any article, but help bolster the 'image repository' function of Commons. Though finding such pictures can be difficult at times. Carcharoth (talk) 23:38, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I guess it depends how much you subscribe to the "anything that could conceivably be of any use to anyone, ever" school of thought which prevails at Commons (and also how much you subscribe to Commons per se—I now refuse to upload anything I've created or photographed myself to Commons and only use it to dump public domain material taken from other websites, as I don't wish to be a part of their toxic internal culture, and I'm certainly not alone in that).
  • For "monument by a notable sculptor" definitely, since one can easily imagine someone studying that sculptor wanting to see their entire output, even if the photos are never actually used in a Wikipedia article;
  • For "non-notable grave of/memorial to a notable or potentially individual", I'd say no if it's just a generic "here lies", yes if the inscription itself or the design of the monument is interesting. (I'd have been more than happy if someone had already uploaded some pictures of Alice Ayres's grave and I hadn't needed to trek out to bloody Isleworth to photograph the thing.);
  • For non-noteworthy monuments to non-notable individuals, I'd say it depends on how they relate to their setting. Remember that even if nobody is ever going to be interested in the person buried there, they might well be interested in the church, graveyard or memorial; St John the Baptist's Church, Hillingdon is certainly a notable topic in Wikipedia terms and if anyone writes it they might well want to illustrate the interior;
  • For non-noteworthy monuments to non-noteworthy individuals—particularly in the context of military burials where the graves tend to be identical—I'd say just a couple of representative photos of individual markers to give an idea of the design, and an overall shot to put them in context and give an idea of scale.
HJ Mitchell, do you concur with all this?
On the baronet issue, it was decided long ago (in the wake of one overenthusiastic family historian who wrote biographies of every entry in his family tree) that baronetcies don't confer notability. Peerages confer notability since (pre Blair) hereditary peerages imply membership in the legislature of a major nation, while life peerages imply notable deeds to earn the title and significant non-trivial coverage of the title being awarded; baronetcies don't denote anything other than being related to someone important, and notability is not inherited in Wikipedia's terms. Choess or BrownHairedGirl will be able to point out the original discussion if you need it (browse through the discussions linked here if you want background). ‑ Iridescent 17:28, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
If there's one thing I've learnt being a Wikipedian, it's that you never know what might be useful. I've used photos from Commons that I'm sure the photographer never dreamt would be used in a Wikipedia article, and I've seen cases of photographers managing to stand next to the only interesting thing in a village to take photos of everything else in the village. And who the hell uploads only a photo like this? So if I go somewhere to take photos, I take as many as I can of everything I can see (time, battery, and memory card permitting). It does no harm sitting there on Commons, and if you give it a useful description and title it'll show up in Google results; someone might find a use for it. There's nothing more frustrating than coming to write an article and finding that you've got all the photos except the one you want to illustrate some key point. As for Commons, the toxic culture is largely the work of a handful of people; if you avoid the internal politics and focus on uploading/categorising/etc, it can be quite peaceful. You could say much the same of enwiki: if you spend all your time at ANI or in the Wikipedia talk namespace you'd quickly become disillusioned. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:12, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
A1 in Barnet
Sludge pipe from Walthamstow Reservoirs
Gasometer and pylons in Tottenham
Hey, I uploaded these fine images, all of which are actually in use on Wikipedia (Gasometer & Pylons is actually in use on multiple Wikipedias)—never underestimate what people can find a use for. ‑ Iridescent 19:31, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
It's the first rule of the commercial picture library biz that you never know which pics someone will find a use for. Hi, HJ! Johnbod (talk) 01:07, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Did someone say "writing articles on 17th-century baronets?" Sure, why not? The Sir Edward Carr memorialized doesn't appear to have any connection to the Carr baronets in Lincolnshire that I can see, but his daughter Philadelphia was mother of Sir John Clerke, 1st Baronet of Hitcham; she was described a coheiress, so presumably Sir Edward left daughters but no surviving sons. And he's the second person described here, so either he or his uncle sat for Camelford in the House of Commons late in the reign of James I.
Iridescent's pretty well described the situation that led to our current policies on baronets (the editor he mentioned got into a dust-up with some Irish nationalist editors, who proceeded to raze and salt his walled garden as best they could); to be perhaps a little more precise, I'd say that peers (at least pre-1999 peers) enjoy a presumption of notability as de jure legislators, while individual baronets have no such presumption, as they could inherit the title and do nothing notable whatsoever during their life (but can still have articles if they meet the GNG). We do treat baronetcies as presumptively notable, since both Debrett's and Burke's serve as sources for lists of all the creations of baronetcies and their holders. Back about nine years ago (good grief!), when we were trying to come to agreement on dealing with this issue, I came up with a summary style that lets you redirect the individual baronets to anchors on the baronetcy page, but I haven't applied it to very many articles. See Abdy baronets for an example. A page like that could certainly accommodate some images of memorials and the like interspersed among the sub-stubby biographical entries. Given time, energy, and a copy of Burke's Landed Gentry and other miscellaneous references as needed, I don't see any reason you couldn't create similar pages about gentry families of local importance who had never borne hereditary titles. (As C.S. Lewis says of Hingest in That Hideous Strength, "never contaminated by traitor, placeman or baronetcy".)
Anyway, my take is not to be afraid of photographing esoterica. There is a wealth of detail in sources like the Victoria County History which, as Iridescent notes of the church above, meets our standards of notability but which we've hardly begun to incorporate into the encyclopedia. For that matter, if it's categorized well enough to find, some local historian may well be grateful for this sort of detail to save them trouble giving a talk, even if they're not writing a Wikipedia article. Choess (talk) 03:31, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
I'd say a baronetcy—as opposed to its individual holders—is always going to be noteworthy, since presumably its original holder did something noteworthy to cause the title to be granted in the first place. The individual baronets, other than the first, not so much; we don't host biographies of the children of film stars and footballers unless they do something noteworthy in their own right, and given the sums of money involved and the way the modern press operates, Romeo Beckham, Suri Cruise etc almost certainly have considerably more of an impact on the world than most baronets.
Speaking of inherited wealth and people of dubious notability, if anyone really fancies a thankless task some time, take a look at Vanderbilt family. With its combination of breezy sub-Hello ramblings and obsessively-drawn "one drop of blood and you're included" family trees, it gives the impression of having been a collaboration between Lady Catherine de Burgh and the guy who tried to catalogue every house in his street. ‑ Iridescent 17:49, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

I'll try and come back to some of these points later (thanks for the comments so far). I have now finished uploading everything I photographed in those two churches (one in Hillingdon, one in Busbridge in Surrey, yeah I know, miles apart!). I could (should) have photographed a lot more, but was really only intending to focus on the WWI memorials. See if you (anyone reading this) thinks the amount of detail is useful, especially the laborious transcriptions (which do help people find stuff):

Some of the photos in the 'other versions' area of the photos give more details. No time to label them. Feel free to turn the gallery to links if the number of images is overwhelming the page. Carcharoth (talk) 08:00, 18 October 2016 (UTC) PS. I am hoping someone is able to decipher what the inscription is along the base of the gravestone here. It doesn't seem to be covered in the available sources. Carcharoth (talk) 10:03, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Non omnis moriar, which reminds me of Henrietta Lacks. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 10:16, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks!. Carcharoth (talk) 10:35, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
The photos of the stained glass would be useful in the article on the church (which needs a lot of work; churches aren't my speciality—I just threw it together when I wrote Busbridge War Memorial), as would photos of the memorials if the article was longer. The two CWGC headstones could be useful, even if just for illustrating the effect that WWI had, even on tiny hamlets in rural Surrey, and they'll show up in Google results if somebody's researching those individuals in particular (Which reminds me, I meant to go back to Richmond Cemetery and take photos of the war graves—I was in a hurry last time I was there and just did the cenotaph and the Bromhead Memorial—but you two are both much closer to that neck of the woods than I am...). I see you've found a use for McLaren's headboard in his article, and it would also fit in List of works by Edwin Lutyens; one day I'll get round to writing Edwin Lutyens and war memorials or whatever I decide to call it and his memorials to individuals killed in the war might fit within that scope. The Jekyll memorial would be useful in the articles on the family members and might merit an article in its own right. You could probably justify a gallery for Charles Thomas Mills we poo-poo galleries on enwiki, partly out of (misplaced) deference to Commons and partly because they become a dumping ground for irrelevant images, but thoughtful galleries can be justified. The war memorials are interesting, albeit not notable; I'd love to think we could have a freely licensed photo of every war memorial in Britain, but I always think war memorials are interesting, even the small ones. So there you go, most if not all of them could be useful, even if not necessarily on Wikipedia. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:08, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. Wrong small town in Surrey. :-) Abinger Common War Memorial goes with St James's Church, Abinger Common and Busbridge War Memorial goes with Busbridge Church. The point is still valid, though. I can get to Richmond Cemetery again easily. Remind me if I don't do that soon. Carcharoth (talk) 12:43, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm a northerner, and sleep-deprived to boot. How am I supposed to keep track of all these leafy suburbs in the Home Counties? ;) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:48, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Looking at List of works by Edwin Lutyens has made me realise that (aside from one short paragraph on Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral we don't have an article on his Liverpool Catholic Cathedral design, which has a decent claim to be the most noteworthy unbuilt building in the world. (The other contender for the title, Daniel Libeskind's World Trade Center redesign, also doesn't have an article.) ‑ Iridescent 19:12, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
There are always articles missing on things that could have good articles written about, yes? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:14, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Certainly, but some are more surprising than others (we didn't have an article on Chemical Weapon for ten years, and when we did get one it looked like this). ‑ Iridescent 19:18, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Convenience break: Archibald Keightley Nicholson

Ah, bingo! The WWI stained glass memorial windows in Busbridge Church are by Archibald Keightley Nicholson. That qualifies them to go in a list of his works (though I note with some trepidation that he made "over 700 windows"), so all is good there. They are so beautiful I thought they must have been made by a master craftsman. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 20:07, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Archibald Keightley Nicholson could do with the WP:TNT treatment—it's one of those articles where you come away feeling like you knew less about the subject than when you started. This addition in particular is something of an exercise in "how many inappropriate things can I do in a single edit?". ‑ Iridescent 15:46, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
You may be right about that. I did notice the "some rather unfortunate twee baby angels" bit. For some reason, I can't get too worked up about that sort of thing. I did start swearing out loud when I came across this, but then I remembered that Wikipedia mirrors are the universe's way of providing karma. And then, while trying to find out what "the heights hold peace" meant for whichever relative (I forget which, and sometimes it is not clear) requested the epitaph for Valentine Fleming, I came across this site: Epitaphs of the Great War. I think I may have died and gone to heaven (811 epitaphs to read about). OK, that is maybe not the best turn of phrase to use when talking about epitaphs! But the whole intersection of history and literary allusions and overtones of grief contained in those simple words engraved on the headstones (and on other memorials, which had more room and were often more wordy) is so evocative. And there are gems in the blog entries, such as this. Anyway, Fleming is here. I wonder if the others are there as well? It looks like the author of that site (and the similar book) only covered inscriptions from the Somme, so maybe not. Carcharoth (talk) 01:17, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
I find it very hard to get upset about bad writing on Wikipedia as long as it's not actively inaccurate—my general attitude towards Wikipedia in its current form is that it's a sea of manure in which occasional flowers bloom, and that since the manure pile has grown exponentially while the editor base hasn't, the detritus at the bottom of the pile is well past the point of unmanageability and the best editors can do is identify, protect and improve the bits that aren't garbage so that Wikipedia's successor knows which parts are worth reusing.* Although I've had very harsh things to say about the whole article assessment bureaucracy in the past—why does anyone care whether an article is rated B or C class, since the proposed CD-ROM for which that was intended as an inclusion filter has long since gone the way of the dinosaurs (although the corpse has recently seen some twitching)—I can still see a validity in "this version in the history has been reviewed and does not appear to contain any significant errors and omissions". I'm not a fan of stating value judgements as fact (as with the case of the aforementioned twee angels), while per my comments a couple of threads down people trying to slip in links to external websites disguised as internal wikilinks is one of my pet hates—you and I are aware that means "this link is taking you off Wikipedia" but since that's a convention no non-Mediawiki site uses we can hardly expect our readers to know it. ‑ Iridescent 16:08, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
No, this is not the failed Citizendium model—I have no problem with people writing articles on their pets, favourite bands, girlfriends etc provided they can find enough to say and adequately source it, provided all the The Crowns, Pasichnes, Dat Ovens and Oh Long Johnsons are appropriately segregated. I wouldn't be heartbroken if the whole St–S–C–B–G–A–F scale (do you realise how ridiculous that scale looks to any external observer) were abolished and replaced with a single hypersimplified "is this article crap?" assessment process, with everything that hasn't been through said process automatically flagged with enormous unhideable "don't trust this" banners; I also think we should be cracking down much more harshly on anything that's inadequately referenced
Article assessments are only useful if anyone is using them, especially to search for high importance (or view) and low quality articles, which they then improve. These days the number of people doing that must be far fewer than those just doling out ratings, who are surely mostly wasting their time. But there are some, & I sometimes check the Visual arts most-viewed list for such, & work on them. Sadly, this very useful tool has apparently been abandoned & has not been run since March 2016. Wake up WMF! Johnbod (talk) 16:22, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
A lot of those tools stopped working when Labs was shut down and haven't been coaxed back to life. According to history of Mr.Z-man, who wrote that tool, appears to be inactive; there was a brief discussion about the WMF finding other people to take on some of his bot's tasks. These are the people you need to pester. ‑ Iridescent 16:35, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
(adding) These stats must still be being collected somewhere, as User:West.andrew.g uses them to create WP:5000 each week—if you ask him nicely he may know a way to filter that data by topic. ‑ Iridescent 16:37, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Or you could start a Phabricator task, I imagine. Contrary to common misconception "WMF" and "developers" are not a mutually exclusive thing. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:38, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Sure, but Phabricator tasks tend to languish and die unless it was something a dev was planning to do anyway. If you have a clear idea of what needs doing and how it should be done, poking strategically selected individuals tends to be more productive. ‑ Iridescent 16:44, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
There are always more people asking for stuff to be done by others than people doing stuff. Which ties in not only to Phabricator but also to article cleanup (and maintenance tags). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:53, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
Exactly; if you need something doing but aren't able to do it yourself, it's more important to locate someone who can do it and persuade them that doing so is either a higher priority than what they were planning to do, or that it would be interesting/fun for them to do it. Wikipedia may have a culture of "This is a problem, I'm not going to fix it myself so I'll just pop this tag/request/talkpage comment here and hope someone stumbles across it", but I've never seen any evidence of it being effective either here or on Bugzilla/Phabricator. (There are still over 5000 entries in Category:Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007—maintenance tags really don't have any effect other than annoying people.) ‑ Iridescent 19:59, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

The sheer size of Wikipedia means that even small parts being useful make it very useful. The areas I tend to read and use relate to biographies of safely dead and/or safely famous people, mostly in various areas of the history of science. In that area, I know from direct experience over at least 7-8 years that there are missing articles and some dreadful articles, but there are a surprising number of moderately OK articles that (at least superficially) provide enough for a quick-and-dirty overview. Most people using Wikipedia like that develop a sense for which articles are OK and which are not. At times, I have produced lists (mostly offline) of which articles I consulted, and where articles were missing. Sometimes the missing articles would be created later (very rarely by me, as not enough time). For my purposes at least, Wikipedia has always been, and remains, very useful. i.e. It is surprisingly easy to ignore the dross. It is also easy to get caught up in trying to fix the dross (or trying to assess how much of it there is) and thinking the whole thing is mostly manure. Rather than flowers in manure, it might be more like blooms in an untended, overgrown garden, or a woodland area with some swampy areas and some mighty trees, and gardeners tending to delicate flowers, and foresters with chainsaws hacking away at the dead wood. And surveyors making careful notes on the state of the plants and putting up notices that annoy everyone else. And toxic plants and fungi, some of which look harmless. This analogy could run and run... Carcharoth (talk) 04:43, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, seeing as (AFAIK) I was the person who first used the "Wikipedia articles as flowers" analogy, if anyone has the right to flog that particular simile to death it's me… On a dip-sample with 10 pages from Special:Random (Ian Alsop, Mary Kay (landscape photographer), Hani Garmaleh, Bob Skube, Dick Bosman, Chedid, I Dared to Live, Mill Creek (South Branch Potomac River), ISO 3166-2:ZA, Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 1969 if you want to play along at home) I get 2 totally useless, 4 minimal information, 2 adequate-but-less-useful-than-googling, 1 decent quality, 1 n/a—although this is a tiny sample I suspect it reflects Wikipedia as a whole pretty well. ‑ Iridescent 10:02, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Them twee baby angels have flown too close to a pitcher plant. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 10:49, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for copy-editing that article. :-) @Iridescent, On the random sampling method, that is good at identifying the relative proportions of articles and their quality, but it doesn't relate to how good a particular area is. If someone is only using Wikipedia to look up things in a relatively small area, and is finding Wikipedia mostly useful for that area, then they will have a good impression of Wikipedia. i.e. There might be a lot of crap, but if no-one is actually reading or using the crap articles, then in a bizarre sense, things are sort of OK. Kind of like no-one being around to hear trees falling in a wood. Of course the crap articles should be dealt with, but the effect they have might be over-estimated (I'm not saying they have no effect, but how do you measure the effect they have - look at the page views?). Carcharoth (talk) 11:47, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Indeed. If you look at the views, I'm surely hardly anyone every reads these articles, like most on Wikipedia. An equivalent random sampling of WP based on the views (such as auditors use, but with values) would give a very different picture. I doubt we are able to do this though. Johnbod (talk) 12:05, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
I've repeated the exercise with articles #500, #1000 etc from today's version of WP:5000 to get a pseudorandom sampling of Wikipedia's most-viewed pages (Salman Khan, Harrison Ford, Bed size, Tina Fey, Saif Ali Khan, Dive Bar Tour, Jim Jones, Indus Valley Civilisation, Terrelle Pryor, Justine Bateman). I get 1 useless, 1 poor, 1 adequate, 5 better-than-could-be-expected-by-going-to-Google-and-checking-"I feel lucky", and 2 good quality. Using Wikipedia's own assessment scale, 148 of the 5000 most-viewed articles are still flagged as stubs. It probably wouldn't be beyond the bounds of possibility to take a random or pseudorandom sample of page views (say, every page dished up by the server in a given second) to calculate what proportion of Wikipedia's readership are looking at a piece of rubbish at any given time, but I'm not sure it would really be worth the effort.
Looking at that WP:5000 list also makes you realise how few highly-viewed articles we have compared to the long tail, and how few pageviews it actually takes to get into the chart—on at least one occasion William Etty has made it onto the list, and last month Tarrare (as low-importance a topic as can be imagined) was well into the top 1000. ‑ Iridescent 18:01, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

+Source

For Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, I thought you might find something useful (a fun quote or whathaveyou) in this work. EEng 00:18, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

It's not letting me in (fairly common with GBooks, which are generally only accessible in the US), although that article is probably already too quote-heavy. Because of the whole "first day of the Industrial Revolution" thing, that's an article which definitely doesn't suffer from a lack of sources. (As I'm fond of pointing out when people try to defend the ridiculous "thorough survey of the relevant literature" criterion, the Bibliography of British Railway History alone lists over 20,000 works, and the opening of the L&M is probably the single most covered topic among those works, while the surviving 1830 buildings are now one of Europe's major museums.) The reason I reference Simon Garfield so much isn't that there's nothing else out there, but that his book is a lot more comprehensible for people who don't already understand (or want to understand) (1) the technical background of how and why atmospheric engines and wagonways operate and why it took over 100 years for anyone to consider combining the two, (2) the internal politics of the Tory Party in the early 19th century, and (3) the near-unique status of Manchester in this period (see sidetrack section below).
I always try to write with Giano's hypothetical "bright 14 year old with no prior knowledge" in mind as a target market, and if I point them towards something like Garfield, or Christian Wolmar's Fire and Steam (or indeed Fanny Kemble's Record of a Girlhood, which is an absolutely fascinating read which I'd recommend to anyone), there's a fighting chance they'll read and absorb it for themselves, whereas if I point readers towards earnest monographs with titles like Liverpool and Manchester Railway operations, 1831–1845 or William Huskisson and Liberal Reform; an essay on the changes in economic policy in the twenties of the nineteenth century they'll just take Wikipedia's word for it. ‑ Iridescent 10:01, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Lengthy tangent about Manchester
I had to leave a lot of this out to avoid bloating the article, and our existing Manchester article doesn't do it justice, but "why Manchester?" is a topic which deserves better coverage on Wikipedia. So many of the pioneering engineering megaprojects of the Industrial Revolution (the Bridgewater Canal, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the Manchester Ship Canal, the London and North Western Railway…) derive from the need to get coal and raw material to the factories of Manchester and to get manufactured goods from Manchester to ports for export and to big cities for sale; I'm sure 99.9% of people, if they think about it at all, wonder why a city hundreds of miles from major markets, with appalling transport links and no significant raw materials, ended up the focal point of the entire world's cotton industry despite being about as far from a cottonfield as any place on earth. The accepted version of events ("the Irwell flowed fast enough to drive waterwheels so the local sheep farmers brought their wool there for weaving; when water-power was replaced by steam it was cheaper to ship coal to the existing mills than to move the machinery; a lack of representative government meant people could build polluting factories without complaints from the locals; the slave-states in the US didn't want to sell their cotton to the north so shipped their raw cotton to England instead, and Manchester was the only place with mills set up to handle high volumes of textiles") has never made much sense to me—surely "build your factories near an existing port" made more sense than "build your factories 35 miles from the coast and commit yourself for the rest of your firm's existence to shipping all your fuel and raw materials in and completed products out, using a single canal and railway line", and even the most dimwitted southern plantation owner could have figured out that "build the cotton mill on the Mississippi" would work out cheaper in the long run than "ship hundreds of thousands of bales of raw cotton 6000 miles by sailing ship and then ship all the processed cotton back to New York". ‑ Iridescent 10:01, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
If I'd hazard a guess, "southern plantation owners" did not have the capital, the know-how or even the interest in doing this. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:09, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
That doesn't really add up—all it takes to set up a cotton mill is a loom and a power source (either a waterwheel or a heat engine of some kind), it doesn't need some kind of highly specialist equipment which was unique to Lancashire, the concept of capital was already well-established in the US, and there were plenty of cities in the area with enough of a critical mass of a workforce to staff mills. Although the antebellum South was a primarily agrarian economy, that didn't mean the entire population lounged around all day drinking mint juleps and whipping slaves; the South had one of the largest iron foundries on the entire continent, for instance. A cotton mill somewhere like New Orleans, using coal and wood coming down the river to process cotton coming down the coast, would have been perfectly viable. Remember, transatlantic steamships didn't start coming into service until the late 1830s—the US shipping cotton to the UK for processing in the early 1800s was economically crazy, quite aside from the security issues of having the economy utterly reliant on a potentially hostile foreign power. (Even if for some reason the US couldn't weave cotton themselves, it still doesn't answer "why Manchester?", since the UK could just as easily have built the cotton mills on the coast and avoided having to send all the goods along the Bridgewater Canal. The modern-day equivalent would be if Tropicana flew all their oranges from Florida to Kazakhstan to be squeezed. It's not equivalent to the modern practice of outsourcing manufacture to China, since that's driven by lower labor costs and Britain probably had the highest wages in the world.) ‑ Iridescent 10:34, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
At what point did cotton mills get built in the USA and in places other than Manchester? How long was the period when Manchester had a monopoly? Or maybe look at it from the other angle: if the 19th-century engineers and UK governments had the money and motivation to carry out these megaprojects, did the locations really matter? Did they not see themselves as improving the lot of the public and improving infrastructure, as much as the business angles? See Northern Powerhouse today. The Victorian era is a bit later, but maybe the same ambitious and forward-looking mindset was present earlier as well? Or maybe it was a question of the location of skilled labour? Carcharoth (talk) 12:05, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
I assure you, the government of Regency England wasn't concerned with the welfare of Manchester—remember that at least part of the reason there was so much industry concentrated in Manchester and Birmingham was that neither was represented in Parliament, so there was no risk of the government having to listen to jumped-up oiks complaining about the toxic waste in the air and water and the atrocious working conditions. (It's no coincidence at all that Chartism and Communism have their roots in Birmingham and Manchester respectively.)
According to our own Cotton mill article, the first cotton mills in the US were established in New England just after the Revolution, and the first modern US mill was built in Boston in 1814 by someone who'd got around British export restrictions by visiting the Lancashire mills and memorising the designs of what he'd seen, but mills weren't built in the South until after the Civil War. There's no explanation as to why. ‑ Iridescent 18:16, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Industralization occurred first in the northern US as far as I know. Maybe they were more urbanized and had more people seeking to create and expand industries in comparison to the south. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:23, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, but that still doesn't really add up—everywhere else, new towns and industries grew around the natural resources (potteries in the Black Country, oil refineries in Texas, heavy industry in the Ruhr, sawmills in Canada, metal smelters in Nevada…). I find it hard to think of any comparable situation to the practice of shipping cotton from the US, Egypt, India etc to Manchester for spinning and then shipping the finished goods back for sale, even today where shipping is orders of magnitude cheaper and quicker. (The antebellum south may have been less urbanized than the north but it still had its share of big cities, and by definition their labor costs were lower than elsewhere.) ‑ Iridescent 08:08, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
I think it's been controversial for a long time whether slavery could power an industrialization process, my impression has alwayse been though that slaves make for a poor workforce never mind a low strength market. The ethos of Southern plantation owners may also have been an obstacle.
Also, what about travel costs? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:47, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
This was pre-railroad, remember—anywhere on the Mississippi or the Gulf Coast was better connected than anywhere else in the US other than New York City and Chicago. (And it still doesn't answer the "why Manchester?" question—even if everything had to be shipped to Britain for processing, having the cotton mills somewhere like South Wales would have been a shorter sea journey, had just as much access to cheap coal for fuel and a ready supply of labor, and would have allowed the ships to dock alongside the mills negating the need for canals and railways.) ‑ Iridescent 16:22, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
Similar mystery - why did the high and late Middle Ages have sheep raised in England and Spain but made into cloth in the Low Countries and Italy? Granted ocean shipping but still... Ealdgyth - Talk 16:33, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
It was mainly the highest quality cloth that was made in the Low Countries and Italy, where they had large export markets which no doubt required more than the local supply. These were both relatively urbanized areas with prosperous farming & high costs, whereas Yorkshire and Suffolk.... Johnbod (talk) 18:11, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
I have similar thoughts whenever I see New Zealand butter and cheese on sale. Some things, I can see that they'd be out of season in the Northern Hemisphere and need to be shipped in from elsewhere, or be something that doesn't grow in the North American or European climate, but it's not as if either the US or UK are suffering from a shortage of cows and even if the cost of feeding and milking is cheaper there I don't see how it can possibly work out cheaper to ship something 20,000 miles in cold storage. ‑ Iridescent 16:59, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Shipping cost (unrefrigerated) appears to be about 7 pence per tonne per nautical mile (a very rough estimate), which works out at £1,200 for NZ->UK, or 25p per 250g of (rather rancid) butter. Retails at about 1.20 upwards. Given that NZ lamb apparently can spend up to ten years sailing the salty seas maybe there's a huge butterberg floating around off Antartica, which calves when the market's right. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 17:18, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
I remember a Well Known Fact (which may or may not have been true) from my younger days, that government farm subsidies meant there was so much wheat being grown in the midwest that there was no domestic market for it, but European protectionist laws prevented it being exported anywhere, so it was being plowed back into the land because there weren't enough elevators to store it. Given the way the government works, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it were true—the European wine lake is certainly a real thing. (On a related note, I always wondered what happened to all the city-based horses once automobiles became widely available—was there a mass slaughter, did they all get sold off to less developed countries that still had a use for them, or did they just castrate all the stallions, stop breeding any more and let them die out?) ‑ Iridescent 17:47, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
Some of the last and also some of got sold for dog food. Also some of "retired to pasture". Keep in mind that the really BIG draft horses (Shires, Clydesdales, etc) were actually developed more for hauling than for farming. Most farmers favor a mid-size draft (Belgian, Percheron, etc) rather than an 18 hh monster such as a Shire. So there was actually a prolonged downward drift with draft horse numbers. The big breeds went early as city hauling turned over to trucks and automobiles. The farming breeds lasted longer and it was generally a process of just not breeding as many more than slaughter. They are actually enjoying a very minor comeback between people interested in various hauling/etc contests as well as small scale farmers finding they are actually useful for homesteading. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:55, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
When I first came to England the Whitbread Brewery still stubbornly stuck to using teams of Shire horses to deliver beer. I've no idea how much it cost them, but it probably did more than any amount of advertising to raise their profile—there's no way you can ignore a pair of animals the size of industrial diggers holding up the traffic. (They also managed to deposit truly spectacular piles of manure in the road.) ‑ Iridescent 18:16, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
My elder half-siblings remember being around 10 and their grandfather (not mutual grandparents) using draft horses to "open up the fields" i.e. do the first harvesting run around the outside of a particular field for a couple of rows in. No idea why anyone would do that when they had a tractor but... he did. And wasn't alone in his little corner of Iowa either - dad told me all the farmers around there did that into the early 60s. Of course, I'm not 30 miles from one of the world's larger concentrations of Amish ... so seeing horses in the field isn't anything strange to me. When we were learning to drive in school, we always spent a bit of time down near Arcola with the instructor, learning how to drive around the buggies. You occasionally see one on the roads near my hometown, although the Amish usually hire vans to do their shopping at our local Wal-Mart, etc. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:53, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
There must be other ways of phrasing "European protectionist laws prevented it being exported anywhere"! Shades of the Opium War. They sold it to the Russians in the end, didn't they, without being sued by the EU. Johnbod (talk) 18:00, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
No, that was earlier—inevitably, we have an article on it. This was more 1980s when EEC protectionism was in full flow. ‑ Iridescent 18:12, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
It was a much longer term thing than that - see another snapshot at 1980 grain embargo. Johnbod (talk) 18:29, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

RfA candidate poll

Regarding this edit: would you consider changing "win" to some other phrase, to avoid implications that administrative privileges are a prize in a contest? isaacl (talk) 01:34, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

...they aren't? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 01:43, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
More like a booby prize. isaacl (talk) 03:21, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
"Win" just means "be successful in a contest" and RFA's administration do treat it as a pass/fail contest, albeit one with a singularly worthless prize, or they'd use the neutral language of "promoted"/"not promoted" (as is used in other places like FAC) rather than the existing and long-standing language of "success" and "failure". Jimbo's "no big deal" gubbins lost relevance circa 2008; participants do consider RFA a prize nowadays, since why would you put yourself through the stressful, time-consuming and unpleasant experience into which RFA has degenerated if you don't hope to gain something from it? ‑ Iridescent 10:01, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, was there a particular event(s) around 2008 that led to that shift in perception? Muffled Pocketed 10:25, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Active editors; note the surge in recruitment when the world discovered Wikipedia circa 2005–07, all of whom became eligible for RFA in 2006–08.
Admin promotions, foundation–2015. The spike and subsequent crash are very obvious.
Number of active admins, foundation–2012; since this chart was made, the number has dropped further and is about to drop below the 500 mark
There was a huge spike in recruitment in 2006–07, whose accounts started to become old enough to qualify in 2007–08, so over a relatively short period RFA went from being a place where a group of people who were already familiar with each other had a good-natured discussion about whether someone would to a good job, to a place where a mob had to analyse the histories of strangers at short notice. Coupled with that, a series of high-profile embarrassments in 2007–08 in which various existing admins were caught out doing things they shouldn't and where some of Wikipedia's more notorious 'colourful characters' managed to slip sockpuppet accounts through RFA (in at least one one case all the way onto Arbcom), and the general tightening of rules in the aftermath of the Seigenthaler incident, meant people became considerably less willing to turn blind eyes to indiscretions, and more prone to dig deep into candidate histories rather than accept their word for things, so over a relatively short period of time RFA went from a fairly good-natured rubber-stamping exercise to trial by ordeal. Kudpung and WereSpielChequers probably have some more information somewhere about all the hows and whys. ‑ Iridescent 11:04, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Hi, there was a steep fall in RFA passes in early 2008, I think this was caused at least in part by the unbundling of rollback. Aside from the coincidence of timing, from the RFAs I've looked at including old ones, this seems to be when "good vandalfighter" ceased to be sufficient qualification to pass RFA. I only started editing in 2007 and didn't look much outside mainspace for at least a few months after I joined, so I can't confirm or deny Iridescent's evidence of an era of scandals, but I see part of the response to sockpuppetry and "bad admins" as a de facto minimum on tenure. By 2010 you needed to have edited for 12 months, now perhaps 15 months. As for digging deep into candidate's contributions, I'm not convinced. Rather I think that as the de facto minimum number of edits required at RFA has increased so the main focus of the RFA crowd has shifted from the candidate's edits to the Q&A session. There are some of us who trawl the edits, and if you spot a pattern of errors you can derail an RFA. But I'm not convinced that many !voters do any digging. ϢereSpielChequers 12:50, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
"Promoted" has implications of rank, which many editors wish to avoid. I think it is reasonable to say that a request for administrative privileges has succeeded or failed. The word is describing the outcome of the request, and not focusing on the editor as a winner or loser. isaacl (talk) 16:22, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Possibly, but the rest of Wikipedia doesn't appear to feel the same way. Even our own Wikipedia administrators article uses the term "promoted", as does the guidance at the top of RFA (a bureaucrat will review the discussion to see whether there is a consensus for promotion), and Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship (A full understanding of what consensus to promote is, and understanding of when to and when not to promote). ‑ Iridescent 17:37, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Well, there are only so many ways to discuss the matter, so it isn't too surprising that "promote" is used for variety in articles. The RfA page itself uses the term "grant", so "granted/not granted" is probably a good way to refer to a request's outcome. Another drawback of "winning" is that it implies competition, whereas one person being granted administrative privileges does not impede someone else's request from being fulfilled. isaacl (talk) 17:49, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
I keep trying to squelch "promoted", with obviously limited success. It's far from the most annoying thing about RfA-related discourse, though. (I'm on board with "everyone who has posted at WT:RFA more than ten times in the past year is obviously not helping and is hereby topic-banned", and yes, that includes me.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 18:14, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Sounds like the Wild West  :) thanks for the very interesting historical insights all. Muffled Pocketed 13:46, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
@WereSpielChequers, you don't really need to dig too hard to find the evidence for the Golden Age of Admin Abuse; just look at how much longer the desysop list is for 2007 and 2008 compared to any other year (when you discount the "inactivity" desysops in later years), or have a trawl through Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Cases/All where you'll see that in 2005–2008 there were around 100 Arb cases per year (for comparison, this is the case archive for all of 2016). Don't just look at the remedies but at the actual case pages, as the pre-NYB Arbcom operated on an unusual interpretation of 'ethics' in which an admin's word was generally taken above that of a non-admin unless there was overwhelming evidence to the contrary, in which "being annoying" was treated as a blockable offence in its own right, and where (prior to The Incident in 2009) Jimmy Wales would occasionally poke his nose into proceedings demanding that sanctions not be imposed on people he liked, or that people against whom he had a grudge be sanctioned. You could do worse than start here, here, or here if you want to get a feeling for what Wikipedia was like in the transitional period between the end of the Wild West days but before the Maintenance Phase culture really took hold. If you're able to get hold of her, Kelly Martin is usually an inexhaustible source of stories of the abuses from this period.

Regarding sock admins, Runcorn, Pastor Theo and Archtransit are a few fairly notorious sock accounts that made it through RFA that spring to mind, but there were plenty more like RickK/Zoe that were never formally investigated but just allowed to slink off, so aren't tagged as socks. There are also no doubt a fair few, including some who have worked their way up to high places, which have never been spotted as good-hand socks; every so often one of these does something stupid with their bad-hand account that prompts someone to look closely and blows their cover.

@Only in death does duty end, the reasons for the chaos at the WMF in 2007 aren't a secret and can be found if you're willing to dig, but the people responsible are all long since gone, and there's really nothing to be gained by publicly resurrecting that particularly sorry string of events. AFAIK even the WR/WO crowd feel the same way and strongly discourage anyone trying to discuss those involved. ‑ Iridescent 17:15, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Ah I may have been unclear, I am aware of the 'chaos' and its causes. I was commenting that there are a number of database 'holes' that are put down to hardware failure when they line up roughly with people/editor/WMF personnel ructions. They are just very convenient holes. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:56, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
The hardware certainly did fail fairly regularly back in St Petersburg days—the explosive growth coupled with the relatively low profile and thus lack of funding meant that the WMF—at that time a mix of enthusiastic amateurs and Jimmy's drinking buddies—were trying to run an operation with the computing requirements of a major multinational on a bunch of mismatched legacy software running on whatever hardware they could cobble together through the kindness of strangers. One of the main justifications for the move to California was that allowing Jimmy to schmooze with the West Coast industry bigwigs might mean some of them would pony up for decent hardware, software and financial support. (The official reason for the move, that California is a better place to recruit programmers, is purest horseshit; if you were the best in FL then the WMF was the only game in town, whereas if you're the best in CA then you have a near-infinite number of people willing to offer considerably better pay and working conditions than the WMF.) ‑ Iridescent 16:05, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
I need to dig out the little math exercise I did a while ago on WT:RFA to find out how many admins of a given generation are demopped under a cloud. If memory serves, it's a roughly constant percentage for every generation, but I don't remember the methodology. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:21, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
That makes sense to me. Large numbers of desysops would be expected from the large numbers of successful RFAs from the golden years. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 17:36, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Yep. I don't have the data handy, but I also looked at this awhile back. Peak RfA was mid 2005-2007, peak desysop was 2007-2009, and overall desysops tend to come 2-3 years after adminship, though the sample size is pretty small. IIRC there wasn't much of a cohort effect, but again sample sizes get tiny the later you look.
Also, I think we've still got "being annoying" as a blockable offense, we just call it "disruptive editing" now. Opabinia regalis (talk) 18:14, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
On TV Tropes, "being annoying" is the formal blocking policy. Also, it doesn't make sense that each admin generation would have the same desysop percentage because a) it would mean that all the standards creep in RfA is ultimately pointless (deliberate reference to Appeal to consequences) and b) you'd expect admins that were around for longer to have a higher chance to have committed something desysop-worthy. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:07, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Or, the admins who've been around for longer have had time to learn how not to get caught. (FWIW, this was the original blocking policy, in which logged-in vandals were specifically exempt from blocking provided they'd also made some valid edits.) ‑ Iridescent 19:44, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Tracked down the math exercise. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:56, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
If I remember right, I was looking for changes in desysopping rates in the [sysopping+n]th year. So in theory you could find that, say, 5% of the 2006 batch of admins had been desysopped by 2009, but only 1% of the 2009 batch had been desysopped by 2012, and potentially argue on that basis that 2006-style RfA let too many clunkers through. (Or, alternatively, that 2009 arbcom was too desysop-happy.) But even including resignations - IIRC I scraped the tables at WP:FORMER - there's just not enough data, and the actual circumstances surrounding each desysop vary pretty widely. Opabinia regalis (talk) 01:20, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Iridescent; it was purely bone-idle (and probably 'annoying'!) curiosity on my part. Much more interesting than hard work like, say building an encyclopaedia  ;) Muffled Pocketed 18:38, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Peerage notability

Do you remember the mention of notability and the peerage a while ago? I was reminded of that after reading this deletion debate. Technically not a peer (honorary title as the son of duke), but it seems a bit strange that if someone like that stood as an MP (not difficult in those days), they became notable, but if they didn't, they aren't. Carcharoth (talk) 08:52, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

The "peers and MPs are automatically notable" convention is an artefact of members or former members of a national, state or provincial legislature conferring automatic notability; it's been Wikipedia policy for so long that I doubt you'd find any will to change it. I imagine that the Americans who dominated the early days of Wikipedia when this stuff was being drawn up were working on the assumption that anyone who was in a national legislature must be either a high-profile figure who had received significant coverage for their campaign, or an appointment who had done significant things to justify their appointment, as that's the way it invariably is in the US, and genuinely hadn't thought about either the hereditary peerage or rotten and pocket boroughs, neither of which have any real equivalent in North America (aside from a few de facto rotten boroughs pre Reynolds v. Sims, but those only affected representation at state rather than national level). There was some discussion way back before the dawn of time about either removing the special guidelines for political figures altogether and letting them sink-or-swim by WP:GNG, or creating a formal policy as to which politicians were notable and removing "all members", but there was no enthusiasm for the change.
I personally feel that Lord Alan Spencer-Churchill almost certainly does warrant a biography provided someone can dig out the sources, not because of the blue-blood thing but because by bailing out the Thames Ironworks he's indirectly responsible both for the unique character of Orchard Place, and for the existence of West Ham United F.C., but that would be a pain to demonstrate, especially as Orchard Place, London is somehow still a redlink and he annoyingly died a little too young to have been a founding director of WHUFC. It's finding the sources that's the trouble—the Lower Lee borderlands are probably the single worst-documented part of the 19th-century metropolis as Essex and Middlesex each considered them the other one's problem, and the literacy level was too low for newspapers to cover the area. Because of Spencer-Churchill's connection to military shipbuilding, you might be able to find someone at WT:MILHIST with an interest in him. ‑ Iridescent 12:49, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Maybe, yes. I am befuddled at the moment, trying to work out how water bottle flipping became a thing (it has a prominent gif on DYK at the moment). Carcharoth (talk) 13:10, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Technically a policy-violating gif, as well—animated gifs on the main page are supposed to be uploaded at the size at which they'll be displayed, as Mediawiki serves them up at full-size and expects the viewer's computer to resize them, which adds up to an awful lot of server strain when you multiply it by 20 million views. I imagine we'll wait until the fad dies down and then quietly AFD it. ‑ Iridescent 13:17, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Do it now. You know you want to... Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:19, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
Huh. So water bottle flipping is a fad? My impression from my own teenage years was that it's just a form of vandalism. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:11, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
What I'm fascinated by is the guy who claims he invented it. Anyone who's ever been in the Scouts, served in the military, been on a sports team, had a hobby like fishing, birdwatching or trainspotting, or literally anything else that involves sitting around for a long period with a plastic drink bottle, will be familiar with this (and know that if you use an Orangina bottle or an old-style Coke bottle you can get it to land on its base close on 100% of the time as the wasp-waist acts as a baffle to stop the fluid sloshing so keeps the base heavily weighted). I am equally unsurprised that Wikipedia's article on Diet Coke and Mentos eruption is considerably longer than its article on Prose. ‑ Iridescent 16:37, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
I considered !voting in the debate (it is at AfD now), but instead spent five minutes trying it with a recently emptied water bottle carefully filled a third of the way up, and eventually succeeding. Another key life skill acquired. Carcharoth (talk) 21:54, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

For some reason, List of places in London has 'Orchard Place' linked to Trinity Buoy Wharf. That may have misled some people into thinking an article already existed. Carcharoth (talk) 21:57, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

I might take a stab at it once the building works are complete—there's no real point working on it when the area is set to change so radically in the next few months, and when the excavations are likely to turn up so much archaeological ephemera. Tidying up River Lea (Wikipedia doesn't like the "Lee" spelling despite the fact that it's the spelling Lee Valley Park who manage the bloody thing uses) has literally been on my to-do list for over a decade—some of my original IP edits were to that page, and the first ever "special trip for Wikipedia purposes" I ever made was to walk from Hackney to Edmonton taking photos of it—but I never got around to doing it. Probably just as well, as anything I wrote would have been obliterated in 2012, and I imagine Lea/Lee has the potential to be right up there with Kiev/Kyiv as a timesink and neverending ill-feeling generator. ‑ Iridescent 20:50, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Page protection for Tracey Curtis-Taylor again

Hi there, I seem to remember that you assisted with placing a protection on Curtis-Taylor's page back in July 2016 due to recurrent vandalism from IP users. As there has been some recent controversy around her (in the last 4 days), the page is getting attacked again with disruptive editing from IP users. Are you able to take a look and perhaps put another protection on the page? Thanks. MurielMary (talk) 09:26, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm a little reluctant to reprotect it while the AFD remains open, as the AFD process tends to attract legitimate new editors to articles (because casual readers see the deletion tag and want to chip in to help rescue it). I'd say once the AFD is closed, if the IP disruption carries on pop back and I'll re-protect it (or posting a request at WP:RFPP is likely to be quicker as that won't need to wait until I'm online). At least some of the IP edits seem to be a legitimate content dispute over how to weight negative coverage, rather than vandalism, so I'm not sure all-guns-blazing is really the best way to go. I've put the page under short-term Pending Changes protection for the duration of the AFD, so while IPs will still be able to edit it their edits won't be visible until someone else approves them. ‑ Iridescent 11:59, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
That's great, thanks very much for taking the time to look into this so promptly. MurielMary (talk) 08:07, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
"Stop! Stop, will you?! Stop that! Stop it! Now, look! No one is to add an occupation until I blow this whistle! Do you understand?! Even, and I want to make this absolutely clear, even if they do say 'Jehovah'." Martinevans123 (talk) 10:22, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
RexxS, when I've said in the past that the nature of infobox data fields forces editors into including unsatisfactory data in infoboxes because the boxes can't handle nuances, the "occupation" and "known for" fields for this person—whose day job is as a gemmologist but whose notability derives from their hobby as a pilot, and is known primarily for a claimed achievement whose veracity is questioned—is exactly the kind of thing I mean. With no infobox and an expanded lead paragraph to explain the situation this would be completely non-problematic, but the "every article needs a box" mentality is so strong that if anyone removed it it would be back within ten minutes. ‑ Iridescent 11:20, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
At least thirteen, surely? We know that she says she "recently qualified as a gemmologist, and set up her own business"... but I'm not sure we yet know what her "day job" actually is. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:25, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Her website says she was trained as a diamond valuer before moving into aerial mapping, and is now a Fellow of the British Gemmological Association and the Royal Geographical Society, which is unlikely to be untrue (these kind of associations are extremely sniffy when it comes to people falsely claiming membership), and would tally with both the "gemmology" and the "flying" aspects. I hasten to add that I really couldn't give a damn what her occupation is—her website has the distinct whiff of "overprivileged minor public school dimwit who finds herself considerably more fascinating than anyone else does", and I think we all know what "moved from England to South Africa in 1982" is usually code for—but I'm not sure we yet know what her "day job" actually is is precisely the reason I've been issuing blood-curdling threats about people trying to shove an infobox onto the page even though we don't have the info for said box. ‑ Iridescent 17:26, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Preaching to the choir. I agree completely that her occupation is not a key fact in her biography. Have you seen User:RexxS/Infobox factors where I'm trying to summarise the debate as dispassionately as I can? I wrote a section on Missing nuances, but any expansion or addition would be gratefully received.
In the case of Tracey Curtis-Taylor, I've offered a technical solution to these sort of general problems. The infobox I've substituted allows editors at the article level to mark fields as not to be used by including the name of the field in a list called |suppressfields=. That makes a positive statement that the prevailing opinion is not to include those fields, so the editors intention is clear. As long as |suppressfields=occupation is in the infobox, adding |occupation=pilot or anything else will not display the occupation.
Now, this won't solve the problem of edit-warriors, as they can simply remove the |suppressfields=occupation, but it does resolve the issue of drive-by editors adding fields without realising that they have been deliberately removed. Surely any progress is better than none? --RexxS (talk) 18:49, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Drive by? Surely not. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:12, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
This article is strangely fascinating as an example of people getting extremely excitable about trivia. It will probably be a case study in someone's thesis on the decline of Wikipedia in about 20 years. ‑ Iridescent 19:37, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Planning on something a bit faster, actually. Say about two? Martinevans123 (talk) 19:45, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
  • I just went with the spelling she uses—it looks like both are correct. I confess to never having heard the world before, which to me sounds suspiciously like a made-up word by someone trying to make "rock sorter" sound more glamorous. ‑ Iridescent 19:39, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Iri, your description made her sound rather interesting, so I looked at the article, only to be rather disappointed (will I never learn?). Fellowship of the gems lot is obtained by passing their exams, which I'm sure is a lot easier than all this flying. The Geographers aren't much harder: "Application for Fellowship is open to anyone, based in the UK or overseas, over the age of 21 who can demonstrate: A sufficient involvement in geography or allied subject through training, professional work, research, publications or other work of a similar nature, Or: Not less than five years continuous commitment to the Society as an Ordinary Member [anybody, for cash]. For example, if you use, or have used, your geographic skills and/or knowledge extensively in the workplace, or have a degree in geography (or allied subject) then you are likely to be eligible for Fellowship. Our current Fellows come from a diverse mix of career and academic backgrounds" [there are 15,500, but "Annual membership costs from £104 plus a one-off joining fee of £30"]. Johnbod (talk) 19:01, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Depressing—I thought the RSA were the only ones running that particular scam (although it sounds like at least the jewellers and geographers have at least some criteria other than "have you set up a £14-per-month direct debit?"). Although I'd have thought "overprivileged minor public school dimwit who finds herself considerably more fascinating than anyone else does" should have been a hint as to how interesting I find her (cf Ffyona Campbell who seems cut from the same cloth and could probably do with a trip to AFD herself given that the only reference is her autobiography). ‑ Iridescent 19:39, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Sidetrack on endearingly bad content

Thank you for providing me with the first laff of the day. That article has some extremely rib-tickling stuff. This paragraph is priceless:
"Campbell raised half the amount for charity in one go when one of the organisers at Raleigh International sold the advertising space on her forehead during her well-publicised return. After a period in hospital for a back operation, she walked across America again for her own personal satisfaction as she had had to miss out a section in the middle due to illness. She wrote about that journey in her final book, The Whole Story. The media castigated her for her honesty." Chortle. Irondome (talk) 20:02, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
I'd also point out that "She raised £180,000 over 11 years" is a pathetic amount—at £16,400 per year that's less than she'd have made if she'd spent the entire time cleaning toilets and donated her wages to charity. ‑ Iridescent20:16, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
It's a cracker that article. There should be a sort of preservation order on it. A tag saying This article should NOT be improved. There is a wonderful deluded artlessness about it. Irondome (talk) 20:24, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
"You could raise more money by auctioning dogs!" --Hillbillyholiday talk 20:59, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Come on now, she's not that ugly. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:07, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Out of curiosity I just had a look at her website, which is so loopy it's actually quite charming—I'm half tempted to go on one of these "live as a hunter-gatherer in Devon" events as I suspect it would be surprisingly interesting.

My all time favourite artlessly bad Wikipedia article is still Radcliffe & Maconie, with the earnest obsessiveness of Religious and mythological references in Battlestar Galactica a close second. ‑ Iridescent 20:29, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

The site is exactly as you say. I wouldn't mind going myself. Actually the wording is suspiciously similar to the article style, but why spoil a little gem? Radcliffe & Maconie must also be visited. On Tea time theme time:
"Every day at about 3.35pm, three records are played that all centre round a particular theme. The first week's themes were chosen by the presenters themselves, after which the themes were chosen by listeners. At first the linking theme was announced before the records were played, however it soon became popular for listeners to guess what the link was so now the connecting theme isn't mentioned until all the records have been played and listeners contact the show with their guesses as to what the theme is. Although there is no prize for getting the theme correct the first person to contact the show with the correct answer has the honour of having their name mentioned as the winner. Radcliffe and Maconie used to say that the first correct answer received the "Tea Time Theme Time Crown of Joy." Although the winner didn't receive an actual crown, a picture of a paper hat representing a crown would be tweeted along with the winners name. However they no longer refer to the "Tea Time Theme Time Crown of Joy." Beautiful in it's way. Irondome (talk) 20:43, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
How very Dare you! I was No. 552 in The Chain with Maria Muldaur, I'll have you know! Martinevans123 (talk) 20:54, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
I am sorry Martin. Really. It's just that no one said. Life can be bittersweet sometimes re radio phone-in music quiz faux pas comments made by others who were not in the moment. Oh yes. Irondome (talk) 21:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Right, that's it. I'm retiring again. Who do you think I am, Barry from Watford?? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:17, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
You will never make it through the minefields! [[4]]Remember last time? It's not worf it my son. Irondome (talk) 21:40, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
@Irondome, try Safire and Oddballs if you want more fine examples of "endearingly bad obvious spam I haven't the heart to delete". "Amateur historians writing unsourced obsessively-long rambles about patently non-notable things" is also a rich seam; I give you Wellclose Square as a starter. (And let us never forget that this was once a Featured Article.) ‑ Iridescent 16:29, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Indeed, but you are overlooking a tough economic climate. That has gritty contemporary realism. Irondome (talk) 18:45, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
However, Harby makes a devastating comeback. Viz:
"Parish Registers A curious romance attaches to the fate of an earlier volume of Harby Parish Registers, long lost, even in Nichols' time. The skins of parchment of which it consisted are said to have been unstitched and wrapped round the trunk and limbs of the corpse of Anne Adcock, and so buried by her grandson, John Adcock, a man of eccentric character, in December, 1776." A definite touch there. Irondome (talk) 18:50, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Sam (ugly dog): "In 2005, Sam starred on Criss Angel's 2005 Mindfreak Halloween Special which aired on the A&E Network. Sam played the role of Angel's cat, dressed up in a Halloween costume. Sam was featured on Japanese television, New Zealand radio and the Daily Telegraph in England, and even met Donald Trump. Due to heart complications Sam was euthanized on November 18, 2005, just after his 15th birthday." ‑ Iridescent 18:57, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Just gonna put Disco polo here. Note in particular that this isn't one overenthusiastic user running amok with the content translation tool, but the work of multiple editors over the period of eleven years. Ever onwards and upwards with the wisdom of crowds… ‑ Iridescent 10:53, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Parliament of the United Kingdom relocation

Parliament of the United Kingdom relocation You asked: What on earth do plans to relocate the location of Parliament have to do with bridging the Irish Sea? A good number of the proposals to permanently relocate have included a theme to bring the Parliament to the geographic center of the country (Manchester) and also reference the importance it could have in building a closer relationship with Ireland. That was the reason for the link, I just wished to explain why I placed it. Bulverton (talk) 16:43, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia operates on what sources say, not on your own speculation, and you are not going to find a source that connects "plans to relocate Parliament to another building" and "plans to build a bridge across the Irish Sea", except in the most general sense of "Lists of proposed megaprojects which are never going to happen". (If you seriously think diplomatic relations between Ireland and Britain would be affected if Parliament relocated to Manchester, I really don't know what to say; do you think relations between France and Germany suddenly broke down when the German capital relocated from Bonn to Berlin? Aside from anything else, if the location of Parliament did have a significant impact on diplomatic relations, than a northward move of Parliament would presumably have an equally significant negative impact on Britain's relation with Brussels, which is and will continue to be more significant than the relationship with Dublin by multiple orders of magnitude.) ‑ Iridescent 17:01, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the comprehensive reply, you are obviously an excitable person of many assumptions - hopefully you will now have the answer to your question. Bulverton (talk) 19:30, 14 November 2016 (UTC)


edit War

Hi, I have read that is a person wiki editor gets in to an edit war they can talk to a Wiki administrator for help, can I come to you if I am having an edit dispute to resolve a conflict DavidgoodheartDavidgoodheart (talk) 01:30, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

You're better off going to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring, as not only will there be a lot more people watching, they'll be people who are used to dealing with edit-wars and content disputes. If this is in relation to your edits to Luigi (disambiguation), then Bkonrad (who is also an administrator, for what that's worth) is correct; in the context of the Nintendo universe "Luigi" is a reference to the character, not to each appearance of the character ("Luigi in Luigi's Mansion", "Luigi in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!", "Luigi in Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach!" etc are all the same character, so don't need to be mentioned separately). Consequently the disambiguation page should point to the character, not to each separate appearance of the character or each individual actor who has played the character. ‑ Iridescent 07:27, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Arb

Please run. And now I will go back and read the discussion above about RfA. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:59, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Not a chance. I agree largely with Risker's comments here; Arbcom is reaching the point where its utility is outweighed by the time and energy it diverts from other things. Its dispute-resolution function has atrophied to the point where it does very little that couldn't be handled by RFC, and its "Wikipedia's secret police" function was never really appropriate and ought to be handed over to WMF Legal who are actually paid to deal with this crap. Besides, unless and until you've seen it from the inside it's impossible to convey just how soul-destroying it is to come home to between 50 to 1000 emails each day, most of which are completely irrelevant but all of which you need to at least skim because you know the usual whiners will start ranting at you if you're not familiar with everything that's passed through the inbox. (Try reading ANI top-to-bottom every day, closely enough that you could take a pass/fail test, and being sure to re-read everything you read yesterday just in case it's changed, all the while being constantly interrupted by people accusing you of everything you could possibly think of, and occasionally tracking you down IRL and screaming abuse at you over the phone.) I'd go as far as to say that wanting to be on that committee is prima facie evidence of temperamental unsuitability for the position. Shut it down. ‑ Iridescent 22:19, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
An answer that confirms that you'd be a candidate I'd vote for. I wanted the committee to take fewer cases and for its members to try hard to get problems solved before they required cases; I got the former but I don't think we got the latter. I don't think atrophy is going to help; we already have signs of rushing to judgement just to get rid of the problem, and AN/I is now so bad that someone is trying to resuscitate RfC/U under a different name (I was invited to provide input but have no clue. I would be an unbelievably bad Arb). Of course, one reason for my differing opinion is that I don't trust the WMF or anyone who works for them. There is precedent for Arbs who don't work on it 365 days a year. I wish you'd reconsider, although I appreciate I am asking you to put your head in a vice at least some days for the next two years. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:40, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
Assuming there's no last-minute rush and the nine current candidates minus the two obvious no-hopers fill the seven slots, atrophy may happen regardless, as while I'm sure they're all fine people there's not a lot of dynamism or even enthusiasm on display. I'd view a gradual withering away into irrelevance as even better than a revolution; the destination is the same, but fewer people get hurt. Assuming Wikipedia still exists in five years, I'd like to think that if it still has an arbcom, it's a ceremonial vestigial body with no more impact on day-to-day activity than the High Sheriff of Worcestershire, and that its members will have given up the "do you know who I am?" routine and just be Wikipedia's resident post turtles. See also NYB's comments here—you will no doubt be shocked to discover that his comments are both more measured, and considerably more verbose, than mine. ‑ Iridescent 22:58, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
I see a change in attitude from WMF about these issues but is very slow overall and fluctuates (two steps forward...one step back sorta thing) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:47, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
I'd read that, but he's a lawyer, and I have no reason to suspect you are :-). And actually he's decided to run. Yngvadottir (talk) 03:37, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Dammit! I suppose, as a current member, I shouldn't say much about the candidates, but I can say who should have been a candidate. The whole "your inbox is like an RSS feed of ANI" thing isn't so bad anymore. If you want the state to wither away, isn't it a good idea to take a state job and then putter around making a public spectacle of its obsolescence? ;) Opabinia regalis (talk) 05:46, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
He ain't puttering around but writing about some nice artworks instead..... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:55, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
To be honest, "puttering" describes it pretty well; my recent edit count is artificially inflated by a big script-aided search-and-replace a couple of weeks ago. Whisper it quietly, but as long as you have the sources lined up those painting articles pretty much write themselves and rarely take more than a day start-to-finish. Even a behemoth like Hope only took four evenings start-to-finish, and a fair amount of that was tinkering with images. ‑ Iridescent 08:21, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Hmm, not fussed. If they are that easy then one can do more. The end result clearly justifies the means here ;) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:07, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

A few months ago I was starting to wonder myself about whether there was still a need for the Committee, but then a long-running and contentious AN discussion (Wikicology) was actually closed with a consensus of "the community is hopelessly divided; we're referring this to ArbCom." That was the one case this year the Committee had to accept. I think at this point everyone understands that arbitration really is the last step in DR, and should be invoked rarely... but "rarely" isn't quite "never." Newyorkbrad (talk) 07:05, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Looking over the Wikicology case, unless there was something secret going on in back-channels I can't see anything that couldn't have been handled by Wikipedia's usual processes, capped off if necessary with a vestigial committee with the authority to issue binding closures to RFCs; as far as I can tell that entire case could be summed up as "You're making a lot of mistakes, we don't think you're going to stop, get out". (If you have a long memory—or access to the arbcom-l archive—you'll recognize that as my proposal for Arbcom to restrict itself to actual dispute arbitration and to hive off the 'legislative body' and 'supreme court' functions to a separate group acting as moderators to a beefed-up RFC process.) If the formal caseload has dropped to the level of background noise and child protection is no longer in the remit, that just leaves ban appeals and a few marginal activities related to privacy—there's really no justification for maintaining the full Wikipedia House of Lords setup just to handle it, or for going through the time-wasting charade of annual elections.

As I've said previously, if you really want to improve Arbcom the best thing you could do is deprecate clerking. There's no other part of Wikipedia where we treat the participants as delicate flowers who can't be expected to do routine maintenance themselves, nor where one group of editors feels entitled to appoint their own private group of security guards to remove comments they think their masters may not want to hear. If something is genuinely so unimportant that you don't feel it's worth your while dealing with yourself, then I'd venture to say that it's so unimportant that nobody should be dealing with it. (My time on Arbcom may not have been covered in glory, but I feel a faint pride in never having used the terms "the clerks are directed" or "admonished".) ‑ Iridescent 08:00, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Actually I thought that case possibly wasn't heading for a case but for the fact everyone stopped and referred to us. I do agree that rarely =/= never for the time being. Some more systemic changes have to take place. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:07, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Special Barnstar
Thanks for your constant vigilance and watch over my userspace and activities.Cheers! Aru@baska❯❯❯ Vanguard 10:14, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. He's blocked for 31 hours, which will hopefully give him time to get bored and find something else to do. If he starts again when the block expires, I'll make it indefinite and force him to post an unblock request; much as I dislike the general principle of forcing editors to grovel, in this case "prove that you understand why what you're doing is disruptive, before we let you back" seems justified. (I don't think he's actually a true vandal, just frustrated that what he sees as helpful edits keep being reverted, and unwilling to listen to explanations.) ‑ Iridescent 10:19, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
Yeah,I too think so. His delivering of warnings to whoever who fails to satisfy him, mentioning himself as an official editor--all points to a fundamentally wrong understanding of how Wikipedia works.Hope the short block works for good!Aru@baska❯❯❯ Vanguard 10:24, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Vitki

I was trying to walk back the modifications to the page, as vitkir were different from galdr, and the page with the largest redaction actually had the most information. The page should be restored to the larger entry. I don't have an account because I just don't do enough or have time to be active, but this reduction of material is not useful. Do what you think, but I'm not just randomly walking back edits. The (18:00, 2 April 2015‎ Primaler) version is the best version, especially compared to the stub that is currently there.24.29.76.45 (talk) 13:32, 17 November 2016 (UTC)Ben.
Yes, I agree, and have restored it to that version; the issue I was trying to put a stop to was this sequence of edits in which you basically put nine large templates in quick succession accidentally. You can still edit the page; the only difference is that your edits won't be visible to the public until someone else has verified them. (I intentionally set it this way rather than actually protecting the page, to allow you to work on it without accidentally dropping another load of templates into the article.) Whether this actually warrants a stand-alone article is another matter, since I suspect there's very little that couldn't be served by a paragraph in Norse paganism which would put the whole thing in more context to readers. (Paging Yngvadottir, who actually understands this stuff.) ‑ Iridescent 13:38, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
I'd note that vitkir are different from goðar, and goðar have their own page. Vitkir are...Norse-Pagan-adjacent, they were runic shamans. It's all really nebulous, with the paucity of primary sources. Honestly, I showed up because I've looked at the page in the past, knew it had references I could go hunt down again to find what I was specifically looking for and saw that it'd been cut down to a not-useful page. Hopefully, you can sort it back out without heartache. I'll leave it be.24.29.76.45 (talk) 13:51, 17 November 2016 (UTC)Ben.
Oh eek. Yes, distinct from goðar, and arguably also from seiðmenn, but that article is a translation of the creator's own article on es.wikipedia (it has the required template on the talk page but I didn't see the clear statement we like to see appear as soon as possible in an edit summary), and the stuff about specific runic spells is tendentious. I note that Dbachmann's first edit defined it as shamanic - that's equally tendentious, and since there is substantial scholarship arguing that seiðr was shamanic but not that galdr was, I believe that was a mistake. I am not sure whether enough good sources can be found for a separate article on this topic. If not, runic magic might be a better merge target than galdr. I'm going to ping Bloodofox, who knows a lot about related topics. If he says that's a gap in his knowledge, I'll see what I can do to save it, although things in the area of magic are better demarcated in modern heathenry than in Old Norse texts and scholarship about them. (I checked is.wikipedia and it appears to have no help to offer.) Yngvadottir (talk) 16:28, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
My opinion is that the redirect to Galdr is wrong-headed and that the article just needs to be rewritten from scratch. I can assist in the rewrite: from what I'm seeing form a cursory search, there's enough to get the article into a fine state. I think a major problem here is that a lot of related articles, such as völva and galdr, also need to be more or less rewritten from the ground up. They make a lot of assumptions and are missing a lot of key components and fall into a trap that marks some of our older Wikipedia articles on the topic, where attestations aren't kept separate from theories. A lot of the references employed also need to be re-examined, I think. Fortunately a lot of this stuff can be done all at once. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:31, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
Oh good :-) I have more of an idea where to find sources on vǫlva and galdr, but it sounds like you can do without me '-) Yngvadottir (talk) 17:45, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Iridescent.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Bot, I think you missed this bit out:

References

  • Baron, James; Bielby, William T. (December 1986). "The Proliferation of Job Titles in Organizations". Administrative Science Quarterly. 31 (4). Ithaca, NY: Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. doi:10.2307/2392964.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Snowdon, Graham (2 March 2012). "The Rise of the Meaningless Job Title". The Guardian. London: Guardian Media Group.
  • Anon, (24 Jun 2010). "Too Many Chiefs: Inflation in job titles is approaching Weimar levels". The Economist. London: Economist Group.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)

Astonishingly, Job title fragmentation, Title inflation and Uptitling are all (at the time of writing) red links. ("The people who patrol the performance of the patrollers" sounds like a Gilbert & Sullivan line.) ‑ Iridescent 16:44, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
You could just grant the right to everyone and make it meaningless? Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:48, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
That was my attitude to rollback when it was unbundled—hand it out to anyone who asked, and take it away if they were screwing up with it. My logic was that stripping people of bits sent a clear "you've done something wrong and we take this seriously" message, but because it doesn't show up in the block log it doesn't act as a Mark of Cain for evermore. (Yes, it still shows up in the user rights log, but those don't carry the same stigma.) To be honest, if it weren't for the certain objections of WMF Legal I'd seriously advocate doing the same with admin rights provided we had a mechanism for removing it immediately from anyone misusing it, and a clear "one strike and you're out" attitude towards any misuse. However, "we've created a new user right" is more appealing to the people with a high-score-table mentality, who are currently in the ascendancy (have you read WT:DYK lately?). ‑ Iridescent 20:56, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
Its on my watchlist due to it being a massive cesspit. Its actually on there as sometimes some of the articles nominated have BLP issues that regularly get ignored by the DYK high-score gatherers. Although at this point, there are maybe 3/4 editors who could be banned from DYK and other front page processes and I guess 70% (Fram or TRM could probably give a more accurate number) of the issues would just disappear completely. Its one of those walled gardens with its own rules and hoops that completely ignore the point of wikipedia most of the time. It serves itself. Frankly I dont think it will be fixed until the main page gets redesigned and DYK is binned. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:12, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Just BLP issues? My impression is that most articles (which tend to be short ones, in my case) have several verifiability issues whenever I review them. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:50, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
Well that its not verifiable that obscure road X has blah blah blah is not really a huge concern for me. Its slightly more of a problem that living person Y has unverifiable information. The road is unlikely to take issue. The person much more so. I dont disagree there are lots of problems, but personally I only really monitor it for the BLP issues. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:16, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
I always felt that if we need to keep DYK (a big if), the best thing to do would be to break the connection with new articles, and make it a genuine "I bet you never knew this!" item along the lines of Law's old userpage. If we must keep the connection with new articles, have an ITN/C style vote over each item with items only listed if a consensus can be found that they're actually interesting, and rolling off the bottom as new items are found to replace them rather than faffing around with prep sets and daily replacement—this would create an incentive for people to write things that readers actually want to read, rather than the current perverse incentive to create ropey and badly-sourced stubs on topics about which nobody could conceivably care, just to rack up points. (As I write this, Did you know … that each larva of the lesser clover leaf weevil damages three or four clover inflorescences? is about to be moved onto the main page.)

OID, "3-4 editors" is an overstatement; banning one editor from the main page would eliminate 70% of the issues at DYK, now that the other main culprit has retired. ‑ Iridescent 19:40, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Actually I think that, outside the various contests, most editors would continue to add new articles without DYK, whether "ropey and badly-sourced stubs" or not (of course strictly speaking no stub qualifies for DYK). Given how tiny most subjects are, most DYKs seem pretty comprehensive, if not exhaustive, at least as far as web sources go. There are only "points" for the contests, unless you count Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of DYKs, which gives a very dim lustre indeed. Johnbod (talk) 04:57, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
No, I disagree; I think you're underestimating the high-score-table mentality. Just look at how many people have a "This user is one of the xxx most active English Wikipedians of all time" userbox, and that's just one of the dozens of editcount userboxes. Note also that the Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of DYKs you point out isn't a straightforward bot-created list like WP:WBE or WP:WBFAN—both of which could also be quietly retired, IMO—but is user generated (you're not on the list unless you add yourself), so doesn't even have the supposed utility of the bot-generated high score tables as a neutral mechanism for tracking trends and activity levels. An element of competition can be positive in encouraging people to participate, but the DYK process as currently constituted acts as a strong incentive to create multiple short articles, as opposed to a single comprehensive one, on any given topic, even when a single long article would be of far more utility to the reader by allowing them to compare and contrast the various elements without flipping through multiple mini-articles. (If DYK genuinely doesn't have a problem with the "Did you know? Of course I didn't know, because nobody cares" issue, then there would be no problem introducing a rule that once reviewed for accuracy the hooks don't go straight to the queue, but go to a holding area from which they're only promoted if there's a consensus that they're interesting enough to justify going on the main page, as we already do with WP:ITN nominations. Propose that, and see how long it takes for the people in the upper reaches of the high score table to start squealing like piglets in a garbage disposal.) ‑ Iridescent 09:03, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
I don't really agree with much of this; the handful of really over-active DYK-ers seem to have slowed down of late. DYK now allows any article recently expanded x5, as well as new GAs, which has been a very good thing, and largely reduced the force of such criticisms, especially the former in my view. As I kept banging on about while I could be bothered, the great weakness of WP as an encyclopedia is the preference of nearly all WP editors, not just DYK ones, for writing articles on discrete things (places, people, artworks, battles) rather than the topics that they intersect with - the exact reverse of most encyclopedias. Many topics have some sort of short article, though many others do not, but these often have only had the deckchairs rearranged in the last 10+ years, and represent someone's very quick summary added to fill an embarassing gap in 2006 or so. Expanding old short articles, especially on topics, is much the most useful thing to do on WP imo. To the extent there is such a problem, isn't it shared by FA & GA? I'm about to start the redlink Assyrian sculpture, one of the school-party classics in major Western museums, but in Category:Assyrian art and architecture we have about 13 articles on individual works, though none of these are on any of the most famous, the palace reliefs, but on isolated pieces, mostly of kings. We have nothing on these except a para I've added in a couple of places in the last year or so. Johnbod (talk) 17:29, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
I think we had this conversation before—I see Wikipedia's role as being to fill in the gaps other things don't or can't cover, rather than to be a one-stop-shop for information, and consequently that the discrete items, rather than the broad-concept articles, are the priority. The reader can look up Locomotive, Second World War or Horse anywhere, and thus it doesn't matter how good or bad Wikipedia's articles are; they'll have far more difficulty finding detailed coverage of Herne Hill railway station, Convoy GP55 or Go Man Go. (That principle has been built into Wikipedia since the very beginning; Nupedia had articles on Hydatius and Foot-and-mouth disease before it had articles on Christianity or Medicine.)

On the issues affecting the main page (primarily DYK, but the other sections all have their moment), I agree that things are nowhere near as bad as they used to be, but I disagree that it's owing to a cultural change. The main factor driving the improvement is that most of the people causing the problems have either retired (from Wikipedia altogether or from DYK/FAC/ITN), been topic-banned from the main page, or been blocked, to the extent that (as I allude to above) about 70% of the issues affecting the Main Page could be resolved with a block or topic-ban on the last remaining problematic editor. Plus, while Fram and TRM can be insufferably self-important at times, their constant sniping does act as a motivational mechanism to some degree, if only because it's reached the point where nominators and reviewers would rather spend an extra couple of minutes verifying things than risk being subjected to yet another thousand-word sermon from one or the other of them. (I don't think it's any great secret that I think the Main Page is a decade past its sell-by date and we should be seriously thinking of retiring it and either replacing it with a simple set of navigation links, or trying to anticipate what readers want to see rather than just using it to host what we feel readers ought to see. There was never a Golden Age of the Main Page—it's always suffered the same problems—but it's one of the very few parts of Wikipedia that hasn't improved markedly since 2004. Unfortunately, although a lot of people agree that the existing setup is dated and inappropriate, there's very little agreement on what to replace it with, so the status quo will probably prevail until Wikipedia itself goes the way of Myspace and Hotbot.) ‑ Iridescent 01:54, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, we have been round this track before. I'll just ask - when was the last time you tried to get basic info from the web about "horse", ignoring WP of course? Give it a go, then imagine a 16 y-o with homework trying it! "Convoy GP55" was a doddle by comparison, with several good comprehensive sources on the first search page, probably the ones the WP article is based on. Assyrian sculpture, like very many subjects, falls in between, with easy access to several decent 300-500 word bits, all saying the same thing, and on the gbooks search plunging you very deep into the academic rainforest indeed; but nothing in between. Of course WP is "for" both ends of the spectrum and, perhaps most crucially, the stuff in the middle. Johnbod (talk) 21:13, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
Challenge accepted; on my first page of search results I get this, which appears to be at least as good a Horsies 101 primer for the student with homework to complete as Wikipedia's own article. Assyrian sculpture is probably something of a special case, as most things will either be brief background pieces aimed at people researching either the Bible or recent wars, or deeply academic; this is one of those topics where Wikipedia's function is to distil the monographs into something a nonspecialist can read without wanting to pluck their eyes out through boredom. The "core topics" malaise runs deep; before I pestered Malleus into tidying it up, Information technology—which by rights ought to be Wikipedia's most fundamental core article—looked like this, while Prose is still less than half the size of Noonbory and the Super Seven. (The latter contains one of the finest pieces of endearingly bad writing on the whole of Wikipedia, in the shape of Any character with a suffix of "Bory" is a good guy while anyone with a suffix of "Gury" is a bad guy. While this sounds simple and childish, that is how things are dealt with in Toobalooba.) ‑ Iridescent 23:59, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

User:Suman6746

Hello Iridescent,

Just wanted to give you a heads up that this editor has continued their disruption after your previous block. Thanks. 2607:FB90:A74B:9837:0:17:400B:3301 (talk) 03:41, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Meh. According to this he's retired, so let's see if he stays retired; there's no point blocking him after the event just to humiliate him. Per my comments a couple of threads enough, I think he's just someone who doesn't understand sourcing, rather than an actual vandal. ‑ Iridescent 09:00, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

TH3 XiSu That Guy

I think talk page access needs to be pulled for this user. Thanks 331dot (talk) 10:32, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, agreed, although I dare say he'll come back in another incarnation. ‑ Iridescent 10:39, 19 November 2016 (UTC)


Kucherena

I have added a cite from influential BROADSHEET newspaper, why do you revert it? The first time I have saved it w/o the cite is because I wanted to use gui editor which has a tool to fetch a cite automatically. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.68.17.15 (talk) 10:28, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view. It's not for you to say whether something is "surprising" or not. ‑ Iridescent 10:40, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Don't Be Biased Please

Information icon Hello Probably you have misfired because i am Tagging Article that are unfit and not worthy according to Wikipedia policies sir / Madam no Bad blood please Wikipedia is not a place to show anger or victimize anyone i bare no grudge against anyone moreover no one has offend me so please when next i tag an article do well to read its content to ascertain its Worthiness .16:54, 19 November 2016 (UTC)Mikebilz (talk)

Mikebilz, you're not "tagging articles that are unfit and not worthy", you're randomly tagging articles with clearly inappropriate deletion tags. Either you're being intentionally disruptive, or you genuinely believe Morpeth Bridge and St Hilda's College Boat Club are hoaxes in which case you have such a serious competence issue you shouldn't be editing Wikipedia. In my opinion, you're extremely lucky Ronhjones only blocked you for a week; given the issues above and your blatant spamming at Olagist, Olagist media and Olagist Forum most admins would have blocked you from Wikipedia indefinitely. ‑ Iridescent 14:42, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Page deleted before I had time to fix it!

Hi! I created a page for Freeform Portland yesterday-- it didn't have a ton of information on it yet, but it did have at least one outside source and it meets criteria (I believe) for existing, but you deleted it without comment. Can you please explain why? I spent a lot of time on it yesterday and was going to add more today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drchickenbeer (talk • contribs) 00:34, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Drchickenbeer, I've restored it as that seems a reasonable enough request. Be aware that as it stands it's unlikely to survive a full deletion discussion. as for Wikipedia purposes it's not sufficient to demonstrate that something exists, but that other significant sources consider the topic significant. ‑ Iridescent 14:25, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks very much for understanding! I'll make sure it shows significance-- it might take a day or so. Hope that's okay. Appreciate you working with me.Drchickenbeer (talk) 21:00, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Revert. Why?

Hi, at the top of this page you state: "If I start a conversation on your talk page, I'm watching it; reply on your talk page." Is there a time frame as to when will you be able to respond? Thanks. Laznik (talk) 18:53, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Replied on your talk; Wikipedia is run by volunteers, not slaves and complaining about non-response when it's taken me less than 48 hours to respond is not reasonable. I've reverted my undo for the moment, as while I still don't consider your edits constructive in the context of that article—to which virtually none of the edits are constructive—it's not fair to single yours out, and have started a discussion here as to whether this page is actually appropriate for Wikipedia. ‑ Iridescent 12:26, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Questionable blocks from Widr

Hi. Sorry to trouble your afternoon with a thread like this, but Floq is on break and I don't fancy starting an ANI thread today. I see this admin, who we both agree is just too "trigger-happy" on the block button, has blocked 194.81.239.15 (talk · contribs) for five years as a school block, despite a single vandalism edit today; the first in over three years. I don't like stalking Widr and calling him out on things every five minutes, but he does keep making admin actions I strongly disagree with, so I don't have much choice (other than keeping quiet). What are your thoughts? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:18, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Normally I'd say a five year block on any IP is ridiculously excessive—and I'd vote for a desysop of the admin in question for the constant shoot-first attitude—but in this particular case I'd consider the block within the bounds of acceptable. If you look at the block log there's a clear pattern of vandalism resuming the moment each block expires, and a five-year block fits into an already-present sliding scale of blocks. (It's a JANET IP, so the assessment of it belonging to a school is almost certainly correct.) ‑ Iridescent 12:35, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
The obvious counter-point to being a school block is that whoever did the vandalism in 2010 probably isn't the same person doing it in 2016, unless they are a long-term member of staff, which I would find incredible. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:44, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
Thats not really an argument though. As a practical issue there is no difference between multiple people editing disruptively from one address, be it an IP or even a registered user. The point of a block is to stop and prevent disruption, not to target a specific user punitively. It could be one person using the IP or 50, it really doesnt matter as long as it stops. If one IP (or small range) is consistantly over an extended period of time responsible for vandalism, then extended blocks are the way to go. The editors dealing with the vandalised articles dont really care who is actually doing it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:04, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict)It won't be the same people, but the volume of vandalism from an IP reflects something about the setup of that IP; in this case, given the consistent volume of vandalism I suspect the IP address is used by multiple junior schools, rather than a single terminal somewhere. I wouldn't have given it a five year block myself on the basis of a single edit since the last block expired, but in the circumstances you're never going to get agreement that Widr was acting outside the bounds of reasonable discretion which is what you'd need to demonstrate at ANI or Arbcom. (If you really disagree with the deletion, theoretically you can overturn it unilaterally—WP:WHEEL kicks in when an admin action which has been reverted is subsequently reinstated, not at the time of the original reversion—but if you do that, be prepared for wailing and gnashing of teeth as a lot of admins hate it when someone appears to challenge their omnipotence.) ‑ Iridescent 13:09, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

WP:REFUND

Can you email me a copy a/o the date of deletion? Don't worry, I'll be circumspect with it. Thanks. EEng 20:33, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Done, although at 230,000 bytes Mediawiki may baulk at forwarding it so if it doesn't come through, you may need to provide me (or someone) with an email address so it can be sent as an attachment. (One criticism that some people have alluded to with which I agree entirely is that having a page that size containing that many images, presented as an easter egg link in the sense that people clicking on your username have no way to reasonably expect how big it will be, is a bit of an assholish thing to do. Even on my high-speed connection with a modern computer running modern and up-to-date software, the version at the date of deletion takes well over 30 seconds to load with the cache cleared, and running even the truncated User:EEng/temp through Webpagetest at a location outside the US and Europe—and thus away from the WMF servers—takes up 12 mb of data and well over 20 seconds to load. You and your regulars probably don't see this effect, because at least some of the information will already be cached. For someone running older hardware or using a dial-up connection, your userpage could quite easily crash their browser; if you do restore it, I'd urge you to put it on a subpage linked from your userpage, with a "large page" warning, rather than on your userpage itself.) ‑ Iridescent 12:59, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
Good idea, and thanks for the refund. I promise to use it for good, not evil. EEng 13:48, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Boston University Metropolitan College

@Iridescent: Why was the draft for Boston University Metropolitan College deleted? I had a block lifted already, and I am arguing that the content is aligned with existing content on Wikipedia. Boston University Metropolitan College is part of Boston University (which has an existing page: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Boston_University). BU has 17 schools and colleges, most of which also have their own related pages in Wikipedia. The content I am trying to add is related to what the College offers, and I have tried to avoid any sort of promotional/advertising language. Surely any instances of "promo" can be adjusted without the entire page being deleted. Can you explain why this page was deleted, while it is quite similar to BU subpages such as https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Questrom_School_of_Business? Thank you NattyBoy72 (talk) 16:50, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Because it was blatant spam, from Community interaction, locally and globally, is integral to Boston University’s mission to Over the course of its timeline, the College has remained committed to providing practical, high-quality lifelong learning opportunities, and the part that wasn't obvious advertorial was just a lengthy list of courses offered. Wikipedia is neither a web host nor an advertising portal; if you feel we should be hosting an article on a topic, you need to write a neutral article demonstrating significant coverage in reliable sources, not a press release sourced to the institution's own website. ‑ Iridescent 16:57, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
@Iridescent: I appreciate the explanation, thank you for taking the time. Evidently there is some precedent for this sort of page, even by looking at the various school and college pages linked from Boston University's Wikipedia page, section 4.1[5]. Based on your feedback, I will revisit the material with the concerns about "spam' in mind. NattyBoy72 (talk) 17:55, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

"Recent compromised accounts", eh? (Would I be unduly cynical in guessing that the real lesson learned from this incident is "don't use 12345678 as your password" or possibly "don't leave your email logged on in the WMF office when you and Lila managed to alienate a sizeable number of the people who work there"?) ‑ Iridescent 20:50, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) 'you're too bad, Vasquez' ;) Muffled Pocketed 20:57, 12 November 2016 (UTC)
Please don't tell me it's "don't leave a database dump freely downloadable so somebody can take it and brute-force crack one password using whatever parallel computing methods they have available". Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:25, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Given that someone took control of Jimmy's Twitter recently, I suspect it's more a case of "once one of your accounts is compromised, change the password on the others". (If I had to guess, I'd say that the WMF's email servers are leaking again.) The hacker is displaying something of a lack of ambition by just goofing around with a few high-traffic pages; had they avoided the temptation to vandalise and instead issued a dozen or so blocks of our noisier editors with a summary of something like "not for public discussion, do not reverse without board authorization", they could have thrown Wikipedia into a full-scale crisis since nobody would have believed Jimmy's denials. ‑ Iridescent 16:46, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
(adding) Brute-force cracking on Wikipedia is harder than it sounds, as logon attempts are throttled (deliberately enter your own password wrongly a few times and you'll see). Much more likely he left his email account logged on somewhere or the logon details were intercepted on public wifi, and someone took the opportunity to use the "forgot my password" button. ‑ Iridescent 16:50, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Sure, but if you can grab the encrypted password, and then write a program that converts non-encrypted passwords as fast as possible using multiple GPUs into encrypted ones until you get a match, you can bypass all of that. Meanwhile, a full-scale crisis would have been the compromised Jimbo indef-blocking Eric for "no personal attacks" .... people wouldn't have believed the account was compromised. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:23, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Well yes, he is one of the people I had in mind in "a dozen or so of our noisier editors", but I was trying to avoid naming names. (It would be an interesting parlor game to come up with the dozen names whose blocking would seem plausible enough that nobody would believe his denials, and controversial enough that it would actually provoke a crisis. It's not a game that's sensible to play, however.) ‑ Iridescent 17:46, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Dude, don't stoke my curiosity... Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:22, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Well, I don't think I'm violating NPA or giving away the state secrets of Wikipedia by saying that one of them would be the person he tried to block previously under such dubious circumstances that he was forced to abdicate his ability to block users on en-wiki, and one would be the person against whom he has such a grudge that he got up on stage at Wikimania to call publicly for someone to find a pretext to block. ‑ Iridescent 18:45, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Assuming that I'm one of those "dozen or so of our noisier editors" I'd say that I'd be content to be blocked on any invented pretext, I'm quite used to that, so long as Jimbo had the honesty and integrity to put himself at the top of that list. Eric Corbett 15:37, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Given that Jimbo was not the only person with (or previously had) WMF access (from reading back it appears a number of staff accounts were also compromised) in this bunch, I will lay money down it was an inside job. Disgruntled ex-contractor etc. Brute forcing would not get that many separate accounts unless *as a group* their passwords were weak due to group incompetence (unlikely given the users). This wouldnt actually be unusual in a normal organisation/company, if you can work out an organisations mandated password policy sometimes you can get very lucky as it narrows down the potential combinations hugely. But it would be very unusual for the way wikipedia is set up. I have a generally low opinion of the technical expertise on the wikimedia development side, and as an ex-sysadmin I am intimately aware of the false confidence IT professionals have in their security. I have literally lost count of the number of times I have had to reprimand development staff over basic stuff like "No you cannot plug in that USB stick. No. I dont care if you virus checked it at home. Do you want me to disable all your USB ports and install a PS2 mouse? I will do it....". My guess is someone inside had access to another (likely internal) system the linked users (and Jimbo) had access to and ran against that. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:43, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Knowing what I know of Jimbo, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the actual explanation. (In all honesty, I'd be shocked if it wasn't an inside job. One only has to look on Glassdoor to see that there's a clear polarization between an in crowd who love it, and an underclass who utterly loathe the management.) ‑ Iridescent 12:14, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
Meeeeooow. Although I would treat some of those reviews with a pinch of salt, from a quick look it appears they may be for WMUK rather than the WMF. Although the obvious shill ones are obvious. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:41, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
Glassdoor is geotargeted and if the employer operates in more than one country it shows the branch nearest to you by default—if you're in Europe, you need to click the little flag icon in the top corner and change it to "United States" to see the SF people complaining. (Sample quote: This is an organization in crisis. It is highly dysfunctional, there is a strong culture of secrecy, which is surprising for an organization working in open knowledge. Teams are siloed and isolated, C-levels disagree on direction, ED has lost the support needed to do her job, BoT is in a freeze and too weak to drive change. It is a toxic and depressing place to work.) ‑ Iridescent 16:48, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
In fairness, the sample quote you've provided was from the very final days of the Lila era, and the Glassdoor reviews since the change of ED have been mostly positive (well, there's still apparently some unhappiness about the Board). Meanwhile, with regard to the hacks, I agree that WMF staff/admins/other "notables" seem to be the targets. On the other hand, a lot of these people had other accounts hacked before they got to the WMF accounts (I saw Twitter, Facebook, Skype, and Google accounts of past and present WMF staff/admins/etc hacked just in my own view), and it wasn't people's staff accounts but their volunteer accounts as far as I can tell. Sloppy, yes. Points to the need for people with advanced permissions to really secure their accounts. I'm not sure I would have given any of them permissions back at all; it's at least the third time in recent memory. Risker (talk) 02:36, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
You and I know (better than most) that one has to take it as an assumption that anything involving the WMF is going to leak at some point, since the way the systems are set up means there are too many people with privileged access with the potential to become disgruntled and try to torch the building on their way out; "security" here is more a matter of damage-limitation and ensuring nobody has access to more than they need to have when it comes to both sensitive information and potentially damaging tools. That said, now the full picture is clear it seems fairly obvious that this was a case of people re-using passwords that they'd used on an already-compromised site, as AFAICS everyone who was compromised was someone who either edited under their real name or whose IRL identity was well-known. ‑ Iridescent 14:17, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Resurrect the deleted content of an article

I would like to create an article draft in my own userspace, invite others to contribute, and develop a solid article before submitting for review. I had previously created an article that you deleted just last week AddressTwo. Would you be willing to recover the deleted content and paste it into the this User:Nrcjersey/Addresstwo as a starting point? Or email it to me if that is easier. After that, I can work on establishing notability and impartiality by inviting many other contributors. —Preceding undated comment added 14:30, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Temporarily restored to User:Nrcjersey/Addresstwo, but be aware that as it stands this is both unsourced, arguably advertising, and material deleted following a deletion discussion, so is liable to be deleted at any time. I'd strongly recommend either using the Articles for creation process or asking multiple other people to have a look at it, before moving it back to article space. ‑ Iridescent 14:45, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

What happened today?

Iridescent what happened on my userpage today? The450 (talk) 18:43, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

A bunch of vandalism and a removal of categories that are just for articles, not user pages. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:42, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk OK! I think I know the name of the person who done it.... The450 (talk) 21:38, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Looks like three unrelated vandals, as they locate to Brazil, Wales and Belgium and don't appear to be proxies; have you annoyed the members of an off-wiki forum or IRC channel recently who are coordinating to hassle you? Regarding the removal of the categories, you can't use article categories on userpages as it files your userpage into that category which is extremely annoying for readers trying to see what coverage we have of that topic. If you do want to include a link to a category for some reason, you need to put a colon before the wikilink (so [[:Category:Formula One]] renders as Category:Formula One and [[:Category:Formula One|Link to the Formula One category]] renders as Link to the Formula One category), without actually placing the page in question into the category. ‑ Iridescent 00:05, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Iridescent I probably have annoyed people recently online. If it appears to be from Wales and England, I know who did it. Would you like me to tell you the names of the people from Belgium and Wales? And, there is loads of people trying to hassle me off an online thing. The450 (talk) 15:19, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

No I would not like you to tell me the names of the people. Please read WP:OUTING before going any further down that particular rabbit hole; connecting Wikipedia accounts, IP addresses and real-life identities is something Wikipedia takes extremely seriously. ‑ Iridescent 15:45, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Iridescent OK! The450 (talk) 15:52, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Iridescent What exactly did the people say on my User page yesterday ? The450 (talk) 19:49, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

The450, if you go to any page in Wikipedia and click the "history" page at the top, you can see every change made to that page (minus a very few exceptions like copyright violations, serious libel or sensitive personal information which need to be deleted for legal or ethical reasons). In this case, the two edits in question were this and this (the third was possibly intended as disruption but was actually the legitimate removal of an inappropriate category). ‑ Iridescent 14:29, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Iridescent OK.. I have a feeling I know who did the stuff on my page. The450 (talk) 20:53, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Iridescent I don't mind that you removed the Categories from my Userpage. The450 (talk) 20:24, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

That's just as well, since I'd have removed them regardless; "no content categories on userpages is longstanding Wikipedia policy, not my personal whim. ‑ Iridescent 20:30, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Iridescent Could you add the categories that I had on the page the way you said I could have them? The450 (talk) 20:47, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Iridescent HELP! Another person has just vandalised my User Page. The450 (talk) 20:56, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Iridescent I have removed his edit. Any chance you could help me get my UserPage protected from other people? The450 (talk) 21:05, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I won't—in my opinion "anyone can edit" is our key principle, not "anyone we approve can edit", and I don't believe should be deviating from that unless there's a good reason to do so, which three IP edits over the course of a week certainly is not. Some admins are far more willing to abandon Wikipedia principles, so if you put in a request at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection you may get lucky. ‑ Iridescent 22:12, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Iridescent Three on one spefic userpage is a lot mate. I have sent a request to get my Userpage protected. Hust waiting for a reply. The450 (talk) 19:03, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Iridescent If it keeps happening, would it be best just to shut down this account and create a new one? The450 (talk) 19:06, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Three on one userpage, all of which were quickly reverted, is at most a very minor inconvenience, not "a lot". Get some perspective; this is an academic project, not Facebook or LinkedIn, and it's highly unlikely anyone cares what's on your userpage. (You'll note that I get along perfectly well without one.) ‑ Iridescent 19:52, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Iridescent OK. So, I don't really need to have a user page for it? I am annoyed of those people doing it to my page. The450 (talk) 21:11, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Your user page has been vandalised a grand total of three times; two of those vandalisms were reverted instantaneously (I know, as I performed the reversions), while 13% of all the edits you have ever made to Wikipedia have been to your own userpage. For the second time, as long as it complies with Wikipedia:User pages nobody cares what you do or don't have on your userpage (although there are some things like personally identifying information which we strongly advise against). You'll notice if you check the history that this talkpage has been vandalised more than three times in the time that this thread has been open, and you don't see me demanding it be locked to people of whom I disapprove. The first thing you see on entering Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and that's there for a reason. ‑ Iridescent 21:47, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Iridescent. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

How long 'til I receive the message as well... I presume people who already voted can't simply turn it off... Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 23:26, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
I opposed this spam mailing last year, and if I'd seen it discussed anywhere this year I'd have opposed there as well. If someone's interested in the election they're already aware, and if they've managed not to notice there's an election going on they're almost certainly not aware of the issues currently affecting Wikipedia or how its internal processes function, not familiar with the candidates, not aware of what the committee actually does, and not in a position to make an informed choice. Consequently, it gives a huge boost to those who can talk the talk, regardless of whether or not they can walk the walk; one particular candidate with an absolutely wretched track record during their time on the committee, but who is very good at making the right noises, has probably just jumped from last place to near the top of the winners thanks to this. ‑ Iridescent 14:16, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Iri, I was totally unaware and I am very interested. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:32, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Out of 6 previous or current arbitrators, I voted in favour of 4; now I wonder if that candidate is one of the four... Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:27, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
I'm thinking I'll be voting against them all... quite honestly. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:30, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
Hey! I was thinking that. No fair! We can't both do that, can we? If I had been more organised, I would have started an actual campaign to suppress the overall vote approval levels (by encouraging people to oppose all the candidates). To do that sort of campaign really well, you probably have to be a candidate as well. Carcharoth (talk) 19:27, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
If I can be bothered to vote at all, I'll probably be doing the same as you Ealdgyth. Nothing else seems able to get the message across to these people. And their habitual "broadly construed" nonsense makes me sick. Eric Corbett 20:00, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
I imagine this is at least in part what this new trend of mass spammings is supposed to prevent; a decent number of those canvassed won't be familiar with Wikipedia's quirky electoral system, and think that if there are seven slots, they're supposed to support seven candidates, without realising that "none of the above" is a legitimate option. ‑ Iridescent 03:56, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
I notice this alert has gone on some indef-blocked users' talk pages. Wonder how that'll work for them? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 22:07, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
AFAIK they can theoretically still vote, as long as they meet the requirements.Apparently their votes will be struck out before the final tally is announced The last time I queried the practice of spamming indefblocked editors (including some of our more 'colourful' weirdos) with invitations to participate in Wikipedia processes, I just got a snotty comment that Any negative downside pales in comparison to the ones which have been well received, so this is presumably how the Wisdom of the Crowd wants things. ‑ Iridescent 22:14, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Just gonna put this here…

Candidate Mainspace edits in 2016 Total edits in 2016
Calidum 1027 2008
DeltaQuad 133 1696
DGG 4989 16157
Doug Weller 6861 13841
Euryalus 1577 2719
Ks0stm 310 2353
LFaraone 78 184
Mkdw 629 2533
Newyorkbrad 245 1375
Salvidrim 800 3159
Writ Keeper 102 614

Assuming all seven slots are filled, at least three (and arguably five) of those slots will be filled with people whose activity levels are so low, and who are so detached from the day-to-day operations of Wikipedia, that if this were RFA rather ACE their candidacies would be snow-closed on WP:NOTNOW grounds and they'd probably struggle to persuade someone to grant them rollback; as best I can tell only two of the candidates have ever worked on anything at FA level, and one of those was a decade-old FAC for an article which was delisted shortly afterwards (while I don't consider FA-writing a prerequisite, I do find that—with the honorable exception of NYB—those arbs who haven't at least dipped their fingers into the FA/GA pool tend to have a lack of understanding of how quickly relatively trivial stylistic disputes can escalate, show a strong lack of empathy for people involved in content and formatting disputes, and to reach for the "topic ban" artillery rather than to try to actually arbitrate disputes); only two of the candidates have an activity level—whether in the article space or elsewhere—averaging more than 10 edits per day. IMO this is the most hasten-the-day pool of candidates since 2004, and for what it's worth I concur with "oppose all" being the most sensible choice. The committee has a light enough workload nowadays that it will function perfectly well with seven vacancies, and there's no sense supporting candidates just to put bums on seats. ‑ Iridescent 12:28, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Heh. That prompted me to look at my stats, using the link provided on the contributions page to the X! tools. I found that I have 3,441 edits so far in 2016, but can't find the breakdown so far for mainspace. I think it is something like 870 edits. Similar to Salvidrim. I am impressed that Doug Weller and DGG (as serving arbs) have kept up that level of mainspace contributions. LFaraone and NYB All this is with the caveat that it is quality, not quantity that matters. You can never tell just by looking at stats. You have to look at the actual edits. Even a single edit might be adding a long article written offline or in userspace, though that is admittedly not common. About "oppose all" being the most sensible choice, do you think a voter guide along those lines would have any effect? I am also reminded of those editors that consistently voted oppose at RFA regardless of who the candidate was. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 13:25, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
You have 870 mainspace edits this year at the time of writing, but I'll lay an extremely large sum of money that in terms of bytes they're orders of magnitude more substantive than those of NYB and pals. The "Year" counts are a series of bar charts immediately below the big "namespace totals" pie chart; you need to hover your cursor over the bar charts to get the raw data to display. If you want to do it the official way (X! tools are officially A Bad Thing because they goo up the servers), use this tool and click the "Monthly Stats" tab at the top to get a month-by-month breakdown—again, you need to hover over the bars to get the raw stats. Indeed, a lot of long-term editors have deceptively low mainspace totals because they tend to do a lot of drafting in userspace, and thus a complete rewrite counts as just a single edit, but I'm not about to extend the benefit of the doubt that far; of the current arbs, I think Cas is the only one who has made any non-trivial edit to Wikipedia in the last year.

"Those editors that consistently voted oppose at RFA regardless of who the candidate was" are something more often talked about than seen; when you press the people who talk about them to actually name one, they tend to go quiet and change the subject. Kurt always opposed self-nominations but he had a rationally-explained reason for doing so (regardless of whether one agreed with it), and there are some people who always oppose editors who declare themselves to be children, or who have below a minimum level of activity in a given area, but again they have an explanation for why they feel it's appropriate. The other person who's routinely accused of being a "serial opposer", Eric/Malleus, actually supports RFAs fairly regularly; (a few recent examples); "serial opposer" was a canard made up by a couple of people who had a grudge against him when he got hauled before Arbcom, in the knowledge that the arbs wouldn't bother to actually check for themselves. ‑ Iridescent 17:04, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

I usually don't vote at all in RfAs, thanks to the omnisciently (I use that term ironically) incompetent ArbCom, so I'm hardly a serial anything. Eric Corbett 18:25, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
I am certain somewhere there is an ANI thread where at least one admin recommended I be desysopped because of some sort of "bias" with Eric ("bias" in this case presumably meaning "getting on with the people who actually write the encyclopedia"). And crikey, I pull more mainspace edits in a month than some of that lot do in a year. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 21:41, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
(Note to the TPWs: the threads in question were here and here, should anyone think Ritchie is exaggerating for effect. ‑ Iridescent 22:36, 23 November 2016 (UTC))
Huh. I did hear rumours that Ritchie had had contretemps with un/blocks. I just don't bother with blocking for the most part. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 23:21, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
For the record, the accusation didn't actually involve Eric; it was in fact that Ritchie is "biased in favor of content creation", which IMO in the context of Wikipedia is like accusing a carpenter of being "biased in favor of wood". ‑ Iridescent 23:27, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
It is true that I get annoyed by admins who swoop in on high, dish out civility blocks, then clear off back to the mess to give each other hi-fives and barnstars, and I make no secret of it as I'd prefer people were fully aware of my biases and faults up-front so they can expect them. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 23:43, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
I just issued a civility block—I feel like I kicked a puppy. (I don't think anyone could possibly look at this character's recent history and not conclude that he needed to be shown the door, and if I hadn't done the honours he'd have just dug himself into an indefblock.) ‑ Iridescent 19:49, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
I have to admit Bishzilla prefers eating puppies who recommend users to "get help"[6] or to open an ANI thread and jerk off to it,[7] rather than kicking them. Bishonen | talk 22:01, 24 November 2016 (UTC).
I'll confess I was sorely tempted to let him rot, but I'm really not comfortable indeffing someone just for some outbursts unless they're so obnoxious that they actually have a chilling effect. Looking at his replies on his talkpage to me, I somehow doubt he'll be around long when the block expires. ‑ Iridescent 22:05, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
I threw my weight around on Eric's talk yesterday, not because I wanted to show my fanboy stripes (I'm certain he would not appreciate that) but because I was worried an admin would swoop in and drop in a silly AE block and wanted to knock that whole line of thinking on the head so nobody would dare consider it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:40, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
Meh, as I believe the young 'uns say. If Chillum and co want to block Eric, they'll find a pretext regardless—the Civility Police can always find something to take out of context if they look for it. Besides, I can't think of a better welcoming gift for the incoming Arbcom than AE3. ‑ Iridescent 19:47, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
AE3? Noooooooooo...... Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:56, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

I try and keep my talk page as uncensored as I possibly can, regardless of what turns up, but User talk:Ritchie333/Archive 41#Cassianto, where I desperately tried (and failed) to get Chillum to see sense is one of the few I got so annoyed at, I hatted it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 20:36, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Chillum isn't malicious; his problem is that he's fundamentally incapably of grasping the idea that his own rather idiosyncratic notions of "politeness" and "rudeness" aren't universal constants, and he thus insists that other people comply with them, despite the fact that in the US coasts and the British post-industrial cities—which between them dominate en-wiki—its his style of discourse which comes across as arrogant and rude. The fact that he's totally detached from how Wikipedia actually functions—a total of 3.6% of his editing activity in the past two years has been to actual content, which makes NYB look like d'Alembert—doesn't help, either. ‑ Iridescent 21:43, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Bargain

I'm simultaneously involved in a few other threads on the Trump talk page.[8],[9],[10] No one else has reported me to AE for disruption. How much disruption am I actually causing? EdJohnston stated "It seems that Doc9871 behaves quite badly on talk pages and that behavior hasn't changed since the last time around." Is it really about disruption to the topic... or perceived personal attacks/insults? Doc talk 11:06, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Why on earth are you asking me? To the best of my knowledge I've never made a substantive edit to any page even vaguely tangentially related to Donald Trump, and my sole interaction with you ever was this comment which is a procedural note about your apparent misinterpretation of "if this doesn't stop I may request intervention" (an utterly standard Wikipedia process, which aside from anything else forms the basis of the entire User warning template category tree) as an attempt at a plea-bargain of some kind. ‑ Iridescent 20:04, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

I didn't think it appropriate to comment in the section you did, as it seems to be for admins only. Sorry to upset you by bringing it here. Doc talk 12:02, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Not upset, just puzzled as to why you're asking my opinion about a topic in which I've never indicated the slightest interest. ‑ Iridescent 20:16, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Request for help with Jim Brett draft

Hi,

Re: the teahouse discussion of Draft: Jim Brett that you weighed in on at Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive_547, the discussion is now archived and you're the only one who weighed in substantively. Reading between the lines, the editor posing the question also more or less says he agrees notability threshold has been reached - he only had tone issues. He didn't raise notability on the question or on his original review. That came later from another reviewer.

Would you mind moving the draft to the mainspace? Otherwise, the discussion won't have any effect, as I'll rather unfairly have to resubmit it for yet another review on AfC.(A negative result on Teahouse would have killed it, but a positive result would have no affect unless you act, because the editor posing the question won't help editors with a COI.)

Many thanks,

EdBC1278 (talk) 16:19, 29 November 2016 (UTC)BC1278

✓ Done, it's now at Jim Brett. Be aware (if you're not already) that now it's in mainspace it's subject to the full implications of "anyone can edit", so anyone who does still feel there's a problem will legitimately be able to fix the perceived problem in whichever way they deem appropriate. ‑ Iridescent 16:28, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Block evasion?

[11]

This looks like it's the same guy against whom I was proposing sanctions.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:12, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

He also templated[12] User:QuackGuru. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:14, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Possibly, but it could just as well be a friend of Hyperforin who's upset at how he's been treated, or even a joe-job by someone trying to get him indeffed; stranger things have happened. Since CUs aren't going to link an account to a particular IP address except in exceptional circumstances, WP:AGF means just let it lie; either the IP will flare out and get itself blocked, or will either vanish or settle down. If this is Hyperforin than the block on his main account will expire shortly so the point will become moot. ‑ Iridescent 22:19, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
Huh. I hadn't thought about the joe-job theory, though honestly after I noticed the edit to QuackGuru's page (in the two minutes between the above two posts), I briefly thought it might be a certain e-cig SPA whose only non-electric-cigarette contribution to the encyclopedia was a 10-month campaign to get me removed from Wikipedia for challenging his authority to perform non-admin closures of RFCs that aren't related to electric cigarettes. That user's page says they are semi-retired, and they haven't edited logged-in in eight months. If it was another user my money's on him, anyway. We'll see if the IP makes any more edits after Hyperflorin's block expires, anyway, and regardless keep an eye on Hyperflorin anyway. I still think 48 hours was too short even without the post-block disruption on his talk page ("you are both crazy and insane"). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:24, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
The principle of blocking should always be to block for the minimum duration possible if there's any possibility of someone being a benefit. Hyperforin clearly has the potential to be a valuable contributor if he could get over his guardian of the truth mentality; 48 hours causes enough of a nuisance to send a "this is unacceptable" signal, without upsetting him so much he walks out. Since he's now attracted the attention of Bishonen, I doubt his experience next time he starts acting up will be as painless. ‑ Iridescent 20:17, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
ROARR!! 15:47, 27 November 2016 (UTC).
The principle of blocking should always be to block for the minimum duration possible if there's any possibility of someone being a benefit I wish more admins agreed with you there. Look at the number of blocks in my log that were put in place not because I violated an IBAN and looked like I would continue, but because someone who didn't like me requested that I be blocked. Heck, I once received an indefinite block (that stayed in place for about a day, mind you) because I had logged into this account before making an email address for my declared alternate account that I was using to avoid an off-wiki stalker. Anyway, you're probably right. Best just forget about him until something happens again. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:09, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
Well, the last time I did temp-block an user (not an IP), the editing issues that caused the block in the first place plus some additional incivility continued as soon as the block had expired. There is no way one can tell what a "minimum time" is, and if you pick the wrong one the problem will reoccur. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 23:20, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
Sure, but if you block for too short a time, the problem reappears and you block again for longer; if you block for too long a time, or when it's not necessary, you run a high risk of driving someone away and Wikipedia doesn't have such an inexhaustible pool of editors that we can afford to lose them. The only time when "blocked for too short a time" is a genuinely valid argument is in those relatively rare case where someone is so unpleasant that their very presence has a toxic effect—mostly the racist cranks and the Free Culture Is The New Frontier nutcases—and if anything Wikipedia is too tolerant of both of those. (The squiggly lines to the right are out of date now, but I've no doubt the trends continue to the present; in recent years the admin corps have become far more obsessed with spam and civility, at the cost of the focus on vandalism, sockpuppetry and disruption.) ‑ Iridescent 20:22, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
As the wiki grows and it becomes better known, spamming becomes more rewarding, seems like. As for block lengths, I suspect I've been coloured by the TV Tropes blocking culture, which does not have a function for auto-expiring (and the only timed block I did there ended up indef a while later for the exact same issue that caused the first block). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:12, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
Because the failures are more prominent, it's easy to lose sight of how successful Wikipedia's system is at putting a stop to conflicts without driving people away. Taking WP:WBFAN as a group of editors who can be assumed to have at least some value to Wikipedia, of the top 20 on the list 5 have been previously (non-accidentally) blocked, and that same 25% ratio is fairly consistent whichever measure of "editor value" you take; one of Wikipedia's less-heralded positives is that it's actually pretty good at sifting the people who are just having a bad day/are drunk/are too close to one particular issue but fine when they're away from it, from the people who are genuinely irredeemable assholes. Newyorkbrad could probably put this more eloquently, although I imagine he's fairly busy this week. ‑ Iridescent 21:23, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
(adding) I'm not entirely sure I agree that As the wiki grows and it becomes better known, spamming becomes more rewarding is the primary driver here. What's more plausible to me is that "conflict of interest" has become a general catch-all euphemism for "I don't like you", used by admins when getting rid of people with whom they've had an argument. (As I pointed out about a decade ago during Jimmy and Greg's original cage fight, and still stand by, under the "broadly construed" definition the wikilawyers are so fond of, anyone writing an article almost certainly has a conflict of interest with the subject since people are naturally drawn to write about the places they live, the companies whose products they use and the products they buy, rather than those topics in which they have no interest.) ‑ Iridescent 22:38, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Break: Spam blocks & WMF recruitment videos

Maybe I am far more block happy than you when assessing spam blocks or the sample is wrong, but based on a sample of such blocks from today I inspected, the vast majority of such blocks are for writing spam pages or adding spam links, not COI editing. So probably no, a rise in COI blocks does not suffice to explain that statistic. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:48, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
Depends on what you consider "spam", I suspect. Way-back-when, we used to turn a blind eye to people who were obviously writing about their employer/school/band provided they complied with rules on sourcing and weren't inappropriately puffy. Nowadays, articles like George H Bryant Career Technical Center, Frances Brody Institute for Applied Diplomacy and Kanti Sweets—all of which are sitting in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as spam as I write—are treated as spam and their authors hassled, threatened or blocked accordingly.
If you look at the early versions of any Wikipedia article on a company, band, artist etc, there's a very high chance that it started off either as an unsourced corporate puff-piece, a "they are evil" hatchet job or a gushing fan-piece (some fish-in-a-barrel examples at [13], [14], [15], [16], [17] and notoriously [18], but you can repeat the experiment to prove I'm not cherry-picking by replacing the xxxx in https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=xxxx&dir=prev&action=history with the article name of your choice).
Somewhere along the line the notion of "this article is crap but common sense tells me that the topic is significant so I'll explain to the author how to improve it, rather than just chase them away" was lost. How long do you think this, this or this would have survived in the current climate without their creators' talkpages filling up with templated warnings and crude threats, and do you think they'd have stuck around for long if their first interaction with The Wikipedia Community had been a stack of warning templates effectively telling them that they're unfit to touch the hallowed ground of Wikipedia unless they're willing to read a couple of hundred policy pages first?
The bizarre indoctrination video we expect new editors to watch
For people who've been around a while, or have worked their way up from other wikis or user-generated sites, it's hard to comprehend just how incomprehensible Wikipedia is to a newcomer nowadays. Even the most basic version of the welcome template contains fifteen links to policy pages of varying degrees of incomprehensibility, and new editors are pointed towards a really peculiar WMF propaganda video which is extremely well-intentioned, but can fairly be said not to mitigate the "Wikipedia is dominated by a pack of weirdos whom you'd cross the street to avoid if you saw them walking towards you, not by ordinary people" stereotype which much of the rest of the internet—and the rest of the world, for that matter—still holds about us. (Yes, the creators had to work with what they had, and since this was filmed at Wikimania it only features the sort of people who would consider it a sensible use of their time and money to attend Wikimania, but I'm sure they could have quietly edited out some of the people who look actively crazy.) ‑ Iridescent 12:15, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Check out this one some time
  • Or if one's being charitable, it's a sign that after a decade of trying we've finally managed to pound the point into the world's collective consciousness that the only person on Wikipedia who still thinks Jimmy Wales has any significance is Jimmy Wales. (Something like this would hopefully never fly today.) ‑ Iridescent 04:16, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Break: Dubious deletions

This is my favourite speedy deletion tag on Wikipedia of all time. Needless to say, it was declined, and if anyone added it today, that might be sufficient to earn a vandalism block for just that. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:06, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
See also the deletion tagging of Adele, the deletion discussion for Facebook (and of course Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Zuckerberg), the actual deletion of Lady Gaga, and of course the deletion discussion for Norwich Market, which has only been in continuous operation for a mere millennium so is too new to warrant a Wikipedia article. (This is still the stupidest tagging I've ever seen, though.) ‑ Iridescent 15:31, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
To be honest, I think that last one might well have been a straight WP:POINT (using its proper definition of deliberately trolling an article to discredit overzealous use of the {{fact}} tag). I declined the CSD on Medium (website), which while not quite in the same league as Facebook or Twitter (probably because it's too much effort for trolls to write a lengthy post that gets picked up by everyone else) is still a bit of an obvious faux-pas. Also declined the A7 for Benjamin Clementine. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:42, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
It was probably genuine. I'm not sure how involved you were in the meta-arguments back then before Wikipedia's conventions on when and where to cite sources settled down, but there genuinely were people going round writing earnest essays with titles like Wikipedia:You do need to cite that the sky is blue. ‑ Iridescent 15:48, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
I didn't really get involved in the backstage area of WP until 2013, except that around 2007 I started to hear complaints elsewhere on the net about "where's the Wikipedia article on 'x' gone?" and "I hate Wikipedia, I tried to write an article about 'y' and it was deleted immediately [insert obligatory comparison to Hitler here]" that escalated to the point that I tried to write an article about one of these deleted topics just to see what happened; by doing so I learned enough policies to survive (which do kind of make sense when you explain them well - just far too many editors don't) and decided to stick around. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:59, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
I still get faintly annoyed even now when I recall Sandstein's WP:IDONTLIKEIT supervote closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biscuits and human sexuality, a goofy title but an article which about three seconds digging would have shown was a legitimate topic. ‑ Iridescent 04:02, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
A redirect to Soggy Biscuit? How disappointing. One rather hoped for an in-depth analysis of the time-old problem of what one's biscuit choice reveals about one's sexual preference(s). Will us biscoctophiles be forever bereft? Alas, we have to make do with this shoddy piece of journalism: Biscuits and sexuality "You approach the biscuit table, the main choices available are chocolate fingers (homosexuality) or jammy dodgers (hetrosexuality)." (Chocolate fingers? I always thought Pink wafers, cf. Camp Biscuit Bad for Business.) One biscuity backstreet worth exploring is the Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution in which "Wolfenden suggested at an early stage that for the sake of the ladies in the room, that they use the terms Huntley & Palmers after the biscuit manufacturers – Huntleys for homosexuals, and Palmers for prostitutes." --Hillbillyholiday talk 04:19, 29 November 2016 (UTC) Also, the Biscuit Scale Of Sexual Attractiveness "The Chocolate Hob Nob is many people's ideal long term partner."
A pornographic image made up of Oreos, Custard creams and Bourbons
The redirect to Soggy biscuit is just the placeholder that was added after the article was deleted. The original was an (admittedly only 1⁄4-complete) article on both the once very common belief that biscuits could be used to suppress the sex drive (including the wonderful sentence In early 2008 comments made by singer and actress Madonna brought the link between biscuits and sexual activity into question, in which she blamed then-husband Guy Ritchie's lack of interest in sex on overconsumption of biscuits), to the use of sexualised images in biscuit marketing (Did You Know… that in 2002 McVitie's gave away 500,000 free biscuits to women buying sex toys, as part of the "Cookie Nookie" promotion?[19]). It also included That Image, which I'm glad you've given me a pretext to revive. ‑ Iridescent 12:43, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Not only do I like biscuits, to me the picture on the right hand side simply looks like a woman eating a Magnum and mentally saying to the viewer, "hands off and go and buy your own". I wonder what that says about me? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:55, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
It did manage to provoke its very own "think of the children!" complaint. That we find it perfectly acceptable to feature human corpses, bombed-out buildings and graphic violence on the front page, but baulk at a 100-pixel image of some suggestive biscuits, is something of a sign that despite the WMF's protestations about fighting systemic bias, the American cultural domination of en-wiki is alive and well. ‑ Iridescent 14:02, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
User:Ritchie333/NOTCENSORED isn't just about boobies Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:18, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
The main complaints I hear about Wikipedia editing are about the notability policy and about Wikipedia's bureaucratic nature. Incidentally, Nancy Lenoil is probably the worst A7 tag I've encountered. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:03, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Nicky Minaj was notoriously deleted on ten separate occasions, while Bruno Mars has been deleted both by speedy and by proposed deletion. Ed Sheeran and Emeli Sandé have both also been deleted at some point. ‑ Iridescent 04:02, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
It's not really in the same ballpark, but an admin calling the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club a "student club at a single school, fails WP:ORG & WP:BAND" is a bit wide of the mark. As is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rules of chess. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:09, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Although it resulted in keep, an honourable mention for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London Calling (song). Although it did end in deletion, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Female nude wrestling is well worth a read as an example of Wikipedia at its finest. ‑ Iridescent 12:43, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
That's nothing compared to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Skateboarding dog and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them! controversy in terms of style over substance. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:22, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
If you really want to see AFD at its craziest, check out Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Octaviano Tenorio (and Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2016 July 20#Octaviano Tenorio, and the increasingly-deranged ravings at User talk:Iridescent/Archive 21#Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Octaviano Tenorio), in which an awful lot of people who ought to know better found it impossible to grasp the concept of "if there's obvious disagreement that means there's no consensus". ‑ Iridescent 13:41, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
(Incidentally, if anyone reading this knows anything about French WW1 history, I've just declined a speedy nomination on Louis Barthas but the nominator has promptly taken it to AFD.) ‑ Iridescent 12:47, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

A well-meaning but ill-informed editor once nominated Melville Davisson Post for deletion shortly after it was created. Coincidentally, I knew that I'd be seeing him at a meet-up a few days later. When he got to the meet-up, I asked if he'd like to borrow a good book and handed him four of Post's books that I happened to have, all still in print. He withdrew the nomination.

There is some competition, but the most head-banging-against-the-desk AfD discussion I've ever been part of was probably this one. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:46, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Indeed an absurd nomination. EEng 19:22, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
"Well meaning but ill-informed", eh? I seem to remember some other editors had more pungent descriptions. ‑ Iridescent 16:55, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Given the number of admins in this thread, would someone care to give suitable words of advice to this guy? ‑ Iridescent 16:57, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Since I seem to playing "wiki-diplomat" today, I've given it ago. If I get a repeat of this I will be .... unimpressed. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:45, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Since his preferred term for anyone disagreeing with him appears to be "moron"[20][21] I'm guessing his (we can safely assume this is a "him" I think) Wikipedia career is destined to be nasty, brutish and short, but AGF and all that. ‑ Iridescent 17:54, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
I would offer to help, but I was just accused of a "WP:STAB" violation on an RfA talkpage. (I should RfD that template sometime; it is absurd.) I pride myself on not wikistabbing anyone, so I'd better take some time off. (At least long enough for lunch, anyway.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:27, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
While there are many criticisms one could make about you, "personal attacks" wouldn't be one that springs to mind. (FWIW, WP:STAB has now gone the way of Infamy of 2016. If there's a more obvious example of Recently created, implausible redirect that doesn't involve Neelix, I've yet to see it.) ‑ Iridescent 18:41, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

BabbaQ's posts

I'm sorry if I'm getting off on the wrong foot with anyone here. But I really did find a problem with these posts, given the way they are worded. I understand disagreement does not equate to personal attack, and I agree, but again, the wording made me feel like BabbaQ was lashing out at the dissidents, which is why I took it to WP:ANI. Perhaps I should've explained it more clearly, but I thought the diffs were enough. Can you please explain to me how these do not qualify as personal attacks? Parsley Man (talk) 23:39, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I really, really strongly suggest you read What is considered to be a personal attack?—which is Wikipedia policy, not a personal essay like Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (aka WP:IDONTLIKEIT) which one is free to follow or ignore as one pleases—as I think you're under a serious misapprehension as to what constitutes a "personal attack".
To take the two claimed "attacks" in detail:
  • ALL these three !votes above are classic IDONTLIKEIT. You claim notnews and simply states reasons that goes inside IDONTLIKEIT. Without any kind of expanded explanation. is inappropriately formatted, since it's very bad practice to use WikiSpeak without explanation in a venue like AFD where there's a high likelihood that non-insiders will read it (see WP:WOTTA). However, there's no "attack" there; a translation from Wikipedian to Human would be The three people commenting above are arguing from personal preference rather than Wikipedia policy. I understand the argument that it is not the role of Wikipedia to act as an archive of news coverage, but you have failed to demonstrate that this applies in this instance. Someone requesting the deletion of an existing article is obliged to explain, if asked, which policy they feel the article violates and in this instance I don't feel you've done so sufficiently.
  • It happened less than a month ago. no telling of long term impact. the rest of your rationale is IDONTLIKEIT. again isn't by any measure a personal attack; it's a straightforward comment that people above, talking about the lack of a long term impact, can't possibly know what the impact is as the inquests and investigations are not yet complete. I personally think this argument is complete hokum—shootings in the US happen regularly enough that one can say with near certainty that unless an attack causes mass casualties or affects a high-profile public figure, it will have no discernible impact on policy or practice,* and within a few days will just blend into the general background statistics—but BabbaQ is perfectly within his rights to make the argument.
    *Before someone starts ranting at me for being unpatriotic, "there are more fatal shootings every two days in the US than every year in the UK, and one is four times more likely to be murdered in the US than in the UK" isn't in dispute; the issue isn't whether the shootings are happening, but whether they're a price worth paying.
When it comes to 'civility', a fundamental principle is Sanctions for civility violations should only happen when nothing else would do (emphasis in the original) which is a part of the five pillars, the closest thing Wikipedia has to a written constitution. Unless you can see no other way to resolve a situation it's considered disruptive to request sanctions against somebody on civility grounds, particularly in a case like this where you've not made the slightest attempt to discuss the situation before running off to ANI complaining. I didn't close that ANI thread to protect BabbaQ, I closed it to protect you, as there are certainly admins out there who'd consider blocking you for disruption for continuing to flog that particular dead horse once it was explained to you that no action was going to be. ‑ Iridescent 11:07, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
We really need to popularize WP:ANI advice more... Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:23, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
Wouldn't that a bit like trying to popularise depression? Eric Corbett 20:36, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Your comments solicited here: Talk:Legal_history_of_cannabis_in_Canada#Rename_Cannabis_in_Canada_or_create_new_article.3F. Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 08:10, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Are there really people in Canada who eat other people? EEng 13:23, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
@EEng:Did you confuse Cannabis for Cannibals?(I may be wrong!)Aru@baska❯❯❯ Vanguard 15:59, 30 November 2016 (UTC)(talk page stalker)
Well, gee willikers! I guess I did! EEng 16:04, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Now now, play nice. ‑ Iridescent 17:20, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
And EEng, for the record, there's at least one former Wikipedia editor in Canada who eats other people. This being Wikipedia, his account has never actually been blocked; I guess being a white supremacist necrophiliac murderer constitutes "off-wiki activity" and thus not in Arbcom's remit. ‑ Iridescent 18:35, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Well, he must have fit right in, what with the histrionic personality disorder and "at least 70 Facebook pages and 20 websites under different names". EEng 18:46, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Not the only one, allegedly. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:33, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Did Breivik eat people? ‑ Iridescent 21:39, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Not as far as I know. Was thinking more about both being notable people - for all the wrong reasons - who edited Wikipedia. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:47, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
We almost certainly have quite a few more who don't declare themselves. If you were trying to design a honeypot to attract narcissistic loners who want strangers to pay attention to them but want to expend minimum effort in doing so, you'd be hard pressed to come up with a more efficient design than Wikipedia—in terms of raw eyeballs, "altering the photos of tourist attractions in Google Map Maker" still wins hands-down, but they're considerably more efficient than us at cracking down on people who want to use them as a platform for sermon-preaching. ‑ Iridescent 18:56, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Oh my, I seem to have missed that one; I blocked a pile of his socks at various points, but I was a brand-new admin when that one was editing, so it was long before I first encountered his socks. Risker (talk) 01:58, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Huh—it's only on looking at the log that I discover that it was actually me who originally protected it against his socks. (Someone really ought to do an IAR revdeletion of all the early history of that article; I'm fairly sure "hosting a rolling log of the paranoid fantasies of an incoherent psychopath" isn't in Wikipedia's remit.) ‑ Iridescent 17:40, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
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