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Books and Bytes - Issue 10

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 10, January-February 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

• New donations - ProjectMUSE, Dynamed, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and Women Writers Online
• New TWL coordinator, conference news, and a new guide and template for archivists
• TWL moves into the new Community Engagement department at the WMF, quarterly review

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:40, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Translation has done

Hi Dennis! Thanks for the corrections, I believe it was done for good. I am beginner in wiki and Bahasa Indonesia is my mother language. I've translated Jeffrey Polnaja article as it should. As you wish I also put it on Wikipedia: Pages needing translation into English on March 29th, 2015. Maybe the grammar and syntax are not really perfect, but the intent, meaning and purpose has exactly the same with the original. Hopefully you wish to do a little favor to make it pleasing. Let me know, where does the shortcomings so I can learn more. Thanks for your attention and have a ice ride... --AdvPrima (talk) 03:48, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, please note that there is a Manual of Style that should be followed to maintain a consistent, encyclopedic appearance. Deviating from this style, as you did in Jeffrey Polnaja, disturbs uniformity among articles and may cause readability or accessibility problems. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:56, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Please do not delete or edit legitimate talk page comments, as you did at User talk:Dennis Bratland. Such edits are disruptive and appear to be vandalism. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:44, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I just want to move the message to this location. I do not intend to delete it, just moved what I write and did not change the others part... --AdvPrima (talk) 04:05, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

You don't need to move messages around. Just reply under the message, no matter where it is. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:12, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Confirm, thanks for your input...--AdvPrima (talk) 04:30, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

How do you know the meaning is clear? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:34, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I speak both language, so I know the meaning... --AdvPrima (talk) 04:30, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

"Tyre" to "Tire"

Sorry about that, Dennis! I noticed that I had changed "tyre" to "tire" in the etymology chapter, and I have reverted them back to the international spelling. My intent was to create a uniform use of spelling in the article. After I had done so, I realized that the word "tyre" was purposely used to explain the history of its spelling. I will make sure not to make the same mistake in the future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.163.124.82 (talk) 18:38, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

OK. Fair enough. Cheers! --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:21, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

The move of motorcycle tyre to tire was done on purpose to make the article align with the already established use of the word tire over tire. Standardization should be encouraged. The main article of Tire uses the word Tire and the page for Tyre redirects to the article for Tire. While I can understand the desire for respecting the original version used by the original author, it doesn't make sense to have what was originally an offshoot from the base "tire"(started in 2004) article to change the spelling, and the original author of the motorcycle tire(started in 2010) should have respected the same spelling for their article. All tire related articles on wikipedia currently use the tire spelling, with the exception of the motorcycle tyre article. If the article wasn't directly related to other articles then I wouldn't even think of it being an issue, but any organization should use the same use across all related topics, thus tire should be used, not tyre. While I am sure that there are specific ways for a page to be moved so that edit history can be kept, it is not worth my time to bother and go through that process, however you seem to like to invest a lot of time into this whole process, so if you would please make that move, it would be beneficial to the site as a whole, and would be a small step in helping give wikipedia a tiny hint of credibility instead of being one of the reasons why it's a punchline so often.74.104.150.176 (talk) 20:22, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Policy says no. See Wikipedia:Article_titles#National_varieties_of_English, with the example of articles like Color, Colour cast, Color commentator, Colour revolution, Colour fastness, SMPTE color bars etc. One article title does not determine the spelling of other articles, even if they are related. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:59, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

ZX12R

With the greatest respect, the citations referenced in the article are themselves unreliable, being written from data collected from other sources themselves questionable. Most noteably the 300kmh limit was introduced on all motorcycles as of the 2001 model year this is Common knowledge, so 2000 models and proir were unaffected by this. Secondly I am the reliable citation for the edits on the article, not only did I live through the period in qestion it was with the eye of an avid enthusiast and an owner and rider of the aforementioned motorcycles as well as being a highly experienced motorcycle mechanic. Unfortunately actual press citations for these paricular events and models has been virtually evicerated from the web for reasons of political correctness. I think by now you should have realised that your article is erroneous, by the sheer number of people who have tried to correct it. If you really want to present some credibility to the article yourself, I suggest you take note of all the articles and forum discussions, the articles are nearly all referencing the 2002 B model which if you spoke to Kawasaki yourself you would soon learn that this model is both restricted and has a lower HP than the earlier A models, which in themselves are the A1 of 2000 which is not restricted at all and the A2 of 2001 which is restricted. As regards the pre-release bikes, these were the bikes given to some press for testing just prior to the official launch in early 2000. I know this because I have one and I am an Expert on motorcycles amongst other things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.190.118.40 (talk) 22:01, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

What do you suggest we do when some other bloke at some other anonymous IP comes along and says, "Don't listen to him! I'm the real expert here!" What if he says he really lived through this and you're lying? What if he says you've obviously never ridden a bike in your life? What then? Flip a coin? Post insults online until somebody gets tired and goes home? Wikipedia's policy is one of Verifiability ← please click and read. It's one of the five pillars that the whole encyclopedia project rests on. You are free so say anything you want anywhere on the whole internet, but here you must cite a verifiable source. This is the one place where you must do that.

I find it laughable that there is a vast conspiracy to hide the existence of unrestricted 2000 ZX-12Rs from the world in the name of "political correctness". What exactly is the point of that? Nobody is hiding the existence of unrestricted 1999 Suzuki Hayabusas. Why censor one bike and not the other? Explain what anyone has to gain by that. It's a deeply paranoid way of looking at the world. Surely the secret cabal that controls The Truth is far too busy censoring fake moon landing and government weather control truthers?

This kind of thing is proof to me that forums are useless sources. It's easy for a few loons to convince a bunch of guys on a forum of anything. Half the time your forum discussions that you think are so valuable are one guy with five sockpuppet accounts agreeing with himself.

That said, I have good news for you: Wikipedia has no requirement that sources have to be online. Offline sources are just as good as anything on the web (which space aliens and Nessie are censoring). So all you and everyone out there on the forums have to do to reveal The Truth about the ZX-12R, long hidden by the Secret Conspiracy of Elves and the NSA, is to name the title and date of the reliable publications that tested the supposedly unrestricted ZX-12R. Any magazine, any newspaper, anything that is basically reputable. Just not some forum where any anonymous guy can swear he went 200mph and you can't prove he didn't.

I have searched long and hard for any such evidence, and I think lots of you guys who claim this unrestricted ZX-12R exist have done the same. You can't find anything because it doesn't exist. I have to ask, if you're such an expert motorcyclists, why can't you find one publication that said what you claim? Not one. Why?

Please read Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. The policy was written by many others here at Wikipedia, not just me. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:24, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

March 2015

Hi Dennis... Thanks for the corrections, I believe it was done for good. I am beginner in wiki and Bahasa Indonesia is my mother language. I've translated article Jeffrey Polnaja as it should. As you wish I also put it on Wikipedia: Pages needing translation into English on March 29th, 2015. Maybe the grammar and syntax are not really perfect, but the intent, meaning and purpose are the same with the original. Hopefully you wish to do a little favour to make it pleasing. Let me know, where does the shortcomings so I can learn more... Looking forward to hear from you... Thanks for your attention and have a nice ride...--AdvPrima (talk) 03:33, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

How do you know the meaning is clear? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:34, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Dennis, you and your references are wrong, but I am so tired of trying to breathe with the suffocation of wrong people on Wikipedia that I say, have it your way!

Bossrat (talk) 18:06, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Okie dokie. Have a nice day. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:17, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Dennis, We are a great resource for streetfighters and cafe racer parts in the US. Streetfighters, we were one of the first companies along with 2 others to start bringing the style to the US. This is not spam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Motom7 (talk • contribs) 20:05, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

A "resource" for buying parts. What do you mean by "resource"? Isn't a "resource" a retail store? Your website is a retail store where customers come to buy parts. The links you added are to tell potential customers about the store, so that they can come to the website and buy things. Maybe I don't understand what spam is. What do you think "spam" is? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:10, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Snoqualmie Valley Regional Trail

Whatever you think best serves those who use the Wiki, Dennis. The stairs are gone. If you want to site a reference that says they're still in place, fine, you can cite Wikipedia. However, your circular logic does nothing to help the users. Once it becomes known that this is becoming a useless source of info, thanks to trolls such as yourself, it will collapse under its weight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bermudacat (talk • contribs) 05:32, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

At a glance it looks like kingcounty.gov and snovalley.org have sources that you could cite so that we'd have a verifiable article. Wikipedia is not a collection of personal observations and news updates. There are lots of websites that have that kind of thing but Wikipedia isn't one of them. So it's up to you: if you like to conduct the kind of research that Wikipedia accepts, then you can contribute to articles. If you'd rather contribute to the kind of site where everybody just writes whatever they've seen, then do that. There's room in the world for both. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 05:56, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 26

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Motorcycle tyre, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Fuel economy. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 08:57, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Texas changes

You made a lot of changes in this edit of the Texas page [1]. Much of the data you put in is outdated. You put the 2000 census as opposed to the 2010 census data. Moreover, you reverted back to the previous governor. Some of your changes were really good, but I think I am going to revert it back unless you have any objections. Oldag07 (talk) 22:45, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

ESNPC Blog - Unreliable? - or Not

Dennis: I understand that you object to my having provided citations to the Early Sports ‘n’ Pop-Culture History Blog (ESNPC). Thank you for taking the time to police Wikipedia to maintain the integrity of its content. But in this particular case, however, I believe that you have misapplied Wikipedia’s guidelines and standards.

The references that I added, and that you have removed, do not qualify as improper “external links,” “unreliable” sources, or “citation spam,” as those terms are defined and used in Wikipedia’s guidelines. I will address each accusation in turn.

1. “External Links.”

Wikipedia’s guidelines on the improper use of “external links” are not applicable to any of the citations I have made. The guidelines provide that, “Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links), but they should not normally be placed in the body of an article.” I have never, to my knowledge, placed a link to anything within the body of an article. The alleged offending links are within footnoted citations, so this section is inapplicable.

Wikipedia’s guidelines expressly provide that, “[w]hile it may seem counter-intuitive, please note: These External-link guidelines do not apply to footnoted citations within the body of the article.” The “links” at issue here are precisely that; footnoted citations. Therefore, they are not covered by and do not violate Wikipedia’s “External Links” guidelines.

Of course, a cited reference should be to a “Reliable source.” I believe that the references at issue meet the definition of “reliable source,” as that term is defined and used in the Wikipedia guidelines.

2. “Reliable Sources.”

Wikipedia’s Reliable Source guidelines provide that, “Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources.” The word “source,” as defined in the guidelines encompasses three related meanings; the piece of work, the creator of the work, and the publisher of the work; any one of which may bear on the issue of reliability. The fact that the source is self-published is not determinative. Although self-published source are, “largely not acceptable . . . self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications.”

In this case, I believe that ESNPC qualifies as a “reliable source,” as defined in the guideline. Although it is self-published, which understandably raises initial caution; a review of the content of the site, and look at the author’s reputation, should dismiss any initial concerns.

The articles I referenced were all thoroughly researched and well-documented. ESNPC is not an opinion blog, p full of radical, unsupported conjecture; and is not a blog that merely assembles well-known information from other sources, and passes it off as its own. Each article on ESNPC is well-researched, thoroughly documented, and carefully laid out.

As for being an established “expert” in the field, ESNPC is probably the world’s leading source of information on any number of very narrow, esoteric topics; including, for example, the history of tetherball, the history of pin the tail on the donkey, the history of the Club Sandwich, the early history of the unicycle. There are no “historians” who have dedicated their careers to detailing the origins of these familiar pop-culture items for which the origins have generally been unknown, or at least not very well known.

In many cases, ESNPC is the only source that has taken the time to research a given topic in an in-depth, well-sourced, well-documented and thorough manner. In some cases, although the bare bones of the subject history may be known ESNPC fills in missing gaps in the timeline, missing cultural context, and new insight into how, why, and when something developed, or became well-known. The dribs and drabs of information previously available on Wikipedia, before I added information from and citations to ESNPC, have been significantly enhanced by the addition of new information and citations to their source. Providing a link to ESNPC in the citation provides interested readers an opportunity to explore the topics in more detail, than the basic factual outline appropriate for Wikipedia.

The author of the pieces on ESNPC is an acknowledged “expert,” as that term is defined by Wikipedia’s guidelines. Numerous entries on the site, as well as some other pieces that do not appear on the site, have been referenced, linked to, excerpted and/or reprinted by several reliable third-party publications. Several of those references were edited or written by highly-respected writers and academics in the field:

a) Lingua Franca, Language and Writing in Academe: Allan Metcalf, The First Dude, July 7, 2014. Lingua Franka is a service of The Chronicle of Higher Education at chronicle.com. Allan Metcalf is a professor of Linguistics at MacMurray College, and author of several books on words, language and writing. In this piece, he wrote about the origin of the word, Dude, citing, among others, Peter Reitan’s work on “Dude” that appeared in Comments on Etymology. Reitan’s nom-de-blog is Peter Jensen Brown; he writes and maintains the esnpc.blogspot.com site at issue here.

b) Edhat Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara History of John S. Hawley (inventor of the plunger), August 23, 2014. Edhat.com is a regional online newspaper, covering several small cities in Central and Southern California. It featured ESNPC’s piece about the history of the household plunger in a column about Santa Barbara history.

c) Lexicon Valley (Slate.com): Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo with Ben Zimmer, Help Solve the Mystery, Where did Get My Goat Come From?, November 17, 1014. Lexicon Valley is a podcast on Slate.com. The featured guest was Ben Zimmer, a linguist and lexicographer, the executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com, a language columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and formerly a language columnist for The Boston Globe and The New York Times Magazine, and who editor of American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. In this episode, he led a discussion based on ESNPC’s piece on the history of the idiom, “Getting One’s Goat.”

d) Word Routes (VisualThesaurus): Ben Zimmer, "Getting One's Goat," Can You Help Solve the Mystery?, November 17, 2014. Ben Zimmer also wrote a short piece summarizing the information in ESNPC’s “Get My Goat” piece, and the Lexicon Valley podcast.

e) SiliconBeat (Mercury News): Levi Sumagaysay, Off Topic: Baby and New Pair of Shoes, November 21, 2014. SiliconBeat is a news blog run by the San Jose Mercury News. They featured brief commentary on, and a link to ESNPC’s piece on the history of “Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes.”

f) Comments on Etymology: Peter Reitan, Origin of The Whole Three/Six/Nine Yards: The Sale of Cloth in Multiples of Threes was Common in the 1800s and Early 1900s; Volume 44, January 2015. Comments on Etymology is a long-running journal on Etymology, edited by Gerald Cohen, a professor at the University of Missouri at Rolla. Gerald Cohen is a well-respected and well-known expert on etymology, who has been cited by the New York Times, and published numerous books and articles on the history of language. ESNPC’s piece on The Whole Nine Yards is a nearly verbatim reprint of the Comments on Etymology piece about “The Whole Nine Yards,” by permission of the author.

g) Vox (and MSN News): Joseph Stromberg, The Forgotten History of How Automakers Invented the Crime of "Jaywalking", January 15, 2015. Vox.com is an online news service. It cited ESNPC’s piece on “Jaywalking” as a reference in its own article about Jaywalking; and provided two links to ESNPC. MSN News picked up Vox.com’s article, and reprinted the article on its own site.

h) City Lab (from The Atlantic): Eric Jaffe, The L.A. Dodgers are Named after Terrified Brooklyn Pedestrians, February 19, 2015. City Lab is a news blog produced by The Atlantic Magazine. They featured a reference to ESNPC’s piece about the history of the nickname of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

i) Language Log: Mark Liberman, Solving the Mystery of "Off the Cuff", February 21, 2015. Language Log is a widely read online publication on language. It is produced by Mark Liberman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He featured ESNPC’s piece on “Off the Cuff”.

j) Vocabulary.com: Ben Zimmer, Mailbag Friday: "Dude", March 1, 2015 Update. Ben Zimmer cited ESNPC’s piece on the word, “Dude,” in an update to his earlier piece on the word, “Dude.”

k) Comments on Etymology: Peter Reitan, 'Get/Come Down to Brass Tacks' -- Brass Coffin Tacks as Reminder of the Humble Fate Awaiting Us All, Volume 44, Number 7, April 2015. Much of ESNPC’s piece on the idiom, “Get Down to Brass Tacks,” is reprinted in the new issue of Comments on Etymology.

l) Peter Norton is a professor of History at the University of Virginia, and author of the book, “Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City.” He praised ESNPC’s piece on “Jaywalking” in a comment he left on the site.

m) The Big Apple Etymology Dictionary: The Big Apple Etymology Dictionary, at barrypopik.com, cited ESNPC’s piece about “Soccer, the Sport of the Future – and always will be.” The editor of The Big Apple Etymology Dictinoary, Barry Popik, is a contributor-consultnt to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Dictinonary of American Regional English, Historical Dictionary of American Slang, and The Yale Book of Quotations.

3. “Citation Spam.”

“Citation spamming . . . typically involves the repeated insertion of a particular citation or reference in multiple articles . . . not to verify article content . . . . Variations of citation spamming include the removal of multiple valid sources and statements in an article in favor of a single, typically questionable or low-value, web source. Citation spamming . . . should not be confused with legitimate good-faith additions intended to verify article content and help build the encyclopedia.”

All of the ESNPC references that I have put into citations verify article content; they were not added for no good reason. In cases where I may have repeated the same reference several times in one paragraph; I did that because when I first started editing Wikipedia articles, I tended to place one citation at the end of a paragraph. The Wikipedia content police would go in afterward and place comments at the end of each sentence in the paragraph, to the effect that “references needed.” I now generally place a citation at the end of each sentence, provided it is a separate thought, in order to avoid that complaint.

On some occasions, I have also included one or two citations to original source material, or other sources, where I thought it seemed helpful. In some cases, however, individual citations to source material do not capture the full picture of the information gathered, collated, and laid out on ESNPC. A simple reference to a patent name and number, for example, do not necessarily reflect much actual information about the origin of the invention. In some cases, the unicycle, for example, there are earlier references that pre-date the early patents. There may actually be several earlier references; and repeating every single piece of original source material may go above and beyond the bare-bones historical sketch that I imagine Wikipedia to be helpful for. Citing ESNPC, as a general source for information on the point, provides an avenue for an interested user to find more information, gives credit where credit is due, and avoids the possibility of copyright violation in the wholesale copying of all of the original source material compiled and referenced on ESNPC.

I have never removed multiple, valid sources in an article in favor of a single, questionable source. In most cases, I left all of the earlier commentary alone. In a few cases, I have removed a comment or two that were unsupported, speculative, or clearly disproved by other evidence. All of the references I made were made in a legitimate good-faith effort to verify content and build the encyclopedia.

While it is true that I used ESNPC as a source in several different articles; the reason I did so is that ESNPC provides very good information on several different topics. I am not merely adding unnecessary references for no good reason. Each reference and citation is to support a particular point; generally a point that is not available elsewhere. In many cases, ESNPC is the only source with in-depth information on the subject being referenced. On-point, relevant, reliable citations are not considered spam.

3. “Common Sense” Exceptions

Each one of Wikipedia’s content guidelines includes a “common sense” exception. Near the top of the page for each of Wikipedia’s guidelines (including the guidelines on “reliable sources,” “external links,” and “spam”), there is a comment indicating that the guidelines are, “a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.”

In this case, even if you continue to believe that ESNPC does not meet the letter of the guidelines (which I believe it does), the “common sense” exemption militates in favor of using the source as a reference.

If ESNPC were one of those sites that merely regurgitates information that it finds elsewhere, collates it, and then tried to get links to it through Wikipedia, I might be inclined to agree that it was spam, or unreliable, or otherwise inappropriate. In this case, however, that is clearly not the case. For every topic that I cited ESNPC, I know of no other source that includes all of the information that appears in ESNPC. In the history of tetherball, for example, none of the bare bones references that you left on the page provide any information on; the date tetherball started, the fact that it was invented in England, that it was invented as a form of tennis, or that people had started using their hands by about 1910. There are no single original source references that convey all of that information easily. Why not include that new information on Wikipedia? Why not give credit where credit is due? All you can learn on Wikipedia at this point is that it existed in the early 1900s, and that some people used tennis balls and rackets.

In the case of unicycles, as another example, if you had googled, “who invented the unicycle,” in English, a few weeks ago, you would have found dozens of people guessing that unicycles may have been invented by “penny-farthing” riders who removed their wheels and used the front wheel as, in effect, a unicycle. The copious sources referenced on ESNPC show that people did, in fact, remove their rear wheels and use them as unicycles. But citing the original source material for that fact on Wikipedia, standing alone, might give the false impression that that was how they were invented. Information gathered by ESNPC shows that images and descriptions of unicycles pre-date the invention of “penny farthing” bicycles, so that could not have been the origin. Furthermore, if you had googled, “who invented the unicycle,” a few weeks ago, in English, you would never have run across the name Scuri, Myer, or the numbers or images of their patents, nor the numerous images, descriptions and sources of information about early unicycles available on ESNPC. If you spoke German or French, and googled in French and German, you might have found the name Scuri mentioned in a couple places; but not Myers. But even those patent numbers, listed alone, without context, do not offer much information. There is evidence of images and descriptions of unicycles that pre-date both of those patents; something you would only learn on ESNPC. There are very good histories of bicycles out there; but no good history of the unicycle. ESNPC is the only reference, with numerous well-documented references. If you can find another, feel free to cite it. But why not take advantage of the new information, and give credit to the source that put it all together.

In the case of, “pin the tail on the donkey,” if you had googled, “who invented pin the tail on the donkey,” last year; you might have found the name, Zimmerling, but would likely have only read that he “invented” it in the “late 1800s.” You would not have learned that the first reports of its being played predate his copyright from 1887; or that the first reports of its use were in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. You would also not have learned that Charles Zimmerling lives in Philadelphia, making it seem odd that the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey craze started in Milwaukee. You would also not have learned that Charles Zimmerling had a brother who lived in Milwaukee; perhaps explaining the connection. You may also not have wondered whether pin-the-tail on the donkey was a traditional German game; seeing as how the Zimmerlings were German, and the game first emerged in Milwaukee, with a strong German population. You probably never would have scanned through dozens of German-language documents that pre-date 1887, looking for a reference to the game. You probably never would have run across a book all about donkeys (songs, games, poetry, husbandry advice, handing advice), in German, published in the early 1880s. You probably never would have read through the book to see that it is silent on the issue of pin the tail on the donkey, making it more likely that it was, in fact, invented in the US. But you would learn all of those things if you read the piece on ESNPC. Why not give credit where credit is due, give Wikipedia readers who are interested in the subject information from probably the most thorough history of Pin the Tail on the Donkey every written, and give them a citation, with a link to the source, where they can do more in-depth reading if they are curious. The single reference now on the Wikipedia page, to a list of games collected by collectors in 1998 adds very little information about the history or origin of the game. It merely says that one person had one old game with Zimmerling’s name on it. Not very interesting. The same goes for nearly every other topic for which I have cited ESNPC; Jaywalking, Seeing Pink Elephants, Tetherball, 23 Skidoo, The Whole Nine Yards and on and on. Common sense dictates that ESNPC meets and exceeds the minimum standards of reliability for inclusion on Wikipedia, despite its status as self-published blog. I have also cited several other self-published websites – that you did not remove. Barrypopik.com and Etymonline.com, for example, are self-published websites that are generally believed to be reliable sources.

I was mildly amused by the fact that in removing some of my references, you left in completely unsupported comments – comments based solely on information available on ESNPC – in the text – with the comment, “reference needed.” There is a reference available – it is ESNPC. It is reliable. Use it.

Conclusion:

I have not been “adding advertising for this blog” to Wikipedia, as you suggest. Nor has anyone “warned” me to desist from placing citations to “unreliable” sources; one person gave me their opinion that my sources were, “unreliable,” but I disagreed; for the reasons stated above. Reasonable minds can disagree, I suppose. But I ask you to reevaluate your accusations, based on the specific language of the Wikipedia guidelines, a look at the disputed source material, and an assessment of the reliability, based on the author’s having been cited by so many presumably reliable sources, the fact that the content of ESNPC is well-documented and thorough, and based on the relevance of the citations to content on Wikipedia, and for the general advancement of general knowledge, and access to that knowledge, on Wikipedia. If all else fails, I believe that the common sense exception should apply.

Svaihingen (talk) 01:10, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, no. I think you're a spammer. I'll post over at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard and see what they say. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:18, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Wow, a single 20k talkpage post. Most impressive. — Brianhe (talk) 06:15, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Rogue Beard Beer

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:02, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

A new reference tool

Hello Books & Bytes subscribers. There is a new Visual Editor reference feature in development called Citoid. It is designed to "auto-fill" references using a URL or DOI. We would really appreciate you testing whether TWL partners' references work in Citoid. Sharing your results will help the developers fix bugs and improve the system. If you have a few minutes, please visit the testing page for simple instructions on how to try this new tool. Regards, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:47, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Well car

Dennis,
Please see Talk:well car#Legitimate link. Peter Horn User talk 01:47, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Mail

Hello, Dennis Bratland. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Honda CB400F

Hello Dennis, thanks for your edits on the CB400F page. This was one sent to me via the "suggestion system" for clean-up etc. for the same reasons that you have added tags further to the top of page tag. It is therefore a bit of a work in progress and I am currently researching sources etc.

In the meantime I'm afraid I could not find anything in the link provided in your edit summary regarding "forcing" of images. However, I did find :- "As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed size than the 220px default" but it does go on to say that this could be altered in an individual users preferences. Help:Infobox picture suggests that the image size should be left blank and it would thus default to that set in preferences. However most infobox pictures seem to be between 250px & 275px which seems to be possibly the best size so the infobox does not intrude overly into the text. Any thoughts please. Thanks. Regards, Eagleash (talk) 10:50, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

When you force image width to be a certain number of pixels, you're making assumptions about how many pixels wide the user's display is and what font size they're using. So any statements you make about what intrudes where and what looks good are based only on your display and your font size; it's meaningless on everybody else's display. The upright= parameter lets us set the width to a ratio of whatever the user's thumbnail with is that they've chosen in their Wikipedia user settings. This means they can change their user setting to suit their display and the images will proportionately adjust. If they are logged out they get the default thumbnail width Wikipedia is using -- which can change with the times. This gives the user the possibility to adjust how articles display to best fit their screen and font. Setting it to 250px means everybody is stuck with that whether their display is 720 pixels wide or 3000. Similarly, if you set column with in em units (the width of an M) in whatever font they're using, you don't need to know which font each user has -- your page layout proportionate grows and shrinks in accord with their font, not yours. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:26, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Dennis, ... so how each page displays would depend on each individual "end-user's" settings in preferences... I would have thought proportionality might have remained the same, but I think I understand your point. (A lot of infobox pictures must be incorrectly "coded" then, I reckon!) Regards, Eagleash (talk) 15:59, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think so, but those infoboxes are out of my hands. The motorcycle infobox follows whatever settings you put in, thumb, px or upright. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:16, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Well I'll tweak up ones I can find. Thanks for help/info. Eagleash (talk) 17:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Haleets

Haleets at low tide. Most of the petroglyphs are concealed beneath barnacles.

If a picture says a thousand words, I can be brief. There's an article for Haleets.

By the way I'd love to get hold of this picture [2]. — Brianhe (talk) 19:27, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Just a question

Hi, I noticed you are also involved on the Lyle Stevik AfD and just a had a question for you. The nominator was given permission to re-open the debate because I had pinged those who had given !keep votes and it apparently altered the outcome of the debate. After they were given permission to do so, they pinged those editors who had given !delete votes, which honestly defeats the purpose of the renomination. I read the the DRV entry and I realize that is wasn't right for me to ping the others (some of which returned on their own) but I don't understand exactly why this individual is being somewhat of a hypocrite. Any feedback? --GouramiWatcher^(?) 02:49, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Never mind - problem already addressed. Feel free to add your opinion, though!--GouramiWatcher^(?) 16:35, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for April 28

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Re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fastest_production_motorcycles_by_acceleration

Show facts or stop altering wikipedia posts.

You can not remove any entity unless you show facts for doing so. Now you've done nothing and only done it on subjective decisions.

"I dont think its so fast, might be wrong" is not enough evidence when there already is evidence for it doing 2,35 seconds 0-60mph from a known and credible source that is the source for 10 out of the 21 on this very same list.

If you think the source is wrong, start a discussion and you'll have to prove that "Performance Index Winter '12/'13 Edition", and the old '93 company, Motorcycle Consumer News & Bowtie Magazines, are wrong in their doings.

But by doing so you are voiding 10 out of 21 on the list.

When you dont have any constructive criticism, stop altering things.

Next time you do it, I'll have to report you for not being in the interest of Wikipedia, and of course altering wikipedia with no source or evidence, which is what wikipedia is against the most.

This information will be publicly available for anybody to see on your page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.198.72.162 (talk) 16:26, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	For your assistance with the AfD for Lyle Stevik. I appreciate your efforts, regardless how the end results turns out to be. --GouramiWatcher(?) 16:58, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

May 2015

Hello, I noticed that you made a comment on the page Talk:Malta that didn't seem very civil, so it has been removed. Wikipedia needs people like you and me to collaborate, so it's one of our core principles to interact with one another in a polite and respectful manner.

It is a private ask to user Rob for an opinion [3], I have not asked to opinion in talk page of Malta, even not give a link to this discussion. Dennis Bratland, please stop trolling, personal attacks and harassment new user in discussion.

And also, you can not still restore their posts in my discussions - this is break rules of Wikipedia. If you restore your posts in my discussion again - I will notify the administrator. Subtropical-man talk
(en-2) 19:18, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 11

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 11, March-April 2015
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs), Nikkimaria (talk · contribs)

• New donations - MIT Press Journals, Sage Stats, Hein Online and more
• New TWL coordinators, conference news, and new reference projects
• Spotlight: Two metadata librarians talk about how library professionals can work with Wikipedia

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:20, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Editing problems

As you saw I had real trouble with the references. Not sure if you or someone else did the most recent revision but I just let it stand. I thinl I understand it a bit better now and will try to get things right the next time I edit. I think the last time i added was over a year ago after the KOMO4 helicopter crash. George Mells — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grmells (talk • contribs) 21:27, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

No problem. Sorry I put the wrong message on your talk page; I just wanted to put up a note saying to use the preview button more. Don't worry about the footnoting issues. It's easy to fix. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:36, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Dennis Bratland. You have new messages at Talk:Timeline of Seattle.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Media attention

Do you think it's time to ask for semi protection on List of outlaw motorcycle clubs? I think the recent media coverage of Waco is bringing problematic edits. — Brianhe (talk) 19:14, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the rule of thumb is but I think it's around 3 bad edits in 24 hours, so that's probably enough for them to protect it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:41, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Another erratic

FYI: Just created Draft:Lake Lawrence erratic. It would be nice to start a Thurston County version of Glacial erratic boulders in King County, Washington, but this is the only rock I could find sources for. — Brianhe (talk) 17:01, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

What do you think of creating Glacial erratic boulders in the Puget Sound area with some of the biggies and/or notables (such as southernmost) listed, with links to the existing counties lists? Some of the contextual preamble could be moved tov it from the existing KC article. — Brianhe (talk) 20:10, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes; I think that would be better than a few disconnected articles. Isn't there a geological name for the giant series of valleys scraped out by the glaciers in the Sound or Salish Sea region? Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:47, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Do you mean the formation of Totten, Eld inlets etc? I don't know, other than 'lobes' of the Vashon glacier might have been at work. The peninsulas might be interlobe features. DNR has some geologic maps here that should be helpful. The East Olympia map in particular has a good prose section. — Brianhe (talk) 23:31, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Vashon Glacier is what I was thinking of -- the whole thing. Can we call it (List of?) Vashon Glacier erratic boulders? That extends all the way from Oregon to Canada, but what's wrong with that? We can have a main list that contains all boulders left by that glacier, except for sub-lists that include areas within the retreating Vashon Glacier zone. My reasoning is that other geographic names like Puget Sound describe coastlines, or they describe mountain ranges, but they don't cover the entire area that was carved out by the same glacier, both above and below the current sea level, and across current political boundaries that have nothing to do with the original geology. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:31, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Actually not Oregon to Canada, because the glacier ended where I was near Yelm :) There are a couple potential hitches. The Vashon glacier was only the last glacier (glaciation) of several, and I don't know if we can say that each erratic was actually from that glacial period. Second, are there notable erratics outside of the Puget Sound area? Oregon doesn't have any, I think, maybe southern BC does though. — Brianhe (talk) 01:41, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Hm, OK. I'm not a geology expert. I guess we should follow current political boundaries, then. At least readers can comprehend what it refers to. So Puget Sound area makes sense. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:45, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Edit conflict, while you were typing I found Aldergrove erratic in southern BC said to be from the "Fraser glaciation". Draft:Glacial erratic boulders in the Puget Sound region it will be then (used "region" not "area" for consistency with existing article). — Brianhe (talk) 02:02, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I forgot about Erratic Rock State Natural Site, an erratic that arrived in Willamette Valley via rafting in the ice age floods. It's still true that Oregon had no glaciers, but untrue that it has no erratics! — Brianhe (talk) 05:55, 26 May 2015 (UTC)