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NOR and the verifiable untruth

You keep proposing "verifiable truth, not unverifiable truth", and I want to make sure that you understand why that's never going to be accepted. On occasion, editors must include verifiable un-truths. WP:No original research directly and unambiguously prohibits what you seem to want.

Imagine that you work for a notable company. The Wikipedia article about it says that they had profits of US $X last year. Imagine that you know—for certain, without the slightest doubt, based on the spreadsheet in front of you and the CEO and the CFO screaming at each other in the hallway—that the company's actual profits were $Y, and that they are preparing to issue re-stated financials at the end of the week.

You must not change the Wikipedia article to say that the company's profits were $Y until that information is published. Your employer might object (or might not, if Y is bigger than X), but Wikipedia absolutely prohibits you from removing the verifiable $X material or substituting the unverifiable $Y material:

  • even if you know that the verifiable material is wrong
  • even if you know that the unverifiable material is right
  • even if you are confident that your change will eventually be vindicated when the reliable sources finally publish the truth.

There are no exceptions to the NOR policy: your access to unpublished material does not allow you to add unverifiable truth, and it does not allow you to remove an untruth that is properly verifiable (and DUE). You may not remove the apparently correct (according to all published reliable sources) false information until the fact of its falseness can be verified in published, reliable sources (in this instance, by the press release about the restated financials).

The same applies to your example of scientists: They might know, prior to publication, what the results of a study were. But they may not remove verifiable information that they personally know and believe to be false (or at least outdated) unless and until a source is actually WP:Published that verifies their personal knowledge. After publication, the fact if the old material's falseness can be verified, and then the false material may be removed.

To give an example, Louis Pasteur knew the results from his experiments on spontaneous generation well before he announced them at the Sorbonne on April 7, 1864. But a 19th century Wikipedia would not have accepted a single word about that until after that lecture ended, even though Pasteur knew most of the results months before, and all of the results days or weeks before. The newly published information was fair game immediately after publication—but not acceptable even five seconds before, even though subsequent events clearly indicate that the old information was false and the then-new information is true.

Truth and falsity are not what decides whether we add something to Wikipedia. Verifiability and neutrality are mandatory. If the only thing that is verifiable is something you say is false, then Wikipedia will include that verifiable untruth-according-to-some-editor without a second thought. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:15, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your detailed comments above. This is actually pretty much exactly what I've been trying to say - I must have been explaining myself very badly! My point was that trying to include stuff that scientific researchers (or, in your example, the guy with access to the company's records), who genuinely does know better - and pointing out that even though they know this stuff for a fact, isn't allowed - they can't include it until it's been published. (The "unverifiable truth" - nobody else can check it.) For those people that's the truth - but WP can't accept it, because it's unverifiable (hasn't been published). That's really what I mean by distinguishing between a verifiable truth and "any old truth" (unverifiable, either accurate or not). You've worded this concept much better than I've done; it does appear that we're both thinking along the same lines, but I wasn't explaining it well! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:19, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Adding a bit more - I think perhaps we may have got our wires crossed because I wanted the wording to be designed so that the researchers and those with other insider knowledge didn't feel that we were lumping them together with people who "just make stuff up"; it's important that we don;t actually alienate the people who will be responsible for our next generation of verifiable truths, as well as dissuading the people who really are just making stuff up. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:42, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I believe that a more effective route to retaining experts is to be more civil to people in general, and to undertake the time-consuming effort of fixing their mistakes. It's much faster to hit the undo button, but it's probably better to see if you can keep something (anything, even) of each new person's contribution. And you don't have to look far to find people who are needlessly, gratuitously rude: that drives away everyone, but it drives away older people and women faster than it drives away teenage boys. Our expert population generally does not overlap much with our teenaged editors.
But it's hard to tell who's a real expert and who's not, and even among experts, we get people who are trying to push views that represent minority views rather than to correct errors.
One thing you might like to know about is WP:MEDCOI, which is written with medicine-related articles in mind, but whose principle apply elsewhere. IMO one of the most irritating situations is to find an expert cleaning up a POV mess and having the POV pushers claim that experts aren't allowed to edit, because they have a "conflict of interest". Well, their interests may conflict with the POV pushers', but in such situations the experts' interests often align perfectly with Wikipedia's, since both want the POV pushing garbage removed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:47, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more with what you've said here. Thanks for the link to WP:MEDCOI - it's not a page I've come across before. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 05:43, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Pre-RfA

Did you notice that I created the proposal at Wikipedia:RfA reform 2011/Radical alternatives/Pre-RfA Proposal? Ryan Vesey Review me! 14:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Yup! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 05:44, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Hunting

Is the rest of the section verifiable? No. More to the point, not everyone(or even half)thinks that hunters have been, ah,"driving forces in conservation". In fact, a large group of people(conservationists) think that hunters have been doing a lot more driving toward extinction. If you figure out how killing something for recreation is keeping it alive, tell me.Ronald Wenonah (talk) 12:36, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I have no interest in expressing any point of view on any article in Wikipedia. There's a saying, though, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so any time you want to add anything at all which is likely to be challenged, you must provide a source for it. (Inline citation.) See this page for help with how to do that. It's also vital that nobody pushes any particular point of view - Wikipedia articles are required to be presented in a neutral way no matter what the feelings of individual editors may be; it's one of our fundamental rules. So, please, don't edit-war anywhere at all, make sure that anything you add to any article is attributed to a reliable source, don't push a point-of-view, and if you find articles whcih make you really feel that you have to get one side or the other across - avoid those articles like the plague and edit something which you have no strong feelings about! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 19:04, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Aw Pesky, where's your sense of adventure? LOL!!! Montanabw(talk) 03:47, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
It's been overridden by my sense of self-preservation! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 04:24, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
For update and creation of membership sub-templates. I present to you the Tireless Contributor Barnstar! とある白い猫 chi? 07:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Bless! Thanks! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Pazuki tribe

Hi.Thanks for informing me.I found two English sources for Pazuki tribe in Garmsar article:Pazooka tribe and [1] I think the name must be changed to Pazooka tribe Thanks--Orartu (talk) 13:00, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I created Pazooka tribe, I have added English sources too. Thanks--Orartu (talk) 13:54, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Michal Na'aman

I removed the BLPprod from Michal Na'aman because it already has two reliable sources in the external links section. From WP:BLPPROD, "To place a BLPPROD tag, the process requires that the article contain no reliable sources in any form (as references, external links, etc.)" Bgwhite (talk) 05:45, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

ahh, sorry! I must have missed that. Very new to tagging ... Pesky (talk …stalk!) 05:47, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
No problem. I forget more Wikipedia rules than I learn, so I'm always messing up. Happy tagging Bgwhite (talk) 21:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:International membership templates

(: -- とある白い猫 chi? 06:53, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:05, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you! :p -- とある白い猫 chi? 08:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
No idea when I'll do anything with them, but I will try to Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:07, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

RfA Reform update

Hi. It's been a little while since the last message on RfA reform, and there's been a fair amount of slow but steady progress. However, there is currently a flurry of activity due to some conversations on Jimbo's talk page.

I think we're very close to putting an idea or two forward before the community and there are at least two newer ones in the pipeline. So if you have a moment:

Thanks for reading and for any comments that you've now made.

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of RfA reform 2011 at 21:42, 6 September 2011 (UTC).

About The Gay Byrne Music Show

Hi Pesky - I tend to agree - see you at the AfD - --Shirt58 (talk) 11:46, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

AfD nommed - creator has done nothing with it since 9th August, and I can't see it ever making a decent article for lack of decent sources. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 06:53, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Bhutan provinces speedy deletes

Thanks for the copyvio concerns. In addition to the province articles, I actually wrote the wiki Dzongpen article, which was later mirrored on the winx.name domain. The domain has even copied wiki templates. I wrote the citation markup in the wiki article(s) in question, for better or for worse, and I haven't lifted anything inappropriately. Another editor has already removed the speedy deletion tags because the winx site is in fact a wiki mirror with tons of copied pages, which I'm sure you noticed. I realize there's not a lot you can do but be more careful when jumping at what appears to be a copyvio. Of course, I don't mind at all explaining. Cheers! JFHJr (㊟) 14:01, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Apologies! I did look at the other site but couldn't see anything on it saying that content was from Wikipedia; thanks for the heads-up on this anyway. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 14:08, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Usually they (the sites copying Wikipedia) don't bother to properly attribute their content. I think that in this case the domain serves as an advert for infolinks.com, as it is the only track leading to the domain's creator. Anyway, it is quite clear that the domain is a wiki mirror. As JFHJr correctly points out, the domain has even copied wiki templates. (See for example http://winx.name/). Best regards. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 14:46, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
I will try to do better in future :o) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 05:02, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Hello ThatPeskyCommoner! I hope you enjoy this yummy cookie as an amicable greeting from a fellow Wikipedian, SwisterTwister talk 04:58, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Oooh, yummy zero-calorie cookie! Ta! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 05:01, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

SAAF squadron AfDs

Hi, I've just expanded 12 Squadron SAAF and 50 Squadron SAAF into fully viable articles, and see no barrier to doing the same for 7 Squadron SAAF given the sources available in Google books. Are you satisfied that WP:N is met? - flying squadrons in most air forces are notable given the large amounts which has been written on air warfare at this level. Cheers, Nick-D (talk) 05:26, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, OK by me, if other individual squadrons meet the criteria. I wasn't sure on this article, hummed and haah'd a bit about it. Feel free to remove the notability tag if you haven't already done so (though it's possible that someone else may re-insert it, of course!) - and good luck and have fun with filling the article out. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 05:31, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Please stop doing AfDs and Speedys for the moment.

Could you please stop doing AfDs at the moment. Saying "Non Notible?" at Chris Richards AfD and AfDs of two athletes ( José Antonio Rojas and Peter Metcalf) show you don't know yet the rules of AfD.

Please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Specifically, you have to give a reason why a subject is not notable. Second, there are cases where a subject is presumed notable. This is the guidelines for sports figures Wikipedia:Notability (sports). For example, the case of José Antonio Rojas... footballer guidelines state if a footballer has played in the Division B Chile league, the player is notable regardless of how little references there are. A reference from a reliable football site (soccerway, espn, zerozerofootball) is enough to establish presumed nobility.

If you have a case where you want to apply an AfD or Speedy, could you please ask me first. Leave the site and reason on your talk page or mine and we can discuss if the reason is valid or not. If it is valid, then you can do the AfD/Speedy.Bgwhite (talk) 07:24, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I had taken a look through the WP:BEFORE stuff, and (as I'm trying to improve!) looked for enough decent sources, as well as possible non-notability stuff. In most of the ones I've tagged, I couldn't find more than 'passing comment' stuff that could ever be used to fill the article. But I'll stop looking at new pages, if that's going to be problematic! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:28, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm in no way assuming she is negligent or malicious. I'm know she is new and learning. I've had wonderful dealings with her in the past. I only gave just three examples of some of the many problems I've seen. She has used "Non Notable?" (notice the question mark) several times and has been blasted for the nomination and the obvious amounts of sources available. Bgwhite (talk) 08:22, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
I thought I was working in line with If you find a lack of sources, you've completed basic due diligence before nominating. However, if a quick search does find sources, this does not always mean an AfD on a sourcing basis is unwarranted. If you spend more time examining the sources, and determine that they are insufficient, e.g., because they only contain passing mention of the topic, then an AfD nomination may be still be appropriate, but clearly not :( Apologies for getting it wrong. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:46, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Please, Please do not just stop. I'm in no way meaning you should stop looking at new pages. New Page Patrol has to be one of the most important and depressing jobs to do at Wikipedia and there are not enough people to do it. The day I stop doing something wrong is the day hell freezes over. Also, I think it is impossible to remember all the rules and nuances of Wikipedia. Do not worry about getting things wrong as long as you are trying to improve. I'm only suggesting that when you want to do a speedy or AfD, please discuss first. Hopefully after a few discussions you can get a better handle on it. Bgwhite (talk) 08:31, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
OK, I'll try a bit more! I think on the whole I'm probably not too bad, I just make the odd mistake from time to time. They say "The man who never made a mistake never made anything," and I suppose that goes just as much for us grannies, too! The only reason I've been looking at new pages is just that at present I feel uninspired to do anything content-wise, but I daresay that will pass. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:35, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Promise to bring me some AfDs and Speedys today. I'm on U.S. time, so let me sleep first. With the work we do, we are called Gnomes. It is important work. In the computer biz, we would be called a Janitor. Think what Wikipedia would be if everybody was writing articles but nothing else? I had to read your userpage and I see why you are so "strange" :) Who in their right mind would love a horse? I grew up with them as we had upto six horses at a time. They were my moms love and passion so I have to give her a hard time about them.

I may do - but I also have some "real work" to get on with today - my daughter has promised to help me dig in some new gate posts in our field ... (adding) In the horse / farm world, we're called "dogsbodies"! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 09:42, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

When you get done with that, want to help me paint my barn? Anything to avoid a rough way on WP!!! Montanabw(talk) 23:27, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

the articles you left me for consideration

I'm not sure, do you have my talk page bookmarked? I just left my response to you the articles you left on my talk page. Bgwhite (talk) 19:50, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I have you on my watchlist :o) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:27, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi. :) I appreciate your keeping an eye out on copyright issues in Riot (Damages) Act 1886--especially important with Corensearchbot down :/. I just wanted to let you know that I've removed the tag because of the nature of the content. Under the US law that governs us, laws and edicts of government (regardless of country of origin) are public domain. There's a small bit about it squeezed in at the end of this section.

Anyway, again, I do appreciate your consciousness of the issue. It's an important one to me. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 00:12, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I really wasn't at all sure on British Acts and so on - I know they're always marked as copyright of the Government, over here, but I also wondered whether the same rules apply over in the US! Thanks for letting me know, on this one (I shall remember it for future). Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:00, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

blp prod

Your prod of James S. Denton was incorrect. It always had references--they just weren't displayed in a section marked "References". There is no requirement that they be so located, or even expressed formally within the article. BTW, he;s notable, and very easy to find additional refs for. For George Edward Backus, a member of the national academy of sciences, it was even easier (another ed. did that one). I've added refs to a few of the other articles you've BLP prodded. DGG ( talk ) 19:43, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 05:08, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Stubbing

Hi, I noticed that you added {{stub}} to St. Mary's Church (Beaverville, Illinois) although it already had two specific stub templates. Stub templates should go right at the end, after everything except inter-language wikilinks (per WP:FOOTERS). If you aim to put a stub tag in the right place, it's easier to notice the existing ones. I can see that the layout of this article makes it less easy to notice the stub tags on the displayed article, below all that white space. Thanks. PamD 14:24, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Pesky and Pam, please do see this--Shirt58 (talk) 14:42, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
My apologies! I'm very new to tagging, and you're right - I just didn't see those stub tags down there already! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 04:46, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Again, please put stub tags in the right place - they go after the categories, not before - see International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights. (One reason they go after the categories is so that someone loooking at the list of categories finds the important ones first and the stub categories later. If you put the plain {{stub}} tag in the right place, it makes less work for the other editor who comes along to stub-sort it: they can edit the plain tag, rather than move it.) Thanks. PamD 08:19, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Linkrot

I started an RFC at WP:VPI#Linkrot - What to do? and encourage you to comment there. Thanks. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 22:28, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Done. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 21:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: Arivaal Chuttika Nakshatram

Hello ThatPeskyCommoner, and thanks for patrolling new pages! I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Arivaal Chuttika Nakshatram, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: A7: does not apply to creative works beyond its limited scope, definitely not crystal ball. You may wish to review the Criteria for Speedy Deletion before tagging further pages. Thank you. Blurpeace 08:19, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The boilerplate this script uses is really frank. I did however decide to decline the request, sorry. WP:CRYSTAL isn't a permissible deletion criterion and would probably have been better at either AFD or PROD. I've no reservations about you bringing the article to the former though. Blurpeace 08:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
No probs, I wasn't sure about it! I do still make the odd mistake on CSD's etc. (haven't got all the rules by heart yet - maybe I'll have time to memorise them some time this century .... heh!) I'll AfD it instead. Thanks for your (nice, non-flaming!) input and response :o) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:29, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Or you could PROD it as failing WP:NFF, as "Films that have not been confirmed by reliable sources to have commenced principal photography should not have their own articles...", for future ref. Should be non-controversial, as the policy is so clear, and less effort all round than AfD. PamD 08:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Ooh, thans for that one - I haven't learnt that one yet! I'll probably remember it for next time :D Pesky (talk …stalk!) 09:29, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Grandera

Thank you for drawing my attention to the problem with youtube links on the Grandera article. I checked on HELP and you are, of course, correct. I will take down links from other articles. Like a lot of the copyright rules, it's annoying but unavoidable. One thing I'm learning about writing articles on wikipedia is that I can't do things just because other people have "got away with it". Tigerboy1966 (talk) 09:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

There are so many potential pitfalls out there! If links are to a program's own official channel on YouTube, you can generally get away with it, but I find a good rule of thumb is to wipe YouTube out of the equation altogether, with links - that way it's harder to go wrong. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 10:48, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Storytelling Interview Request

Hello! My name is Aaron Muszalski and I'm a Storyteller at the Wikimedia Foundation. Could you please email me at amuszalski@wikimedia.org ? I'd love the chance to interview you as part of our storytelling campaign. Thank you!

It's probably something I wouldn't be interested in being involved with, but (like so many things) it rather depends! Tell me a little more about it, here. The only way you could actually 'do an interview' with me would be likely to be via IRC or something, in any event (owing to Real Life commitments and constraints). But tell me more about it. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 01:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Snap!

Hi TPK - Yannis Stavrakakis - --Shirt58 (talk) 09:43, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Linking to disambiguation pages

While I applaud your work on two-cylinder (engine), please do not add it to articles unless absolutely necessary. You should, wherever possible, link to the appropriate flat-twin, v-twin, or straight-two engine article. You certainly shouldn't be linking to it from within any of those articles as the disambiguation points right back to them. --Biker Biker (talk) 12:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

  • The page at two-cylinder (engine) was not really a disambiguation page, though shaped a bit like one. Dab pages guide readers to articles with similar titles, while your article was a list of 4 sorts of 2-cylinder engines. See WP:DABCONCEPT for discussion of this kind of situation. I've converted it into a stub article (please correct and/or expand it, as it's not my field), and renamed it Two-cylinder engine. The other approach would be to make it into a "List of types of two-cylinder engines". Also, you should only add a "disambiguater" in brackets (ie like "(engine)" when there is more than one page with the title concerned ("Two-cylinder"). As "Two-cylinder" is an adjective, it seemed better to move the page to the title which I have done. I hope all this makes sense. PamD 22:28, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
Hey guys, I read the two-cylinder engine page as a list (or possibly stub waiting to be expanded) rather than as a disambig, and just went through the list of "what links here" to try and do my best with cleanup after changing it from two-cylinder to two-cylinder (engine). With hindsight, I should have gone for Pam's suggested name and left out the brackets altogether, I s'pose! So many of these things are a bit "shades-of-greyish" on judgment calls as to exactly what to do with them; we're never all going to be in perfect agreement all the time. Pam - thanks for tweaking that the way you've done - looks much better all around your way :o) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 06:05, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

National Memorial Hall (Mount Herzl)‎

If this article bothers you so much! You can insert it into the article of the Mount Herzl. פארוק (talk) 11:21, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

As stated in the deltion tag: "Almost incomprehensible (appears virtual gibberish), unreferenced. Possibly incredibly poorly translated, but not (as it stands) a good advert for Wikipedia!" It's simply not possible to copy-edit this article into something acceptable, as it stands. It would need to be blanked out, and re-written from scratch, fully referenced, etc. At rpesent it appears to be almost identical to computer-generated mish-mash of sentences and phrases taken from different sources and simply pasted together. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 11:47, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Specialized city

why to delet this ? ... פארוק (talk) 11:27, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Reasons given in the deletion tag :o) ! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 11:45, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Re: ornithology-by-year articles

Hi Pesky - are you aware of the Timeline of ornithology article? Were you planning to move content to that, or something like it? Cheers. Maias (talk) 14:23, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Maias ... nope, I wasn't aware of that! I came across several of these almost-empty articles while on NPP, and they itched to be done something with ... I'm sure there'll be a way of merging all this stuff together, eventually. In the meantime, the important thing is collecting all that data together (which is being done at User:Jowaninpensans/SandboxBirds at the moment. I have no idea why I let myself in for this, lol! Actually, it's really to save and rationalise the data in things which will no doubt get deleted soon unless something is done to fill them in. I've virtually done the twentieth century in that sandbox :D. Any help you can give would be great - my only involvement with birdy stuff, on the whole, is feeding the critters in the garden, and then watching to see who comes to eat. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 14:28, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Also have a look at the earlier articles in the series - e.g. those from 1800 to 1850. They have a lot more content and I suspect that merging them would create a ginormous article that someone would be bound to suggest splitting into individual years. I realise that the later ones created by Jowaninpensans are vestigial - all structure and hardly any content - but the earlier ones show that they have much potential for expansion. Maias (talk) 14:41, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I looked at the earlier ones - they seem to be much better, as are the ones from 1995 onwards. BUT (eeeeek!) the 1995-onwards ones are sorely in need of citations; some have been tagged as no refs since 2009 :o( I think what' we'll end up with (for the time being ( is a merge of 1900-1995, and leave the others as they are, then split out individual years as and when there's enough to warrant doing it. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 14:43, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Having looked at Timeline of ornithology, I don't think what I've saved in User:Jowaninpensans/SandboxBirds fits in with that stuff very well. Maybe Jowaninpensans could use his data (and the few bits in there from other editos - which they could copy and paste in, themselves) for something like "Notable events in birding 1900 - 1995", or something? Pesky (talk …stalk!) 14:56, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Maybe. I agree that stub articles full of section headings and hardly any information are pretty ugly. Maias (talk) 23:57, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Relevant observations

You made a relevant observation here and it's nice to hear you recognise some of the major RfA issues. Five months down the line those problems still flourish and our efforts at RfA reform are criticised by others as a trainwreck, and those snide coments are encouraged by the very kind of people you cite. Such people may be among our very best content contributors, but as some may be failed candidates themselves, their frequent oppose votes at RfA are intended more as a protest at RfA as an admin selection system, than as an expression of lack of confidence in the candidates. They are not famed for exercising the best of tact and diplomacy and are often at the root of the very drama we are trying to abolish. One admin once snarkily accused us of being children for not publishing a blacklist of such voters. I'm in a quandary now as to whether we should in fact finally name and shame. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:09, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure on that one. My gut feeling is to avoid it, as the most likely consequence would be a flaming backlash (from as many sources are are named and shamed); on the other hand, if one could name and shame with hard-and-fast (and well-researched) data, it might conceivably be something worth thinking seriously of doing. BUT ... the evidence would have to be incontrovertible, and compelling. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 12:32, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Wow, very high praise Pesky. I consider Kudpung one of the very best admins out there. Good job. Bgwhite (talk) 19:53, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
There is plenty of evidence if one takes the voting patterns over a long period of time, but it would be a laborious exercise to go through several hunded RfA and list all the diffs. Indeed, to name and shame however, might risk opening a can of controversy as did my list of inappropriate RfA questions (voters' names not listed). Maybe as a result of that essay, maybe not, but the frequency of dubious questions appears to have abated somewhat - although the two current RfA have a question that has raised several eyebrows. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:45, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
It is of course possible that just a threat of naming and shaming (and pointing out that we do have the data to back it up) might actually work just as well :D Not that I'm evil, or anything ..... lol! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 05:30, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Template:Peacock

[2] – Can you please elaborate? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 17:53, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi, sure, yes. It was the first two sentences, really - reads more like company promotional literature than encyclopaedic. I do appreicate that with a 'starting' article of this short length, it can be hard to avoid when just a couple of sentences form such a large percentage of the whole. Maybe inserting "which the providers state is" just before "aimed at enhancing website performance and speed and providing security" would be enough to get over this small hurdle. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 18:35, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Done as suggested. Anything else? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 19:14, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Correction – Your suggestion is disputed. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 19:33, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Bumping. I feel that the anon has a point. Do you have any other suggestions? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:18, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
The deletion by the anonymous editor appears to be just fine. I have removed the peacock tag and replaced it with an advertisement tag. The first two paragraphs are fine. The last two paragraphs, especially Prince's quote, are purely advertisement. Remove the last two paragraphs. The first two could be expanded a bit and that is about it. I looked at Akamai to see what you can do to emulate... they started in '98? Egads, I remember when they started. I'm old. Bgwhite (talk) 21:32, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
I removed the second-to-last paragraph, but I'm leaving the last paragraph alone. I don't see any reason to censor the official statement of a non-profit third party. Is this acceptable? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 02:25, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Bgwhite, if you're old, I'm a dinosaur! I remember the UK winter of 62/63 ....

On another note, these comments are probably best moved to the article's talk page, rather than my own talk page. Have fun improving the article - I'm sure it has the potential to be quite decent :o) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 12:18, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

There isn't any need to move the discussion there anymore. The "peacock" and "advert" issues appear to have been resolved. Thanks for your help. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 22:48, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
Nice to know that this one's resolved :o) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 05:32, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: Line Integral Convolution

Hello ThatPeskyCommoner. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Line Integral Convolution, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: Not unambiguously promotional. Thank you. Jezebel'sPonyobons mots 15:56, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

No probs - having read through the comments, I agree; I've dropped some hopefully helpful notes on writing onto the creating editor's talk page. With any luck, they'll be able to turn it into a nice article for us :o) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 04:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

About The University News (University of Missouri)

Hi again, Pesky. I don't think this article is WP:A7 material. Seems it does make "a credible claim of significance or importance even if the claim is not supported by a reliable source or does not qualify on Wikipedia's notability guidelines." I'm watching the footy at the moment, so only a cursory comment here. See you at you at its AfD!--Shirt58 (talk) 11:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Totally off-topic - just for my stalkers!

Well, we had an excellent round-up yesterday! Five of my girls came in (Roo, Lin, Loony, Nutter and Sue); wormed, collared, and turned back out to enjoy their freedom on the Forest again. Roo was her usual Diva self - it took four of us to lift her head up so she could be wormed ..... Loony and Nutter both look as though they are in foal :D They're both a bit young for it, so we'll be bringing them home around Christmas time to stuff their little faces with stud nuts; but fingers crossed for two cute foalies next spring. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 04:56, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Me a stalker, noooo. I already knew this because I was watching with my binoculars... Loony and Nutter?? I like those names. I may hate horses, but you are making me jealous. Sounds like a great place to live, great "job" to do and watching cute foals running around is priceless. Bgwhite (talk) 05:39, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
The New Forest is one of the best places on Earth, in my opinion. Commoning is a good lifestyle, if you like that kind of thing. Loony and Nutter are nicknames - they got them because they were so sane and friendly ... they're both female red-heads (chestnut filles), which have a bad reputation for temperament. Lovely girls, both of them :D Pesky (talk …stalk!) 06:10, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Sooo.... where are the photos? :) Pitke (talk) 08:51, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
I was so tied up with working that I couldn't take any! One of my "jobs" is at the work area of the round-up, helping to handle other people's ponies (help with worming, collaring, etc.) which doesn't leave me with a hand free for photography! You'll get nice piccies of foals in the spring, hopefully. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:55, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
LOL! Sort of like nicknaming one's fat lazy dog "killer," eh?  ;-) In the USA, "stud nuts" would be a weird colloquialism for something entirely different. We want more pics of nice horsies and cool places for nice horses to live! Any kind! Montanabw(talk) 23:43, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I have one or two interesting-colour/markings pics which I haven't uploaded yet; must get around to that one day! There's an outside chance I may get some pics of gelding today - our three colts are being done. Sweet'n'sour pony balls, anyone? Pesky (talk …stalk!) 05:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

LOL! See Rocky Mountain Oysters. But seriously, see also Gelding that photo that's there worries some vet types because of bad sterile procedures. (The fact i squicks out some guys is, however, just a bonus! LOL!) Montanabw(talk) 17:30, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Heh! Our chaps were done on the field ..... they're all fine, by the way :o) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 18:38, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Line Integral Convolution (again)

If I read right, you may have changed your mind about your nomination of that aricle for deletion. If so, can I suggest you withdraw the nom? --Deadly∀ssassin 13:47, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

ooops, yes, sorry - of course I should have done that - I was so tied up with Real ife it just slipped my mind :o( My bad! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 06:11, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Birding and ornithology prods

Hi, I saw that you tagged a few "19xx in birding and ornithology" articles with prods, stating that you were planning to improve the subject in another article. If you are going to merge any of the material in these articles it might be best to redirect them to the new article in lieu of deletion, so the editing history doesn't get lost. They should be deleted only if they contain no material that you will use in the future. If you already know that you won't be using any of the material in these articles then feel free to ignore this message :P ThemFromSpace 16:02, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

All the data from those PRODs has been saved into the creator's userspace (with notes anywhere the creator wasn't the editor who put those bits in, if you see what I mean!) Hopefully the new 1900-1995 article will be ready to up-and-run very soon. I'll nudge the creator to re-present the new improved version; then individual links from the list-of-years can be turned into redirects later (if that makes sense). Pesky (talk …stalk!) 06:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Casalotti copyvio

No, it wasn't, sorry. The Bulkpedia article was a direct link to the article here - and acknowledged it too. You have to go just a bit further than finding the text somewhere. There are a lot of mirrors - sometimes not actually acknowledging the source as here. (They're more tricky. There are clues - irrelevant numbers in square brackets are a dead giveaway.) I can't see it on a Gsearch for 'casalotti wiktionary', and can't find an AfD for it. If you've got any more info, let me know. It wouldn't be sent to Wiktionary, as it's a place, and I can't see a reason for it to have been AfDed either. I might be missing something.(Some people think that already...) Peridon (talk) 10:04, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

The text found there (see talk page) dated from 11th April; the Casalotti carticle was created 26th August. If this article was linked to from bulkpedia on 11th April, how? Since it wasn't created until months later? If it linked to a Wikipedia article already in existence with the same name, that article must, somehow, have been deleted. Can you help untangle this? Pesky (talk …stalk!) 10:09, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
The Bulkpedia thing is linked straight to here. When I removed the tag, I checked it again and the tag was gone. All those things there are links - that Google date is possibly the date for the page creation. Bulkpedia seems to be a place for storing your links. The Casalotti article here is a translation of the itwiki article created in 2007 (which is before the Google date of 2008) - I'm doing a tidy up at the moment using the Italian text to work out some bits. When I click on my delete button, there's no previous version shown. (I know you couldn't check that.) Peridon (talk) 10:24, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Heh! Sometimes these things are too blinkin' difficult for me to check! I couldn't see how they could have done that .... shame, really. If they could have given me a link to next week's winning lottery numbers, that would have been just so cool ... :D Pesky (talk …stalk!) 10:27, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Same again at Von Roggenhausen... Peridon (talk) 11:03, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Bother! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 11:05, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Working Woman's Barnstar
For your tireless New Page Patrolling from the back of the queue--Mrmatiko (talk) 13:20, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
[blushes] ... thanks! But quite frankly, at the moment, NPP seems like a nice, relaxing, unstressful break from Real Life! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 18:24, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I sometimes feel the same way about WPEQ, which probably says a lot! Montanabw(talk) 04:07, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

News and progress from RfA reform 2011

RfA reform: ...and what you can do now.

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Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of RfA reform 2011 at 16:04, 25 September 2011 (UTC).

The Contender 1

Hi. Can you help me understand why this page was deleted as a COPYVIO? The talk page is no longer available for me to make sense of your deletion reasoning. I did not author this page - I simply moved this content from the main series page to one dedicated to just the first season. But, it would be helpful to understand why the entire page was deleted, rather than any content in question just being removed. Thanks. Osubuckeyeguy (talk) 15:31, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sure - I random-searched phrases from the episodes, and found the exact same wording all over the web, unfortunatly, and way pre-dating the creation date of the article. It seems likely that the original article may therefore also be a copyvio problem - sometimes this happens. If you can drag back your wording, and re-word it all in your own words, making sure to cite your sources clearly, then it should be OK for an article. One of the things which tends to make me, personally, twitch on the "potential copyvio" response is seeing a wall of text with no, or far too few, inline citations! It always makes me go Google-phrase-hunting to see where it's come from. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 06:29, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
When you say the "original article" to which are you referring: the page I recently created and merged text to or The Contender, which was created long ago? If you meant the former and not the latter, then is it possible that the Ghits you found were people copying text from wikipedia and not the other way around? Osubuckeyeguy (talk) 05:00, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Declined BLPPROD: Julieta (singer)

I had to decline the BLPPROD here (I've PROD'd it instead). While there is an on-going RfC on this point, consensus is and appears to be that even a clearly self-published source such as one's own web page is "enough" to prevent placing a BLPPROD tag, this is explained in more detail at WP:BLPPROD#Nominating. Sorry for the inconvenience. --joe deckertalk to me 14:49, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Hey, no probs! I make mistakes (it's part of being human, lol!) Some of these things are just very grey-area judgment calls. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 04:51, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Journal "stubs"

I'm not sure that the journal "stubs" that you have nominated for speedy deletion are actually "unambiguous spam". They don't appear to belong on wikipedia, but I'm pretty sure that they don't meet any of the speedy deletion criteria including WP:G11 or WP:A7 because they aren't unambiguous spam and journals aren't one of the things that can be deleted under the "importance" criteria; which is why I PRODed some of them yesterday as being non-notable academic journals. --Mrmatiko (talk) 07:34, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

They're all from the same (COI) guy, who's been warned already for spamming. I can't see anything in there that I think constitutes anything other than serious COI spam/avertising - all his stuff is about journals published by the same group. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:36, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I apologise, you are absolutely correct. I didn't notice that the external links were all to the same website. I think that is an example where I took assuming good faith to an extreme and made myself look like an idiot as well as appearing to assume bad faith about your own actions. Once again, sorry. --Mrmatiko (talk) 07:42, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Absolutely no probs :o) I shall continue to tag them all, if that's OK :D Pesky (talk …stalk!) 07:46, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Go for it. It might be an idea to report the user to the spam wikiproject noticeboard. --Mrmatiko (talk) 07:50, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Reported. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:00, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

It seems that the article for this Medline-indexed journal has just been speedied as spam? How may other such are there, or did anyone even check before nominating? LeadSongDog come howl! 15:49, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

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