User talk:MelanieN/Archive 32

This is an archive of past discussions with User:MelanieN. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 25

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Archive 30

DS at Trump?

This edit was made 14 days after they received the DS advice. Some kind of DS is in order. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:50, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I'll look into it. --MelanieN (talk) 23:39, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Just to point out: Such warnings as the one you left on my talk page (after I had already one) were not accorded to those who vandalized Hillary Clinton and Meryl Streep's wikipedia pages. In the subjects's case the edit was well-deserved and should not in any way undermine my 6 years hard work on Wikipedia (as self-centered as that sounds). I gave my explanation to Dustin V.S., who warned me in a very cool and collected manner. Just by looking at your user page one can tell that you are biased, so I suggest we let cooler heads prevail.Radiohist (talk) 23:45, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Your attempts to justify such extreme vandalism of a Wikipedia page - any Wikipedia page - do not speak well for you. 'Nuff said, since I do not take admin actions at that page - because I am WP:INVOLVED in editing and discussing at that page. --MelanieN (talk) 23:52, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Once again, let cooler heads prevail. And forgive me for my comment that you were biased. I was mislead by the picture on your user page.Radiohist (talk) 23:55, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I wondered where that came from. Somebody accused me of ~~POV~~ COI editing because they thought I was Melania Trump - and after we all had a good laugh I posted that "not me!" picture on my page. --MelanieN (talk) 00:12, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

I have a userbox for you Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 11:50, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

My mistake, Melanie, I thought I had seen you take admin action there in issues where you were not otherwise involved. I should have approached a different admin. It's clear enough from things like "well-deserved" that this user still doesn't get it. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:07, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Please WP:DROPTHESTICK.Radiohist (talk) 00:12, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Stick dropped. Count your blessings that you're not enjoying an involuntary 1-week wikibreak. You caught a break. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:17, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Once again, WP:DROPTHESTICK, User:Mandruss Radiohist (talk) 15:31, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Steven Moffat article links to the wrong Tony Dow

Hi, You've protected Steven Moffat's page so I can't correct the link to Tony Dow. It should be (dir. Tony Dow) Let me know if you want me to make the edit. Regards, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kindadella (talk • contribs) 10:30, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Kindadella, you should be able to edit that article. You have been here long enough, and have enough edits, to be an autoconfirmed user. I have fixed this in your user rights. Try again, you should be able to edit the article now. --MelanieN (talk) 14:55, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks. I've fixed the link. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kindadella (talk • contribs) 15:43, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Kenneth Folingsby

Hi. Could you explain why Kenneth Folingsby was SDed? If you google him, you can find many entries about him and his book, IMO proving that he is significant. Thanks--Mpaa (talk) 17:29, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

@Mpaa: Thanks for your note. The Kenneth Folingsby article was deleted because it contained no verified information, and did not establish a claim that the person was significant. The article said, it its entirety,

Possible pseudonym of a probable Scotsman, author of Meda: a Tale of the Future (1891).

Nothing there to indicate that he even existed, or what his real name was, or anything at all about him. If we Google him we do find that the book exists, but not even the minimal information about him which is needed to establish a biographical article. It might be possible to write an article about the book, if you can find enough information. We do know when it was written, and that it has been republished in modern times, and that it has an entry in the Science Fiction Encyclopedia. If you are interested in this subject I would suggest you create an article about the book instead, with proper sourcing. But I have to warn you that it might not meet Wikipedia's notability criteria and might get deleted again. It is not enough that a book exists; it has to meet certain criteria spelled out at WP:NBOOK. Sorry I couldn't be more help. --MelanieN (talk) 20:38, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the advice. My view anyhow is that the process is very discouraging to say the least. Risk & reward is not balanced. Why should someone invest a lot of time in writing something, risking that it would not be accepted? A 'seed and let grow' approach would be a better approach.--Mpaa (talk) 22:35, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

"Seed and let grow" can work in drafts, but if it is going to go in the encyclopedia it does have to meet certain standards. And that can be frustrating. A lot of people find that the most rewarding way to contribute to Wikipedia is not to create new articles, but to edit and improve existing articles. You can still add to the sum of knowledge here, and as long as your edits are helpful - and (if you are adding substantial new material) sourced - your work is much more likely to be retained. That's how I got hooked here. That's how most of us volunteers here got hooked on Wikipedia. Not by trying to launch new articles when we are new ourselves, but by reading, noticing things that need improving, and fixing them. --MelanieN (talk) 23:22, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Acts of Sharbel

Hello, I'm wandering if you could retype the lead for the article Acts of Sharbel. I'm horrible when it comes to leads. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 22:43, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I have no idea what you are asking me to do - and I'm unfamiliar with that area of Wikipedia. I suggest you ask one of the regular contributors there. --MelanieN (talk) 23:24, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Neil Gorsuch articles

I noticed that you have been editing both articles concerning Gorsuch, his bio and the nomination page. I have been arguing for the Fascism Forever information be kept out of the articles, as you have also. There is an editor in Wikipedia that has decided that he is going to solicit other editors to force the information into the articles. To support this claim, please note this edit: Monopoly31121993 plea to Wizardman. This comment on your talk page is just a heads up.--SlackerDelphi (talk) 18:46, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I think we can trust Wizardman not to overreact, but I'll keep an eye on it and chime in if I think it is necessary. --MelanieN (talk) 18:56, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks.--SlackerDelphi (talk) 20:03, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Apologies

I apologize for being involved in what was about become an untenable mess and a bad situation. Thanks for intervening. I did say I was going to self-revert and restore removed content. But you got there first. And I am glad. Whew! Crisis averted. Well, onward and upward. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:27, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

The DS are very confusing. That's why there was a whole little informal seminar on my talk page, with more experienced admins explaining the rules to me. We really ought to be able to write rules that a 10-year editor can understand! BTW I'm glad I was the one to restore them and not you. Let the consequences, if any, fall on me. --MelanieN (talk) 22:30, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Regarding consequences - thanks for that. Can you provide a link to that "little informal seminar on my talk page" explaining the DS rules with more experienced Admins? ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:42, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I provided two links in my note there. They just look like 1 and 2. Maybe I should make that clearer. --MelanieN (talk) 22:44, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I thought your comment was very helpful and constructive, Melanie. I have reverted the freshly added content that Marek challenged, but not touched any of the longstanding content which may represent stable consensus. SPECIFICO talk 22:48, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I couldn't tell which was longstanding and which was not. --MelanieN (talk) 22:50, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Not longstanding material

Melanie, regarding this - that is NOT "longstanding material" as far the lede goes. Here is what happened:

Glenn Greenwald and Masha Gessen are in the Expert assessment section. I guess one can argue that *in that section* this is "long standing material".

But there was a lot of discussion of whether this was UNDUE on the talk page. There really wasn't any consensus one way or another.

THEN, someone - BlueSalix I believe - went and got super obnoxious and added the material on Greenwald and Gessen that several users were objecting to being in the article at all, to the LEDE. It's hard to see this as anything as a user trying to act in a POINTy and provocative manner ("ha ha, you don't like this in here, I'm not only gonna not let you remove it, I'm gonna stick it in the lede to rub it in").

Clearly, this material IN THE LEDE is NOT "long standing". It is also still in the relevant section.

So please undo your restoration. I'm pretty sure I'm right on this one. Thank you.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:13, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Actually it looks as if SPECIFICO already restored the lede as it was a couple of days ago. That looks like a proper action to me. But let's take this discussion to the talk page. --MelanieN (talk) 00:30, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Is this acceptable?

Hi,

Not sure if you're the right person to ask this, but here goes. I noticed an article had been incubated, but the redirect left behind had not been tagged for R2. Instead of tagging it for R2 and waiting for an admin to delete it, I sort of did it myself by reverting the move and redoing it without leaving a redirect. I realise that's probably not the proper way to do it, but is there anything wrong with doing that? I get the feeling I've somehow gamed the system in some way here. Adam9007 (talk) 04:34, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Adam! Well, what you did worked, and it wasn't against any rule, but I wouldn't recommend this method - because the history logs it creates [1] [2]] are much less clear than a straightforward "this one got moved to draft space" and "this one got deleted per R2". --MelanieN (talk) 15:19, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

It didn't violate any rule I'm aware of, but it feels both right and wrong, if that makes any sense (or maybe it's just me?). I thought it might be considered some sort of abuse because I used it to effectively do what only admins are supposed to be able to do, which is probably not its intended use. The "Adam deleted redirect" entry in the deletion log may also confuse people who are not familiar with moving over redirects (I think I saw you involved with something like that recently?), although it was a G6 deletion, not R2. But, as you say, it worked and is not strictly speaking wrong. Adam9007 (talk) 17:18, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

It wasn't wrong, and there's no need for you to agonize over it. But in the future I would suggest using the more standard (and more efficient) procedure of simply tagging it R2. --MelanieN (talk) 17:27, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it's difficult not to agonise over things given recent (and some not-so-recent) events. I think my carefree days here are over :(. Adam9007 (talk) 04:07, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Publishing password

Hi, Melanie, I noticed you took care of this. But, in view of the password publication, don't you think the account name itself is highly suspect? Not that I think it needs blocking... just yet... but let's keep an eye on it. Bishonen | talk 16:56, 8 February 2017 (UTC).

Thanks, I will. Their only two edits so far are benign, but one of our old sockmaster friends is prowling about right now so I'll keep an eye on it. --MelanieN (talk) 17:02, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the hat

Thanks for the hat [3] - very stylish. it looks good on me and is a nice fit. Can't wait to show it off! . Did you get it at Nordstrom? (hahahaha...)

Seriously, it was the correct thing to do. I was considering doing this myself, but since I was involved in the conversation, I didn't know how it would be received. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 21:56, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

You're welcome. Thanks for taking it in good humor. Actually you had given me the perfect opportunity to close the discussion, because you had just said something about taking it to user talk pages. A good clue that the discussion was ripe for closure. --MelanieN (talk) 02:01, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Trump

Hi again,

You're an expert on Donald Trump (you're much more involved with stuff relating to him than I am anyway), so you might want to take a look at what's happening here? It's beginning to show signs of edit warring. Adam9007 (talk) 04:09, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I've left a note on Chris' page. A combination of an over-eager editor, very little knowledge of Wikipedia processes, and some not-so-ideal opinions on his fellow editors. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:41, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Request

Can you semi-protect the pages Tropical house, Now That's What I Call Music! discography to persistent multiple edit warring from UK (including Special:Contributions/92.20.174.160) 115.164.223.186 (talk) 15:01, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I protected Now That's What I Call Music! discography for a month - multiple additions of unsourced/WP:CRYSTAL content. There has not been enough recent disruption at Tropical house to require protection. --MelanieN (talk) 15:12, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

need a revdel

Melanie, got another editor over on Donald Trump posting the same BLP vio on the talk page. I just deleted his post on the talk page. Please go revdel it before it spreads further. Thanks. SW3 5DL (talk) 21:07, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't help you. I am out of town and don't have access to my tools. I see that it did get revdel'ed. --MelanieN alt (talk) 00:19, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

DYK for Bowling Green massacre

On 21 February 2017, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Bowling Green massacre, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that U.S. presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway's mention of a nonexistent massacre in Bowling Green, Kentucky, went viral? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Bowling Green massacre. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Bowling Green massacre), 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.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:03, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Accidental use of rollback

Hi,

Do you reckon this edit summary would be considered uncivil? I got irritated that my mobile phone had gone haywire (again) and behaved as if I'd pressed buttons I know I hadn't, especially as it had already happened earlier. I made sure that I was clicking the right link by pressing long so that a dialogue box opened with the URL to the link appeared with a list of actions. In this case, I didn't even intend to open that page, let alone roll it back. I had actually pressed this diff to view it: the dialogue box opened with its URL and I pressed open. You can imagine my surprise when I instead got "Action Complete" with a message saying that some other page had been rolled back. At no point did I press any button marked "rollback". Obviously, if this is what's going to happen, I will not be continuing to do it that way. It used to ask me for confirmation when I pressed rollback (or my phone thought I did), thank god, but didn't here for some reason. And of course it's harder to revert myself (or make any edit) on my phone than it is on my PC, which could only add to my frustration as I was of course in a rush to revert myself. I can't help but feel I said something that I should probably have kept to myself? Adam9007 (talk) 01:34, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

LOL! I suspect we have all felt that way about our phones sometimes; you expressed it very succinctly. What happened here was probably what I call Big-Fingers-Small-Buttons syndrome. It happens all the time when you are trying to edit from your phone; you intend to press THIS button and instead you press THAT button, just because the buttons are so small and close together. And that's the trouble with Rollback: it does NOT give you a "confirm" option or a chance for second thoughs; it just goes ahead and does it. That's why I had Rollback disconnected, back before I became an admin; I got tired of having to send groveling apology notes to people I had unintentionally reverted. (I now have Rollback because it comes with the admin tool package, but since I don't ever use my admin ID on my phone it isn't a problem.) I don't know any way around this, except to ask to have Rollback removed from your account. Maybe a talk page stalker knows some kind of clever workaround, but I don't. --MelanieN (talk) 01:45, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Found a way! The rollback link no longer appears on my watchlist (which is where I was pressing the links), but is still available on diffs and user contributions. The problem is not that I'm accidentally pressing rollback, but that something is going on in the background that interferes with recognition over what's being pressed. I also had one occasion where I clicked the link to an AfD, the URL on the dialogue box was to the AfD, but when I pressed "Open", it took me to someone's user page instead. I can only assume something's loading. I've noticed that Twinkle doesn't seem to load on my phone a lot of the time. Maybe I ought to try a different browser. Adam9007 (talk) 02:02, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Congratulations, well done! Now you will have to find OTHER reasons to cuss out your phone. (Modern life provides plenty of reasons.) As you say it may be a loading problem: even on my desktop, I sometimes click on something but then everything moves down on the page because of some notice or other loading, and I wind up somewhere other than I intended. --MelanieN (talk) 02:09, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I've noticed that too. But some of the stuff that's happened on my phone you probably wouldn't believe unless I showed you: I remember occasions when I was editing, and for some reason the whole source turned into a load of coloured bars. I couldn't see what I was doing and couldn't be sure that wasn't what was going to be saved to the page! Another time, my phone seemed to want to paste the entire source into the edit summary without me copying it to the clipboard (I think I was once trying to copy something, and one of those kept happening. I had to do the edit summary first. It ultimately took about 10 minutes. On my PC it would have taken seconds.) Other times the whole editing thing just went haywire: I couldn't fix the cursor anywhere. This happened even in mobile mode. And all this was without internet connexions dying on me and the browser crashing, which are also regular occurrences. By the way, my phone does ask me for confirmation if I press rollback (I get a dialogue box saying "rollback x edit(s) by whoever?"), but for some reason did not here. Whether it only asks if I short press it, or if I press it from somewhere other than the watchlist, I don't know, but I'd much rather it continue asking me for confirmation in case I ever do accidentally press it. Adam9007 (talk) 02:24, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, that's interesting - that you get a confirmation. Because the definition of Rollback is that it works with a single mouse-click. (Do you get a confirmation on your desktop too?) It sounds like you didn't need one more reason to cuss out your phone; you already have many reasons. Things happen mysteriously all the time. You may have noticed a saying on my user page, that I find to be both funny and profound: I used to have a dream that someday my computer would be as easy to use as my phone. And my dream came true. Because now I don't understand my phone either. 0;-D --MelanieN (talk) 02:34, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

No, I don't get asked for confirmation on my PC. I remember one occasion on my phone when I pressed something, and at that moment things moved around, so I actually pressed, you guessed it, rollback. It definitely asked me for confirmation, and I of course pressed cancel. Nothing actually happened, thank heavens. I don't often press rollback on my phone, but it asked me for confirmation on other occasions too. Adam9007 (talk) 02:46, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Add: It turns out that it's supposed to ask for confirmation: There's an option on the "Gadgets" tab in Preferences that says "Require confirmation before performing rollback on mobile devices", which I have checked (and will continue to leave checked of course :)). I also came across this script which might be of use... Adam9007 (talk) 03:16, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Very good, again! You have now found several solutions to this problem (which was obviously a problem for a lot of people which is why they created the gadget). So at least that's one way your phone should annoy you any more. --MelanieN (talk) 03:19, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

I've installed the script and set it to ask for confirmation from the watchlist on all devices. If I continue to get problems, I may hide the links from the watchlist again. Adam9007 (talk) 03:33, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Investments in Russia

Hi MelanieN. I think that Trump chose his language rather carefully. He doesn't "own" investments in Russia? Maybe -- we don't know. He may not actually own any investments anywhere. His business seems to be that he manages partnerships that invest capital contributed by other people or entities and Trump's businesses are paid management or licensing fees. For example, he doesn't "own" his winter White House at Mar-a-Lago as I understand it. However, his son has disclosed that the businesses managed by Trump do so with capital (debt or equity) invested in the Trump projects by Russian "oligarchs". In terms of the potential for conflicts of interest or undue influence, that possibility would arise if these Russian investors could withdraw their capital from Trump's projects. We don't know details of those (acknowledged) investments, but the "I don't own anything in Russia" statement is irrelevant, and wouldn't of itself necessarily be problematic. So I chose the language "not disclosed" that you reverted because we know there are significant relationships with Russian interests and the phrase "no known" that you prefer seems to suggest that everything has been checked, as in there are no known cases of smallpox in the world. See what you think. You've thought about this more than I. SPECIFICO talk 15:31, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Specifico, thanks for the chance to talk about this. (And thanks for removing "alleged".) Yes, I think his denials have been very carefully worded - probably by his advisors since he is not a person who normally chooses his words carefully. (As someone said, what a difference the letter "N" makes; he says he has no connections to "Russia", he doesn't mention connections to "Russians".) I also chose my language rather carefully, and worked hard to keep the paragraph neutral. I prefer "no known" because "he has not disclosed" implies that he is the only potential source of information, or even that we know about other investments but he just hasn't disclosed them. The truth is we really DON'T at this point (I said "as of 2017") know of any actual investments in Russia, despite serious investigation by many reporters. And you can believe they are searching hard; a scoop like that would be gold to any reporter who could find it, especially after all his denials. Of course, the thrust of the paragraph will have to be changed if someone does turn up a secret investment or financial connection in Russia. But for now I think "no known" direct financial ties to "Russia" is the accurate description of the state of our knowledge, and it would be POV to hint otherwise. I did also document the private Russian investments (possibly in the form of loans) in many of his properties, and I agree those could be very significant. --MelanieN (talk) 16:06, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Sounds right. The problem, if any, is more that Russia(ns) have investments in him, (that he can't risk being withdrawn) rather than the other way around. SPECIFICO talk 16:32, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

BTW did you see the recent complaint on the Trump talk page that our article is "clearly biased in favor of Trump"? Makes a nice counter to the people who complain that the article is too negative. Maybe we are doing something right. --MelanieN (talk) 18:14, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Will have a look, thanks. If everyone's unhappy it must be NPOV :). BTW more 1RR violations fwiw on the Russia article. SPECIFICO talk 19:07, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Which Russia article? --MelanieN (talk) 20:13, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

[4] Same old sameold. SPECIFICO talk 22:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks

...for the seconds. I'm always on the hunt for candidates. I know you do a lot of very conscientious editing on various Trump articles...not an easy task. Have you run across any editors that might deserve a pat on the back for being peacemakers on the inevitable battlefield of political article collaboration? Or any subject for that matter? While I'm here I might as well make a plea to any of your friendly stalkers to make nominations of deserving editors to be Editor of the Week. Buster Seven Talk 18:52, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for carrying this project all these years, User: Buster7. Where do I check to see if someone has already been nominated? Is there a searchable file, or do I just have to scan through the Hall of Fame? --MelanieN (talk) 20:14, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Editor of the Week. Note the rising star that was nominated in April, 2014. The Hall of Fame hasn't been added to for a short while. It's in re-organization you might say. Buster Seven Talk 20:26, 28 February 2017 (UTC)