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It's raining thanks spam!

• Please pardon the intrusion. This tin of thanks spam is offered to everyone who commented or !voted (Support, Oppose or Neutral) on my recent RfA. I appreciate the fact that you care enough about the encyclopedia and its community to participate in this forum.
• There are a host of processes that further need community support, including content review (WP:GAN, WP:PR, WP:FAC, and WP:FAR). You can also consider becoming a Wikipedia Ambassador. If you have the requisite experience and knowledge, consider running for admin yourself!
• If you have any further comments, input or questions, please do feel free to drop a line to me on my talk page. I am open to all discussion. Thanks • Ling.Nut (talk) 02:23, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Revision deletion question

I've just rolled back this edit, but I'm wondering if it's the kind of thing that ought to be removed from the article history as well? Malleus Fatuorum 12:52, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

(stalker) As they didn't even get the gender right it looks like trivial puerile vandalism. I appreciate the BLP issue but I'm personally against revdel except in egregious cases, so I'd be inclined to leave it as is, safely reverted. Just my 2p. Pedro :  Chat  13:03, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah well, done anyway. Pedro :  Chat  13:04, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

You editconflicted me, I'm afraid. I removed it per WP:RD2, but I'd have no problem with my action being reversed if others have a different opinion. Ucucha 13:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

No, it's fine - now it's gone there's no point bringing it back! Pedro :  Chat  13:18, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks Pedro. I agree with your "trivial puerile vandalism" verdict, I just wasn't sure where the line was drawn on this kind of thing. Malleus Fatuorum 13:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Wiltshire and Domesday

Perhaps you and your lurkers could help Senra help Rodhullandemu with some confused Domesday history. See User talk:Senra#Wiltshire and Domesday. Unfortunately, I'm caught up with such recentist silliness and invention as C.O.T.SS - Children of the SS (AfD discussion) and Judith Griggs — and User:Uncle G/Grace Sherwood and about three other things as well. Uncle G (talk) 08:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

drop me a note on my own talk page and I'll try to get to this after this art fair I've got. I've got the Stacy and I've also got the Alecto Domesday on CD so I should be able to help a bit, just not until Sunday. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:43, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going within a mile of RH&E, and I'd advise anyone else thinking of getting involved with him in any way to do their background research first. I think it's a reasonable assumption that this was aimed at me. – iridescent 17:55, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

RFC/U notification

Since you are mentioned: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Nyttend. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:23, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Revert on DYK page

Hi. I noticed that you reverted my comments on the DYK page. May I ask what prompted you to do that? Thanks. Mspraveen (talk) 09:45, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, was reading via phone - as someone has thoughtfully hardblocked the entire Hutchinson Telecoms network, I had to log in using my main (admin) account to get at my watchlist. Because the watchlist interface is badly designed, it's way too easy to hit rollback by accident. Please revert me if you haven't already. If any of the scripty types here can find a way to suppress the rollback buttont, I imagine the world will thank you - I've seen this happen way too often. – iridescent 09:54, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Didn't quite imagine that the revert was because of a silly real-life reason! I'm not one of the scripty types, so I'll get to re-adding my comments on the DYK page. Cheers, Mspraveen (talk) 09:59, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

For info anyone watching—this is how to remove that link. – iridescent 21:29, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Giano

Hi, please can I point out my response to you here (since deleted, hence this wee nudge...)
:) ╟─TreasuryTag►quaestor─╢ 23:29, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

That was four hours ago, and he immediately stopped the moment it was pointed out he'd broken 3RR. While I agree (per my comments on his talk) that the thread probably should remain closed unless and until Rlevse comes back, this looks like a vindictive block for daring to point out the issue here. As Malleus also pointed out, Grace Sherwood was not an isolated problem; were he not on Arbcom people would likely be discussing an site ban at this stage. I know you dislike Giano, but don't fall into the trap of assuming that means he's wrong. – iridescent 23:36, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I genuinely have no position on the whole RLvese debacle, and while I was no great fan of his either, I have simply not been following it and am not in a position to comment. But it is still an accepted principle on Wikipedia that the 3RR applies to people even when they are right, and that repeated reverting of admin actions with inflammatory edit-summaries specifically threatening ongoing disruption are fairly certain routes to a block. And quite reasonably so. IMHO :)
Incidentally, I protested against the last block of Giano, as I felt it was unduly harsh. Though he deleted my defence of him, naturally... ╟─TreasuryTag►Africa, Asia and the UN─╢ 23:39, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Duck Pubs

I quite agree with not expanding the entry into a duck-related list, and that is part of the reason why I made my comments on the discussion page.
As far as I am aware, there were no Pubs with 'Duck' in the name until the 60's when one was added to a new housing estate -- in fact, the one that has just been knocked down! My dad could remember ducks being raised in back gardens here, but I have only ever seen them as meat.
I was born and raised here, by the way. – Old Aylesburian (talk) 14:04, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I think (but I may be wrong) that the Duck pub in Aston Clinton has had that name since the 19th century. As far as I know the ducks themselves are extinct in Aylesbury—they can't breed in the wild because they don't have the instinct to incubate their eggs, and the only flock still being farmed in Bucks is over in Chesham (something to do with contamination of the soil in Aylesbury itself apparently—although I'm not totally convinced, since the ducks on the canal seem to get by perfectly well). Haddenham keeps a flock of white ducks on the village duckpond which they like to promote as "authentic Aylesbury ducks", but one only has to look at them to see that they're actually a mixture of Pekin ducks and white mallards. – iridescent 16:47, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid that you are wrong. The Duck pub in Aston Clinton was known as The Bell until recently, and internationally famous for its cuisine. By renaming it the new owners have unaccountably discarded all that goodwill. Thanks for the other information about the bird; I had been wondering where they were. – Old Aylesburian (talk) 09:38, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit Summary

With regard to this there was no mention of him being a King when I added the tag. Mo ainm~Talk 19:17, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm not in the least convinced it warrants keeping in this state, but I'm reluctant to delete it; it looks like the kind of thing that would make a great TFA if anyone can dig out the sources to expand it. – iridescent 19:21, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Simunomics Game

you deleted a page called Simunomics Game, I request that you undo that action since the page clearly said please do not delete, this page is still being edited, comments, feedback and suggestions are welcome, plus the speedy deletion was contested. You obviously have no concern about pages but like to delete them, without warning or neccesary reason. Ackbeennon (talk) 20:14, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Although it sometimes looks like it, Wikipedia isn't a webhost, and we have a narrow remit; we only cover topics which have received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, and only include material which can be sourced to another media source (a book, a magazine etc) and indicates where it came from. If you can demonstrate that this is the case regarding Simunomics Game, feel free to recreate it, but it will need to include details of where the information has come from. – iridescent 20:22, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Hate to bother you

I'm just getting back to editing on a more regular basis (I had a case of burn out and some other issues about Wikipedia that trouble me.) and I noticed the ongoing discussion regarding Rlevse and plagerism. I was wondering if you would look at the Edward M. Cotter (fireboat) for similar problems. I had worked on moving it to Good Article status and I want to make sure that I'm not going down the same path. Thanks. Shinerunner (talk) 00:03, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

What I notice right away is that the first two references point to the wrong entries on their respective registers (I suspect they've amended their numbering system somewhere). On a skim-comparison, I can't see any too-close paraphrasing, and it also passes the "drop random phrases into Bing" test, so I'd imagine there won't be any issues. You may want to ask someone like Moonriddengirl to have a look; WP:CCI isn't something I have much involvement with so I don't know exactly where they draw the "too close" line. (Even if someone does spot an issue, it's not cause for panic; the problem as regards Rlevse wasn't the plagiarism, so much as way he reacted when the problems were spotted. If he'd said "you know, now you mention it that wording is a bit too close to the original, give me ten minutes and I'll change it", none of this would have happened.) – iridescent 00:43, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, one other thing—I don't doubt it, but I can't actually see a source for "oldest active fireboat", and it's not cited in the article. Since that's its main claim to fame, I think that needs to be clearly cited. – iridescent 00:56, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time Iridescent. It's one of the first articles I had put a lot of effort into and I was concerned that I may not have cited it properly. I'll get the reference needed for its status as the oldest active fireboat. The article is of local interest to me and the images used in it are my work as well. I appreciate your clarifying the matter regarding Rlevse since I'm trying to get back up to speed with what's happening around here. Thanks again.Shinerunner (talk) 01:13, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

There's a RS for "oldest active fireboat" here which looks pretty incontrovertible. – iridescent 01:16, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I found this one as well.[1] Shinerunner (talk) 01:23, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

People use Bing? --MZMcBride (talk) 04:05, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, for the same reasons people use Internet Explorer. MastCell ^Talk 05:36, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

For things like this I find Bing more useful, because they don't have Google's "inflate the rankings of Wikipedia and Wikipedia mirrors" policy. Drop a phrase from Wikipedia into Google and nine times out of ten (or more accurately, 9.66 times out of 10) it brings up a boatload of Wikipedia mirrors. (The Bing mapping software is also much higher quality than Google's.) – iridescent 10:33, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Aylesbury duck

Orlady (talk) 06:04, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

National Register

You seem to have speedied Brockinton-Scott House as a copyvio of [2], but that's the National Register and thus a work prepared of the US Government and in the PD_US. (or have we ever decided otherwise?) DGG ( talk ) 20:09, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Didn't realise NRHP was federal (although in retrospect, should have been obvious); for some reason I thought the register was compiled at state level and thus not PD. Restored (unless someone comes along to correct me). – iridescent 20:11, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

The NHRP forms are not prepared by the federal government, so they are not PD-US. I don't remember the exact relationship with the states, but it's actually moot in this case. The forms themselves are generally prepared (and thus copyrighted) by individuals or historical societies, in this case apparently 2 staff members from the Williamsburg County Historical Society (page 7 of the pdf). Whether it's PD or not is a question of when it was published, but without some evidence establishing when that was we generally have to assume it's still copyrighted. VernoWhitney (talk) 14:21, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Bellumball

A quick Google search would have shown it to be a complete hoax. Mr. R00t ^Talk 22:46, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

A "quick Google search" would have done nothing of the sort; absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Just because something isn't on the internet doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Something made up in school is not the same thing as a hoax. The difference is important, even though it may seem like an angels-on-pinheads exercise; someone with a history of hoaxes gets blocked, someone with a history of inappropriate pages gets words of advice on how to find something more appropriate to write about. – iridescent 22:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes, I guess you are correct. Though you might want to salt it. Mr. R00t ^Talk 22:56, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that would be why I already have. – iridescent 22:56, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. I'll stop bothering you now. Mr. R00t ^Talk 23:00, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh herro

You seem to know about these things, can I pinch the 1933 image from this page? Obviously I'd remove the logo. Parrot of Doom 23:18, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Unlikely unless you can establish who the photographer was. Copyright on pictures is usually 70 years after the author's death, and chances are the photographer was still alive in 1940. There's a get-out clause with older material, in that in Florida law everything published pre-1923 is public domain—and thus can be hosted on the Florida-based Wikipedia (but not on Commons)—but that won't apply here. – iridescent 19:50, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Bah. Its from Getty Images, I looked in there and found a few but they're mostly 1950s. I'll look again, perhaps there are some 19th-century piccies around. There must be, somewhere. Parrot of Doom 21:31, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Old local papers would probably be your best bet. – iridescent 21:35, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, there's a Victorian sketch on commons somewhere but I think a nice photograph would be better. The above pic is superb, wish I could use it :( Parrot of Doom 21:50, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

If you have access (most libraries give it, but it's usually buried down the list somewhere), the Illustrated London News archive is usually a goldmine. – iridescent 21:56, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Declining Deletion of Brandun DeShay

I decline the deletion of Brandun DeShay. Yleonmgnt. New references have been added that are reputable and have wiki articles of their own. Notability is proven with two significant entertainers with wiki articles. I reviewed adjusted the article thanks to the the pointers givin by the one who added it to the deletion discussion in compliance to WP:RS and WP:ENT up to wiki standards. I see the dispute with the reliable sources but the blogs that were mentioned are all reputable and have wiki's themselves except for one: the segalaxy.blogspot.com blog (which i removed). Aside from that one reference, it passes A7. It is in compliance of WP:ENT with significant work from Tanya Morgan and Curren$y. Once again, by collaborating musically with two entertainers with wiki articles themselves the artist just clears A9.--Yleonmgnt (talk) 07:46, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you want to look at it, neither you nor I have the power to "decline the deletion". You need to go to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brandun DeShay, and explain why the subject meets at least one of the criteria on this checklist. – iridescent 19:52, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Norwich Market

The DYK project (nominate) 18:04, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Question

Would Revolver, High Times and Alternative Press make for reliable sources for a music article? They're interviews. Thanks in advance.-Red marquis (talk) 10:43, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I'd say yes, although it would depend on exactly what they were used to claim; if it's for something potentially controversial (especially if it has the potential to reflect negatively on living people, such as details of band splits) people might demand more neutral sources. (Interviews by their nature only give one person's side of an argument.) You might want to speak to Pyrrhus16 or Parrot of Doom, who respectively watch over the ultra-controversial Michael Jackson and Pink Floyd topics, on how best to deal with potentially disputable claims about music and musicians. – iridescent 15:29, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I would hesitate to use them. I bought a copy as a souvenir last time I was in Calif., certainly they assume a lot of things to be true about which reasonable unstoned minds could differ (efficacy of marijuana as a medical treatment, for example). I would suggest avoiding their use, but if you do, inline attribute.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:06, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Alternative Press, though, is a reliable source on music. AP is a well regarded periodical. I'm not familiar with Revolver. My concern is with High Times.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Revolver is basically the rock/metal spinoff of Guitar World. I'd consider them reliable within their narrow niche market, but not necessarily as regards notability; as with all niche music magazines, things which they'll consider significant won't necessarily be considered notable by the wider popular music scene. Regarding High Times, I'd consider an interview with them reliable as a source for what was said ("in an interview with High Times, So-and-so said such-and-such") but not necessarily reliable for more specific facts (release dates, attendances etc). Be aware that, as with all music magazines and websites, there's a reasonable chance that any given article will actually be a record company press release slightly tweaked and reprinted as filler—even the heavyweights like Melody Maker have been guilty of this on occasion. – iridescent 20:35, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Let me see if I can find that copy, see what their coverage of music was ...--Wehwalt (talk) 20:37, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

They have a nice interview with Robby Krieger, mostly about who in the Doors smoked the most pot ... yeah, I'd inline attribute.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:42, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll just give you the first three questions, "Do you remember the first time you smoked pot?", "You got arrested for pot at a young age, didn't you?" and "How did weed affect your songwriting?" Just an add on, I agree with Iridescent on the not using them as a reliable source on facts and figures. I have met a few band members in my time and I'd they are so busy doing it that they may not always remember that they played San Francisco in 2007 and instead say it was 2008.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:45, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I was going to use them because they contain details of an album's concept direct from the artist's mouth (interview). Anyway, thanks. -Red marquis (talk) 04:01, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

A plea

Twice recently, you've been a little agressive to me over the Biddenden Maids article. I think you've seen me around for long enough now to know that any editing or suggestions I make are with the intent of improving an article. The suggestions and edits I made were not decrying your editing of the article in any way. I've not checked your editing history, but would hope that this is not how you treat all editors you come into contact with. You're probably well aware of what happens in such cases and I would hope that it doesn't happen to you. I'm not writing this as a threat and have not intention of taking this further, but as a plea from one editor to another to take a breath before replying. Mjroots (talk) 19:35, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if I was coming across as aggressive; it wasn't intended to be. The issue of use of sources and accurate citation/attribution at FAC is very sensitive right now; something as minor as changing the edition of a source used without double-checking that every word is the same—which a year ago wouldn't even be blinked at—would now instantly torpedo an FAC, and potentially trigger a full-blown line-by-line check of every article those involved have ever touched. (That isn't hyperbole; in the post-Rlevse new order, everything is being checked direct against the sources wherever possible.) – iridescent 19:43, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, let's let the matter rest there. . Mjroots (talk) 21:03, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Re William Coles Finch, I've started bashing an article together at User:Mjroots/William Coles Finch, which I hope to be my 700th new article. As you can see, he did write several books on Kent lore. Mjroots (talk) 08:57, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Rlevse

I'm probably being ignorant but in what way was this user big? Simply south (talk) 20:40, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Arbcom, crat, admin ...--Wehwalt (talk) 20:43, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

(TPS) He was an arbitrator, bureaucrat, checkuser etc. Pretty much everything, and was quite well-known. Also "wrote" many FAs. AD 20:44, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

tl;dr summary of the whole mess

• Rlevse was on Arbcom, and had traditionally been one of the harsher "show no mercy to the wrongdoers" block-happy admins and members of Arbcom.
• Rlevse wrote an article (Grace Sherwood); he pushed said article through FAC; he pushed very hard to get it as Today's Featured Article for October 31. Incidentally, there were two users who objected to Grace Sherwood being TFA, and a third who pointed out that it didn't qualify for any special treatment and only got two points at TFAR. All these three users got in return was Rlevse shouting at them for being "politically correct" and demanding that he be given an extra point because he wanted it regardless of what Wikipedia policy was, while a bunch of admins backed him up and fellow Arbcom member Risker accused those who objected of "denigrating North American cultural traditions". Just saying, like.
• On October 31, SandyGeorgia spotted a problem in a DYK by an unrelated user (User:Camelbinky) that day, and tagged it as a copyright violation. Camelbinky erupted in fury and complained at ANI, which prompted people to look at the other stuff on the mainpage.
  • October 28. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:53, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
• In looking at the main page, someone noticed that Grace Sherwood was heavily plagiarised. When the matter was raised, Rlevse wouldn't admit what was wrong and instead started lashing out at people.[3], [4], [5]
• Rlevse then retired. Meanwhile, a broader investigation found a bunch of other problematic articles.
• If you want to see the whole wretched saga, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Plagiarism and copyright concerns on the main page for the original incident, and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive647#Right! What's going on with RLevse?, Wikipedia talk:Plagiarism, Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Changing DYK, Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#Plagiarism issue, Wikipedia talk:Featured articles#Problem article and Wikipedia:Featured article review/Grace Sherwood/archive1. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches for the best explanation of Wikipedia's much-misunderstood plagiarism policy. – iridescent 20:51, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

thank you for this helpful list. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:57, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Simply south (talk) 21:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I must admit that Rlevse's comment "If you need help writing those 8 FAs for the next Hannukah, I know some people that can help. ;-) — Rlevse • Talk • 01:58, 13 October 2010 (UTC)"

does resonate in a whole new way now. Actually, I was trying to be extra polite to him given his august positions, but I felt the article was two points. And I was defusing the situation with humor (it had gotten pretty tense) with the Hannukah comment. Oh well.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:13, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you Iridescent, I too agree that was very helpful and a very good summary of events. The rush of arbs ready to defend RLevse and attack everyone other has been a disgrace. It's a great pity that the worst offenders in this affair are not those seeking re-election.  Giacomo  21:20, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

FYI

• [6] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:51, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

??? Have you linked to the right section? – iridescent 15:54, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes. We have a "pick of the week", and problems in every other article. (I was reminding you of how I feel about the "reward culture" being furthered at The Signpost.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:05, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

That one's actually a non-existent problem (because I used one in Aylesbury duck, I checked the status of Beatrix Potter illustrations quite thoroughly); it's just Tony (rightly) double-checking copyrights. She's PD in the US but not in the UK, so Commons can't touch her but she's free-use on en-wiki. I personally have no problem with the "pick of the week" thing (I even did one judging myself); I find it quite interesting to see the variation each week in what people consider "best", and (so far) it doesn't seem in any risk of turning into a back-scratching exercise. – iridescent 16:16, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

We're talking past each other. You need to go read that editor's entire talk page, including recent blankings. I'm not talking about images; I'm talking about text, and the reward culture that The Signpost is furthering. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:19, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear! I'm not sure the Signpost can be blamed for this though. Malleus Fatuorum 16:26, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, looking at the history I see what you mean; I thought you were referring just to that one thread from Tony. I'm not sure it's fair to blame the Signpost or the reward culture in general though; these don't look like they were created with barnstars or the like in mind. Hopefully this is just a blip; in my experience she's a very good writer and reviewer. (If you really want a fish-in-a-barrel exercise of hunting cut'n'pastes-for-credits, go through the contribution history of User:Billy Hathorn. I don't do so because last time I did, I got hauled across ANI for "harassment" by him.) – iridescent 16:30, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

You might also consider reading all of this (including before the restart), following right on the heels of all of this. Sorry, my job is to defend the integrity of FAC, not promote the reward culture. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:37, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I watched the former, and participated in the latter. As I said there, while I vehemently oppose an "article of the year" award, I can't see any problem with the weekly picks; it's explicitly one editor's personal opinion, and to me is no different to posting "I thought your article was really interesting" on a talk page. The readership of the F&A Signpost page is very low; I think you're crediting it with more influence than it warrants. – iridescent 16:51, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Iri, you're not usually obtuse :) Why didn't Tony1 oppose Mauna Kea, which then had to be completely rewritten by other editors in a FAC that drug on for eons? And why is ResMar writing for The Signpost? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:57, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm not seeing a major problem. Yes, Tony let some things slip through which he'd normally jump on but that's not necessarily evidence of collusion or gaming—everyone has at some point. Tony dislikes me intensely, but he's nonetheless supported things I've written, and he's opposed many articles by his buddies; I really can't see him as corrupt or gaming the system. Likewise, ResMar is (in my opinion) whiny and overly self-important, but the Signpost folks can hardly turn round and kick him out for that unless he's actually causing problems for them—"whiny and overly self-important" isn't exactly unique on Wikipedia. (If anything, it ought to be added to the RFA checklist.) – iridescent 17:11, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

User:SandyGeorgia/sandbox/Susanne2009NYC

←1277 hits plus 199 plus 104 plus est. 90 this month, for one page – that gives 1580 since publication, that's ok; they normally build to about 1600 over a few months. I think it's a little higher now. At 75,000+ hits a year in a community of a few thousand, just for F and A, I'd be worried too that the page is prominent and popular.

I don't oppose judges' choices, a suggested option above. You might ask why FAC passed it in the first place. No, the final quality is what counts for readers, and for The Signpost. If there is some moral issue about the ratio of nominators' input versus other people's, why didn't you slap it down in the initial stages and force the issue before a subsequent nomination? Allowing FAC to be a socialist welfare state, or some kind of free car mechanic's corner, for editors to nominate prematurely and let others do the work? Nice. Look no further than home. It's Choice of the week, not Pick of the week. Having spread poison on the F and A talk page for a couple of weeks, now you're starting on user talk pages. I see.

Iridescent, "Tony dislikes me intensely", errr ... where did you get that idea from? Tony (talk) 02:09, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

If there is some moral issue about the ratio of nominators' input versus other people's, why didn't you slap it down in the initial stages and force the issue before a subsequent nomination? Allowing FAC to be a socialist welfare state, or some kind of free car mechanic's corner, for editors to nominate prematurely and let others do the work?

Actually, it was quite well written-- no need to slap it down. Now this (including before the restart), on the other hand, was curiously endorsed on prose and then had to be completely rewritten at FAC, taking several months. I'm wondering why it wasn't "slapped down in the initial stages", considering the amount of work it generated for FAC reviewers? You're normally very demanding on prose, Tony, but that had evident errors that anyone could see; I've never seen you write a FAC statement quite like that. Please do not let your Signpost COI bleed over into FAC; I'm sure you know that FAC values your judgment on prose, and when you endorse one, FAC may end up carrying it until other editors fix it. Your prose checks are much too valuable for that. SandyGeorgia SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Break: Replies

@Sandy: This might be a stupid question, but how certain are we that Suzanne was definitely a sock, rather than a well-intentioned user with an insufficient grasp of copyright? I'm not disputing it; I don't know how in-depth the investigation was. While the articles way have been plagiarised, she did appear to have a genuine in-depth knowledge of the (fairly arcane) topic and was able to answer questions on it, which is unusual for a sock in these circumstances. (My personal attitude to socks is fairly well known, thanks to Law and Xtzou; to me, unless the sock starts causing problems or the puppeteer is also operating a bad-hand account, the best course of action is to turn a blind eye. In light of the copyright issues I don't dispute blocking Suzanne as a protective measure, sock or not, but if we're not certain it's a sock account, treating her as one might actually make the situation worse by causing her to create a fresh account, rather than learning from her mistakes and helping to clean up the mess.) Regarding COI at the Signpost pick of the week section, I really don't think it's a major issue, and I've never seen any evidence of it—if anything, the editors doing the picking tend to bend over backwards to avoid any appearance of COI. (When Malleus did the picking, for instance, he picked one written by Wehwalt, and I somehow doubt they're on each other's Christmas card lists.)

I haven't been able to keep up with all of that (the SPI), and won't be able to since I'm traveling tomorrow, preparing today. Looks like a pretty direct hit to me, though. The COI I was referring to was not in "pick of the week"; it was Tony lowering his normal prose standards and turning a blind eye to a very deficient article that appeared at FAC, following on the heels of Tony and that editor having a dispute with me over The Signpost. We all know Tony's standards-- his response on that FAC was most unusual and disappointing (I've been reading FAC for four years, and have never seen Tony comment quite like that), the prose and MOS issues were evident, and others had to fix them in a FAC that drug on for more than a month. Tony could have shut it down, yet curiously, he's asking above why that isn't done. Well, gotta go-- won't be able to do much more today. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:41, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Iri, EotR started the SPI at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ItsLassieTime; there's a whole lot more that can be added from User:SandyGeorgia/sandbox/Susanne2009NYC, but I just don't have time since I'm traveling tomorrow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:03, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

@Tony: that "dislike" was based on this; apologies if I misread it but it seemed fairly clear. My comments about you supporting and opposing were regarding FAC/FAR, not Signpost picks; Sandy's argument here is (or appears to me to be) that you ignore prose faults in articles by your friends, which you'd oppose for in articles by other people, and I was pointing out that I don't think that's the case.

Regarding the readership figures of F&A, I still think it's low enough that even if there are problems there—which I'm not saying there are—they wouldn't be the major issue Sandy believes they are. (While it reaches a disproportionate number of "important people" in Wikipedia terms, and this is more influential than the readership figures suggest, 1600 hits a month is lower even than my talkpage. For a long time F&A looked like this and was the dullest part of the Signpost, and I strongly suspect a lot of the readers got in the habit of skipping over it and haven't noticed how much it's improved.)

Re "some kind of free car mechanic's corner, for editors to nominate prematurely and let others do the work", in some ways that's become one of the purposes of FAC. Outside of a few areas like military history and music, the peer review process is moribund. Most topics have only a few active editors; if I were to write an article on a horse, for instance, I wouldn't bother taking it to PR because I know who the only three editors likely to comment would be and would just ask them directly. While obviously very ill-prepared nominations are A Bad Thing, for better or worse FAC and GAN have taken over a lot of the functions that in an ideal world would be performed at PR.

@Everyone: I'm going to sound like Jimbo in one of his preachier moods here, but this is really not the time to be arguing over exactly who said what to whom and when. The incidents and mutual recriminations of the last month or so have the potential to deliver a hefty kick in the nuts to Wikipedia's entire model, at a time when we're least equipped to deal with the fallout. Judging from the current candidate list, we're about to elect-by-default an Arbcom which will make the 2007 committee pale into insignificance in terms of bias towards the "Wikipedia as Facebook for ugly people" model and against content contribution. (At the time of writing, there are five candidates, none of whom AFAIK have ever so much as taken an article through GAN, and who have 23%, 11%, 55%, 45% and 19% mainspace contributions respectively.) Especially if the mooted scheme for the WMF to absorb Citizendium goes ahead, Jimbo will be otherwise engaged and won't be in a position to intervene to keep the ship on course if it does start veering towards the rocks; likewise, with Sanger going bust we're likely to acquire a group of squabbling new editors from Citizendium, all with firm opinions on How Things Ought To Be Done and all nursing substantial chips on their shoulders. Those who do still believe in what Wikipedia was intended to be—and Sandy, Tony, Malleus, Moni, Wehwalt, DGG, Cas, Giano, MRG, Kirill, even Mattisse, I think that includes all of you—we really do need to stop squabbling among ourselves and start working together to keep the project from collapsing under its own contradictions. Wikipedia doesn't have a divine right to exist; other sites do the social network thing much better, and if the "the community is the only thing that matters" element take full control of the project, we're in danger of becoming irrelevant and going the way of Myspace and AltaVista. – iridescent 16:35, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Sandy could make things a lot easier in this respect by easing up on the continual posting of negative sentiments. Many people believe she is out on a limb running this "culture of reward" argument. It results from a distorted view, perhaps born of Sandy's heroic and largely successful attempts to clean up what were the bad aspects of FAC, and to improve its standards. I think she underplays her success and sees too much in what I believe are unfounded fears. She forgets that she has the potential to do great good by being positive and supportive. It is the leadership that I had come to admire and expect. Please let us return to it. Tony (talk) 16:45, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I can see where you're both coming from. The reward culture has historically been a genuine problem (remember how many problems the Award Center caused and how hard it was to get rid of it?) and there certainly have been problems at FAC/GAN with mutual driveby supports by Wikicup participants in the past. FAC in particular has a problem with the appearance of cliques, because people with mutual interests tend to review articles on the same topics. (DavidCane and I will almost always review each others articles, for instance, because we're the only FAC regulars with a knowledge of 19th century civil engineering and thus the people most likely to spot problems in each others' articles; to an outsider, it could easily look like an off-wiki conspiracy.) That articles have got through FAC recently which should never have got through (and I say this as someone who supported The Story of Miss Moppet, so I'm not pointing fingers and sneering at people who should have known better) only adds to the feeling that something's gone wrong somewhere. Arbcom's closing-of-ranks around Rlevse and "everyone but us is to blame" attitude has hardly helped, either. – iridescent 16:58, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Iri, I think we have to be careful not to tarnish all of ArbCom with that brush-- they aren't all doing that. But yes, it's highly disappointing and most disgusting to have to deal with arb finger-pointing, sneering, wagon-circling and unprofessional conduct when we have such critical issues facing us (not only FAC, all of Wiki). The last thing we need are more arbs who are in the habit of doing same; NYB, Kirill, Roger are people who have always been above the crowd with impeccable integrity and character, and that's what we're going to need a return to on arbcom. Hopefully, someone with integrity will come forward. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm not thrilled with the changes enacted last year in arb elections, nor the beaurocracy in the arb elections procedures this year, and I'm afraid we're going to be stuck with the worst ever arbcom now, and more ill-prepared candidates filling up the Committee (all we need now is for Wehwalt to run, too, to end up with another ArbCom soft on coddling disruptive editors). I do wish, in general, that Tony would spend more time in article space and in talk space staying in touch with the community and what's going on beyond MOS, The Signpost, now arb pages. He's losing the touch he used to have, for example, with FAC-- I suppose he wasn't even aware of what happened to the Mauna Kea FAC and how much work it created. We need his valued opinions, hard work, organization, dedication and command of prose to be used more effectively, but he isn't always aware of what's going on out there in the trenches any more, including concerns about the "reward culture". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:57, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Always happy to satisfy you, Sandy. At least my election would get me out of the hair of FAC, judging by how often I see Steve Smith in the lounge. Having a campaign manager who's blocked just makes for good press. Seriously, I admire the work you do while wishing you would keep the zingers to yourself. You don't know often I erase replies to you before hitting "Save Page". Even so, I let you provoke me more often than I should, and I think we can agree to back away slowly from the dead horses (including the filly from Alabama).--Wehwalt (talk) 16:59, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, that last parenthetical took you from the high road to horribly poor taste in one fell swoop. MastCell ^Talk 17:51, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

As that is a major source of grievance between us, it is intended purely seriously. I do not care to be mocked, opposed, or accused of "ownership" and going against consensus. I care still less to have my colleagues accused as well. However, I am offering to let bygones be bygones. Iridescent is right, FAC is burning and we're all having a symphony down by the Tiber.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:53, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

You propose to put an end to your particularly horrible taste, lack of sensitivity and POV in the Holloway case by furthering it and writing another typically horrid thing on this page? Honestly, Wehwalt, I don't know if your POV is so great that you don't even see it, or you're just trying to needle me again. Anyway, not only "FAC is burning"; all of Wiki is, and lack of governance is a big part of the problems that are coming together in the perfect storm of copyvio/admin reform/soft arbs/lack of reviewers in content processes. At this point, it's a given that this year's arbcom will be the worst ever, so the future of Wiki is not the current concern. It's what is to be done with highly sensitive and confidential information in the hands of arbs considering the likely makeup of next year's arbcom. This is beyond the Wiki, and gets into real life. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:12, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I tried.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:14, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

What does that mean? That was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen you write on Wiki, and that says a lot (although I am aware that you've written worse elsewhere about Twitty and Holloway) ... have you no feelings, is it that you don't even see your POV, or is it because you don't have children yourself that you can write that way about a mother and her dead child? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Have I mentioned I do not have children on the wiki? Or is it more of your research on me, like mentioning you've read my amazon.com reviews under my real name?--Wehwalt (talk) 18:42, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

For gosh sakes, Wehwalt, what on earth is going on with you? Are you seriously now just trying to needle me when you know our hands are full at FAC and I'm trying to pack? You are going from bad to worse by the minute. I asked if you have no children, it was a question, I have no idea, but I can't imagine a father speaking about dead children the way you do. And what on earth is your issue with anyone reading your other writing on the internet? Your name was divulged on WikiReview, so everyone is reading it. Why is that my problem? If you wrote it, it's your problem! What is going on with you? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:51, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I offered a truce. All I see that you offer is insult and implications.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:00, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec) If I may, I think (and I haven't confirmed this with SG) that the actual piping of the link that Wehalt used above is what's got SG kinda upset. Calling a deceased girl whose body hasn't been found yet a "filly from Alabama" isn't exactly the high ground. I can see that it's clever, but it's kinda a poor taste sorta word play. Granted, I could be wrong, but as a mother myself ... I would find it in extremely poor taste if someone called my deceased child a filly (or implied she was a dead horse either). Ealdgyth - Talk 18:43, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I have no information that she is deceased, but if you like I will redact that pipe, which was intended so that other people would see what I was talking about Do you say that that excuses anything else she said?--Wehwalt (talk) 18:45, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

No way are you tricking me into stepping into THAT minefield, thank you very much. I think we all know you and SG don't agree on that subject, so perhaps BOTH of you dropping it might be best, but that's all I'm going to say. I respect you both and have no desire to get shot by both sides, thanks. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:50, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I will admit that Sandy probably has more knowledge of the subject matter than I do, given her extensive knowledge of Spanish-language Aruban newspapers, eh, Sandy?--Wehwalt (talk) 19:00, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, so you are trying to needle me over a dead girl. Most disgusting, Wehwalt; you've dropped to lows that surprise even your greatest fans. Bye now! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:02, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Well ... at least it's all out there in the open now. Some say that's a healthy thing.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:07, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Meanwhile, back to Iri's post of 16:35 UTC - I share several of Iridescent's concerns. While I'm fine with all of the current Arbcom candidates - I think Arbcom is most effective with a diverse membership that includes people with a wide range of wiki-experience - simply put, there aren't enough of them, and at this point there is a particular gap amongst those with heavy-duty content experience. What feedback I am getting is that, as the intensity of vitriol directed at the Committee (and its individual members) has increased over time, the desire to commit to an extended tour of duty has largely evaporated. Heck, we have a hard time getting well-qualified editors to go through the firing line of RfA, and that only lasts a week. I find many of the knocks against the Committee to be eyebrow-raising: we're accused of both trying to act as a governance body (q.v. the ACPD or whatever the acronym was) and refusing to do so; of failing to address admin abuse while the cries that certain RFARs and discussions were "fixed" to desysop still echo in our ears; of not doing enough to provide guidance to editors who clearly need to take a break, while being abused - either personally or as a group - for making genuine efforts to do so in a way that respects the person's privacy. I was going to add a whole screed about the plagiarism/copyvio/close paraphrasing silliness that is going on right now, but suffice it to say that those screaming loudest about it clearly haven't read enough of the project (or enough page histories) to realise how much would have to be rewritten to remove all of the "taint" from articles.

So folks...if you want good candidates to run for adminship, protect them from the nastiness. If you want good candidates to run for Arbcom, show up and support them when they're doing the right thing, and remember that repeatedly berating someone will only serve to dissuade others from putting themselves forward. Sure, we know we're going to be criticized, but it gets a little ridiculous to see the same action criticized on a dozen pages over multiple days, weeks and even years. It's something to keep in mind. Risker (talk) 22:45, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I can think of a very good candidate with lots of content experience, but who I expect wouldn't touch arbitration with a ten-foot barge pole (the owner of this talk page). Remember though, it's still early days and there may be people still preparing statements. AD 22:51, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The owner of this talkpage would have no chance at all at any election, I assure you. The only purpose any RFanything from me would serve would be to flush out Mattisse, Shalom and Poetlister's current batches of socks. – iridescent 23:04, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Break 2: reply to Risker

Not sure I'm completely buying that. Certainly, Arbcom members get bombarded with abuse of various degrees of justification, but so do most others who ever touch anything remotely controversial. (You notice that my email is now disabled? There's a reason.) The problem with what the current governance model has become is that Arbcom is simultaneously acting as a governing body, and as a Wikipedia Supreme Court, but doesn't have the mandate to do either so ends up taking flak whatever it does or doesn't do. The ACPD proposal was a good idea in principle; the problem was the way the candidates were hand-picked and presented as a meet the new boss fait accompli.

If you want my personal won't-ever-happen model for a reformed Arbcom (if we have to have a single central governing body), rearrange it along more syndicalist lines. Of the 18 members, have 9 or 10 elected by the current method—thus reducing the "any doofus who runs has a reasonable chance of being elected by default" factor. Have the remaining candidates elected by strictly defined constituencies; of the top of my head I'd suggest a couple of candidates elected by non-admins only, a couple elected by admins-only, a couple for which only authors of at least one FA or GA can vote, perhaps a candidate for whom only users who have previously been blocked at least once can vote; even have a candidate chosen by Wikipedia Review or Citizendium on the committee, to give a genuine outside view, and a member put on the board directly by the WMF. Not going to happen, but something needs to; it's no secret at all that Arbcom at present is seriously dysfunctional and it's only going to get worse. – iridescent 23:00, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

It's not a bad idea, although there are a few constituencies missing there (technically-oriented "editors" particularly come to mind), and the WMF won't touch it with a 10-foot pole for obvious reasons. And I think you sell yourself far short; you'd probably do much better than you imagine should you run. (My own experience speaks here - I didn't think I would pass RFA, and gave myself only a 20% chance of being appointed to Arbcom, which just goes to show you...) Of course, the other possibility with the secret ballots is that only a couple of people, or even possibly nobody, will get better than 50% support. It's a possibility I won't discount, and it speaks to the level of social dysfunction within the project. Risker (talk) 23:31, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that constituency idea is a brilliant one. I only wish I'd thought of it myself. Malleus Fatuorum 23:34, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Don't credit me with the idea; you have Lenin to thank for that one. – iridescent 23:41, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Taking that provenance to its logical conclusion, it would seem that this sort of governance is unlikely to arise spontaneously, and should be imposed by force. MastCell ^Talk 00:22, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. I've always believed that the WMF need to grow a pair and enforce a governance model on Wikipedia. If the American Revolution had been conducted by RFC, the Continental Congress would still be bickering over what color the flag should be and Thomas Jefferson would have been blocked for incivility to King George. – iridescent 00:27, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Now, who wants to be John Dunning? Kablammo (talk) 16:17, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I see myself as more Aaron Burr. – iridescent 16:46, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

We may have a few competitors for the role of Charles Fox around here. Kablammo (talk) 17:08, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

(adding) Also, I really don't buy the idea that the reason the content-improving editors don't run for Arbcom is that (gasp) they're worried that people might be rude to them. Anyone who's spent more than a few minutes at any of the reviewing boards will be well used to people being rude to them—just look at Sandy and Wehwalt flinging shit at each other a few lines up. The reason you're having trouble getting anyone who's ever been involved in controversial areas t run is that the current "whoever can round up the most friends on the day without attracting too many enemies" setup creates a massive systemic bias towards the more insipid characters who never do anything to offend anyone—who then in turn distort the electorate further, by blocking and banning anyone who offers an opinion in terms stronger than "I have some concerns about your recent edits". – iridescent 23:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps true, although there's also the fact that people who are heavy content contributors tend to prefer working on content to, well, most other things that happen at Wikipedia, and it's one of the more common reasons for people to step down from the Committee before their term is up or to accept only a short term. I'd also suggest that, actually, most of the current candidates do spend a fair bit of time addressing controversial issues (well, two of them are sitting arbs, so I guess that's obvious). What I've noticed is that actively participating editors with clearly articulated principles seem to do well, and even get support from those who might not otherwise agree with them, because they do in fact have principles, and they are clearly involved in the project. (Someone with principles who barely edits won't do as well, particularly if those principles are apart from the mainstream.) Now, it's not an ironclad rule, but take a look at some of the people who have been elected the last two years. Risker (talk) 23:51, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but… I think in some ways the "reform candidates" elected since the 2007 fiascos are part of the reason we've reached the current impasse. Not naming names, but at least one reform candidate promptly did a Nick Clegg-style backflip once elected to become exactly what he'd campaigned so vocally against. Now, any candidate who said something like "As a candidate, I pledge commitment to speed, transparency, and subservience to the community" would be treated with deep suspicion by people who want reform, but rejected for being too radical by those who favor the status quo. – iridescent 00:01, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

<goes back to check candidate statement, is relieved to see the word "speed" was not involved, but admits she's been unsuccessful in keeping Arbcom pages from being battlefronts.> I prefer to think of those who think Arbcom cases can be speedy as, um...idealistic but unrealistic about the natural machinations of a large body in all but the most obvious of situations. And any candidate who pledges subservience to the community probably doesn't have the level of self-esteem that would allow him or her to survive very long. And now I shall go and find out what young Mr. Clegg has been up to lately.... Risker (talk) 00:17, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

To be quite honest, I think anyone who pledges "subservience to the community" needs to spend a bit more time with the community to see exactly who they're pledging subservience to. I don't think anyone reading this, with the exception of a couple of particularly myopic Civility Police who like to watch this page looking for people to block, would seriously dispute that Wikipedia has more than its fair share of nutjobs. – iridescent 00:22, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

For the benefit of anyone keeping track, "As a candidate, I pledge commitment to speed, transparency, and subservience to the community" was a genuine quote posted during the election by one of Arbcom's current members. – iridescent 00:22, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

PS (2): Good God, Nick Clegg is a shitty article for such an important figure. Do we really need to know that his children once got delayed at an airport? – iridescent 00:34, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Pause for thought

Your comment above "Everyone: I'm going to sound like Jimbo in one of his preachier moods here ... The incidents and mutual recriminations of the last month or so have the potential to deliver a hefty kick in the nuts to Wikipedia's entire model, at a time when we're least equipped to deal with the fallout ... Wikipedia doesn't have a divine right to exist; other sites do the social network thing much better, and if the 'the community is the only thing that matters' element take full control of the project, we're in danger of becoming irrelevant and going the way of Myspace and AltaVista" has given me pause for thought. You seem to have these kinds of stats at your finger tips, but from memory, despite all of the massive numbers you sometimes see, wikipedia has a diminishing core of about 10,000 regular contributors policed by about 800 active administrators. Ten thousand editors could achieve great things, but not in the wars the current admin corps seem to revel in. I am more and more convinced that wikipedia's survival depends on an honest approach to admin accountability, and I am more and more convinced that won't happen. Malleus Fatuorum 23:59, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The "number of active users" stats are here, and IMO ought to be carved in stone and anyone who comes out with the usual "we have 47,258,129 editors!" nonsense whacked repeatedly over the head with them. Ten thousand is an overstatement; as of the end of September we had 3,644 active and 35,222 occasional editors, policed by 786 active admins. While numbers picked up slightly in August (no doubt due to the summer holidays in Europe and North America), it's patently clear that Wikipedia's editor base is in a steep nosedive while the unmaintainable number of articles continues to rise, and that the active-user/number-of-articles ratio—currently at 1:960—is going to break through the psychologically important 1000-to-one mark very soon. – iridescent 00:11, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

What's also clear to me is that too many admins see it as their role to chase away content editors. I could name several who have dragged their slime across this talk page. Malleus Fatuorum 00:53, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

More nuanced than that; certain admins (and one very influential Arb) see "the community" as the most important aspect of Wikipedia. Through that prism, anything that doesn't make Wikipedia a safe environment for the kids to play, is intrinsically a bad thing. It's not a case of right and wrong; it's a case of a fundamentally different world view. I personally think the "community" route will lead to Wikipedia's collapse—there are other sites that do social networking better than we ever could, and without the onward-and-upward drive Larry Sanger hardwired into Wikipedia's DNA back in 2001 the whole thing will drift into insignificance—but I might be wrong. (What passed for Featured Articles back then are a mark of just how far we've come—Bulldogging, anyone?) – iridescent 01:19, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

That's a scarily low number of active users. If you deduct the admins from the count of active users (as they're certain to be making sufficient edits to be part of that group), that's only 2,858 active non-admin users with one admin for every 3.64 active users! --DavidCane (talk) 01:13, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

It's worse than that. The same figures (Edit activity levels of registered users....) show we now have fewer than 2,000 editors making over 250 article space edits per month, and we all know that a large % of those, perhaps the majority, are reverting vandalism, changing categories, correcting typos etc etc rather than actually adding content. That figure has fallen from a peak of around 2,500 in early 2007, and has been on a downward trend ever since. Johnbod (talk) 08:37, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. As I've said before, it would probably only take around a hundred users leaving to bring Wikipedia completely to a halt. To their credit, the WMF are working on ways of addressing this, hence the "recruit more people who actually know what they're talking about" initiatives like WP:Campus Ambassadors. – iridescent 01:19, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Trivial sample of Historical figures sometimes considered autistic shows me how bad it's gotten. Typical (miserable mess of a) Wiki article, but cited to reliable sources, MOS compliant, stable, neutral, accurate-- the basics. New editor with little clue comes in and takes it apart so badly that another editor comes by and sends it to AFD, all the while newbie is screaming at me but not listening to me on talk, I can't edit war, no one from WT:MED will come over and help even after I post there, screaming newbie takes me to WQA and opens a CU on me (both promptly closed, see WP:BOOMERANG), and still only one editor from WT:MED shows up to help. Whole thing took probably six hours of my time, dealing with a disruptive editor over a rather miserable article, just as we were all trying to deal with the more important Miss Moppet. Point being, years ago many medical editors would have descended to help-- now there's too few of us, and we're all barely keeping our heads above water, and I couldn't even find time to talk to that hysterical editor, which only made him more hysterical (well, I think he might have been hysterical no matter what I did, but my point is, it used to be possible to try to mentor along new users, now it's not even possible to keep up with the medical articles on my watchlist, so I've just dropped most of them, and can barely keep the FAs in shape). So, after finishing up a day of WQA, SPI, and every other acronym in the book, I was up til 4 am typing responses to this fellow, which he will likely ignore again when he comes off his block tonight: lather, rinse, repeat. Moral of the story: it's better just to let the little articles decline, but it's too much of a fight just to keep the FAs in shape, and too much time is wasted on the trolls, vandals, POV-pushers on the little articles for too little benefit. I doubt having more admins would help, because it's the content-building expertise that is lacking (blocking that editor for edit warring took a second-- building and defending the article, not so). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:36, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Well this makes me feel like the village stray. I had to shoot down a publishing academic who was dumping their journal paper as promotion in unrelated articles in a social sciences area... they didn't appear to respond to user talk page suggestions except for going silent after their third edit. Poof, another potential scholar uninvolved. Additionally, this week, I've been dealing with what appears to be a highly passionate university educated individual adding one scholarly POV and deleting other scholarly POVs from humanities articles. While I've tried to approach them with the spirit of saving the editor for the encyclopaedia, this is bloody difficult to do—humanities interested individuals value the formation of a truth perspective, and changing this training to value the plethora of verifiable perspectives is a difficult editor development problem.

In the mean time, the continuous central European POV wars continue on humanities articles and wikipedia's consensus system is failing utterly to deal with the nature of, and production of, scholarly consensuses in the humanities and social sciences fields. This seems like a key administrative and systems failure in wikipedia at the moment, and for quite some time, which is unresolved outside of areas with a serious disciplinary sense of identity across ideological lines (MILHIST). Sole authoring in user space to FA standards by excellent editors may be one way forward (Economy of England in the Middle Ages); but we're basically asking for someone with the capacity to become a professional or academic historian to waste their career on an unstable community collective. In my humble experience only the religiously or politically motivated—or retirees—have the capacity to sacrifice their working life for community projects.

I would argue that community editing has already collapsed in humanities areas: expert stylite hermits have taken to sitting on wheels, and monasteries of encyclopaedic sanity have formed. Beneath these high places lies a wasteland of POV peasants screaming "ooh, I've found some lovely mud over here" at each other while ignoring the scholarly discourse. Calmly restating the nature of things from the scholarly discourse while awaiting civil POV pushers to become uncivil and then applying a broadly construed standing arbitration order on their conduct distracts entirely from encyclopaedic content writing. This is why I review FAC/FARCs and MILHIST A instead of contributing content. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:38, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Extra points to Fifelfoo for using stylite... wow! Ealdgyth - Talk 01:46, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

And yes, I'm a stylite. Weirdly, I'm probably the exception that proves FF's point - I did have training in academic history, but for personal reasons didn't go on to teach/research, but still enjoy the reading and writing about it. Because I work from home, I'm able to devote some time to Wikipedia, and because I hate TV, I can devote some of my free time to it, but no, lots of people can't devote that time to wikipedia, and those that have the knowledge, won't do it. And there are parts of medieval history on wikipedia I won't touch with a ten foot pole. Even I get issues - the whole British Isles/Britain&Ireland thing occasionally rumbles across my radar - but I can only image how much worse it is out there if you're editing in Central/Eastern European history or in the Balkans or in Irish history or Middle Eastern history... I'm not sure what could be done though, what we need is something to enforce content policies more strictly, without getting into the whole "civility" thing. No, I'm not advocating that we reward uncivil behavior, but our admin corps really needs to leat go of the idea that they shoudln't rule on content and actually pay attention occasionally to the reason WHY someone is uncivil. When someone is trying to use 150 year old sources to float some theory that has long lost any credibility with modern historians, I shouldn't have to deal with that crap - some admin should take the offending user in hand and leave me to do what I do best - read, digest and regurgitate history for the masses. (steps off soapbox) Ealdgyth - Talk 01:55, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. The noticeboards system does not adequately finalise content disputes without a serious over-investment of time and energy, that can be disrupted by deliberate (and occasionally politically organised) minorities. The projects system does not adequately impose taxonomic or editorial content decisions on contained articles (see Sandy on MED lacking bodies above). Creative attempts at Libertarianism do not seem to be generalisable: a serious consensus existed about scope and weight during twelve months of continuous civil and uncivil POV pushing by committed editors who believed themselves to be truly correct, and waves of disruptive passionate true believers. Libertarianism, with a hard article lock and a very hard conduct warning against revisiting scope issues for four months, has allowed committed editors with a consensus position to actually work the article's content.

As a controversy, I propose that: taxonomic, scoping, and what constitutes the scholarly consensus editorial decisions in Humanities and Social Sciences cease being governed by congregationalism and commence being governed by appeal in the case of community failure to an episcopalian governance. That such Bishops be appointed in a meriotocratic manner on the basis of specialist domain and discipline knowledge, evidence of content review practices, and evidence of adherence to wikipedian values in content disputes. That Bishops be given broad powers of rule over locking, banning, blocking, issuing rulings in relation to content and conduct solely for the purposes of resolving high order taxonomic, scope and content issues in their domain. That the Foundation be instructed to gain a license for Monty Python's The Bishop sketch for advertising and identification purposes.

We live in a time of sinful Ranters, Quakers, Levellers, Diggers, Anabaptists and general Dissenters who are corrupting the body of our state by disobeying the spirit behind congregational rule. [I think I've pushed the metaphor far enough, expect a Cromwell shortly.] Fifelfoo (talk) 02:19, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah, but WHICH Cromwell? Tommy or Ollie? That is the question... Ealdgyth - Talk 02:43, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Ealdgyth, JzG used to admin that way. He got clobbered over and over. I thought he was quite good at it, unlike Elonka, who didn't seem to know how to get involved in adminning content disputes without pretending to not take sides while taking sides-- with JzG, you knew which side he was on. The side that agreed with policy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:06, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, JzG was actually a role model for me when I started here, because he had a real knack for seeing through bullshit and grasping the essence of a dispute. Later on, he got burnt out and made some poor decisions, but then no sane person has yet been able to withstand the full Abd treatment, so I'm sympathetic. I can think of a number of other admins who used to work that way - that is, WP:CIV doesn't mean you have to endlessly tolerate obvious bullshit. Those people are all completely burnt out, if they're still here at all. And they've been replaced by people who are equally high-handed, but without the saving grace of underlying clue - the worst of both worlds. At some point, "the community" made a decision that rudeness was a greater threat to the project than blatantly partisan, agenda-driven, or batshit-crazy editors. Honestly, if you're capable of staying superficially civil (emphasis on "superficially"), avoiding edit-warring, and avoiding sockpuppetry, you can basically stay here indefinitely pushing whatever nonsensical, pernicious crap you choose. The end result is that we constantly hemorrhage good editors when they burn out, but the real bad apples stay with us forever. MastCell ^Talk 04:33, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

It's one of the true paradoxes of Wikipedia that not only does the current model discourage experts from participating, by its own internal logic it has to discourage experts from participating. Experts almost invariably have a particular point of view—people don't become distinguished in their fields by rehashing what's already been said, but by challenging existing beliefs and taking note of what changes. Take the example you raise of Abd, of whom I have more experience than I'd wish on anyone. While I don't think he's anywhere near as much of a genius as he thinks he is, he certainly knows more about nuclear physics than almost anyone else on Wikipedia. However, he can't or won't understand that Wikipedia is obliged to follow the mainstream opinion, even though he's conducted experiments which (in his eyes) prove an error in mainstream teaching.

Verifiability not truth may "only be an essay", but it summarizes Wikipedia's corporate mentality neatly—and in my opinion rightly, as otherwise the project will degenerate into another Google Knol, with multiple people posting conflicting information on the same topic and engaged in endless squabbles as to who is "right". However, "verifiability not truth" is absolute anathema to the academic mentality; since the Enlightenment, the whole thrust of Western academic philosophy has been based on questioning existing beliefs. The philosophy of Wikipedia is based on librarianship and reportage rather than on research, and the purpose is to catalogue the world and to understand the relationships between things, rather than to make new discoveries.

Despite my differences with WP:GLAM/BM, which seems sometimes to have become a holding pen for editors with a ridiculously exaggerated sense of self-importance, I personally think the energies being directed at the WP:Campus Ambassadors scheme would be better spent building links with libraries and museums. Their mentality is far closer to the spirit of Wikipedia then the mentality of research universities. – iridescent 15:51, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The trouble is that real experts generally only become interested in contributing on controversial matters, as in the recent case of a very distinguished (ahem) Uxbridge professor. If the coverage of their subject is merely very mediocre or just averagely misinformed they understandably can't be bothered, unless perhaps to put up an article on a favourite obscure corner of a topic, which of course is fine. But postgrads are very useful, as we see all the time. Johnbod (talk) 16:04, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Nobody ever complained when Sasha Grey was editing Wikipedia, mind. Can't think why. – iridescent 16:13, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I had an author once, pushing his fringe theories on Ernest Augustus I of Hanover. Polite but firm admonitions about Wiki policies eventually abated that nuisance.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:16, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

IIRC, Moni and Malleus were driven to distraction by a historian on Donner Party once. There is a distinct advantage to working in areas about which nobody really cares. – iridescent 16:22, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Couldn't they get a ride back from distraction? And I hope they didn't have lunch at that party.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:48, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

• The problem is that the "experts" we get are, by and large, not actual experts. They're semi-professionals obsessed with a particular minoritarian viewpoint. Their obsession means that they've done quite a bit of reading on their pet viewpoint, but that reading is undertaken largely to mine support for their pre-existing viewpoint. That passes for "expertise" on this site. Abd is a classic example. I won't dispute that he's acquired quite a bit of knowledge about nuclear reactions, but that knowledge is worse than useless to Wikipedia, because it's always filtered through the prism of his desire to promote his pet fringe viewpoint. In the real world, most experts actually don't have an obscure agenda to push. Certainly we should immediately suspect that any "expert" who seems determined to advance their pet viewpoint through Wikipedia is not what the real world would actually consider an expert. MastCell ^Talk 21:40, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but… "Expert" means what you want it to mean. Anyone who's ever been in an argument with Abd, Ottava, WMC and so on can vouch that in their own eyes, they're at the top of their respective fields. (As a general rule in my experience, anyone who starts namedropping genuinely significant academics to pick up notability-by-association usually has at least some degree of bullshit there.) That said, two of the three I mention above may not be 'real' experts but are qualified enough that one could imagine them contributing to the relevant articles in Britannica, which to me is a general rule of thumb. The trouble is, as you say, that among research academics it's generally the ones who want to Open The World's Eyes To The Truth who come to Wikipedia. That's why I think the WMF ought to be aiming its diminishing resources at people involved in the dissemination, rather than the gathering, of information—librarians, curators and the like. My ideal recruits to Wikipedia would be the people who write travel guidebooks, museum catalogs and children's nonfiction; they all understand the "absorb a lot of information and summarize the salient points in brief and neutral form". (As I've said occasionally before, I think this is one of the reason Wikipedia gets a lot of people with a military, police and intelligence background; they all have this mentality drummed into them.) – iridescent 02:54, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you about ideal skill sets. On the topic of (Wikipedia's version of) expertise, this Arbitration request, centered around User:Ryoung122, seems germane. MastCell ^Talk 18:08, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

That ought to be printed out and every one of the sorry (albeit marginally improving) crop of current Arbcom candidates forced to read it beginning to end. That particular dispute was one of the first editwars I ever saw in my time on Wikipedia, and hasn't improved since. – iridescent 19:22, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Re Philip (Blakeman) Thomas‎ A7 decline

I'm afraid you'll have to enlighten me as to what exactly is meant by "credits include" in this article, as I suspect that's what you consider to be the assertion of notability. Strange Passerby (talk • contribs) 17:06, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

If the article claims he's a producer for Echobelly, Scarfo, Earl Brutus, Fun Lovin Criminals, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Beastie Boys. Cypress Hill & Echo & The Bunnymen, that's patently an assertion of notability. There's no possible way A7 applies, and I'm not quite sure how you thought it could. – iridescent 17:10, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Does it, though? The article merely says he's a producer, musician an arranger. It doesn't say he's these bands' producer. Which is why I tagged it. I'm unclear on the wording "credits include"; if this is a claim that he's worked for the bands, I'd argue it's still A7 unless it specifically claims he produced for them. Merely working for or with them isn't notable, surely. Strange Passerby (talk • contribs) 17:18, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd say not enough to survive AFD by any stretch, but certainly enough to pass A7 ("any 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"). – iridescent 19:40, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, before I hit the sack – you deleted another of my A7s, Idoani. It has a WPNIGERIA template on the talk page dating to 2007. There might have been a useful page there before it was replaced with A7 vandalism – could you help check and restore the last good version if there is one? Thanks. Strange Passerby (talk • contribs) 17:55, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for delay - phone went midway. Yes, clean version restored (although it's nothing to write home about). – iridescent 18:24, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

One more question

One more question. With regards to Marilyn Manson sources, I was wondering if I could reference The Nachtkabarett. I have been given permission by its creator to use the site as a source, however, I'm not sure if Wikipedia recognizes it as a 'reliable, high quality' source. It is generally regarded in the Marilyn Manson fan community as one of the leading, of not definitive, compendium of information relating to the band and its creator, Nick Kushner, has direct connection with the band's frontman. However, given that even interviews from unfortunately lesser known webzines have been call into question in my recent brush at peer review and good article assessment, I'm not sure where I stand. Thanks in advance for your reply.

-Red marquis (talk) 18:22, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Ask Ealdgyth-if anyone is going to object, she will. – iridescent 18:30, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not doing FAC source reviews at the moment. It'd be Brian or up to the rest of the FAC reviewing community. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:31, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Who is Brian? -Red marquis (talk) 18:55, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

User:Brianboulton – iridescent 18:56, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Electric Avenue

Hi Iridescent,

Sorry to incorrectly identify Electric Avenue as the first to have electric lights. It wasn't my idea, I just copied the content from the Wikipedia page on Brixton#History ("In 1880, Electric Avenue was so named after it became the first street in London to be lit by electricity."), so that page should be fixed too. Was Electric Avenue at least one of the first to have electricity? If not, why was it named that?

I see that the page on "Street light" agrees with you. The Holborn Viaduct page should say this too; that is an important milestone that should be noted.

Thanks for fixing my mistake! MarcM1098 (talk) 15:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not actually sure why Electric Avenue has the name it does. My guess (emphasis on guess) is that the developers wanted a name that sounded advanced and high-tech (this still goes on; 100 years later a new road in north London was named "Solar Way"). But it may be something as mundane as that the road once housed a power station. – iridescent 16:38, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

There's a Balloon Street in Manchester. IIRC it was the location of the first hot air balloon flight in the city. Just thought you should all know that. Parrot of Doom 23:41, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

There used to be a Pisspot Lane in Cambridge. (No, really.) It was the location of… – iridescent 23:59, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, I used to live near the junction of Yankee Maid Lane and Magic Circle Drive, with Good Time Court a couple of streets along. Just thought I'd share that. – iridescent 00:04, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

DaveIIB5

The block isn't working, he's continuing to make his talkpage a re-direct. GoodDay (talk) 19:42, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd left him the ability to edit his own talk page, just in case it was a legitimate alt account and he wanted to post an unblock—Antandrus has now (rightly) locked it. – iridescent 20:16, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Okie Dokie. GoodDay (talk) 22:16, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Google Books

If the discussion about Google Books comes again, you can now point people to User:Uncle G/On common Google Books mistakes. Uncle G (talk) 01:13, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I was just looking at that, oddly enough. I'm sure that no matter what anyone says, that guy still won't believe that just because he can see a full preview, not everyone else can. – iridescent 01:17, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

WT:ACN

• Unless you have a non-disruptive reason for calling me "Porcupine" which you can cite, consider yourself warned per WP:POINT.
• Unless you have a specific reason from WP:TPO for deleting my comments which you can cite, consider yourself warned per WP:VAND.
• ╟─TreasuryTag►draftsman─╢ 19:05, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

TT, there's a nice shiny warning on your userpage. Quit trolling. You've had more than enough warnings in your time here to know what is and isn't appropriate. – iridescent 19:07, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. ╟─TreasuryTag►Not-content─╢ 19:10, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Seen and ignored. Go waste someone else's time with your drama-queening. – iridescent 19:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm the drama queen? Who started deleting others' comments? Your flatmate? ╟─TreasuryTag►high seas─╢ 19:12, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Moon phase

Are we in a full moon? Or has the election just driven everyone batty without any other reasons? GEES! Everyone, go write/improve an article already! Ealdgyth - Talk 19:38, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

You have nice cheerful ones on the way from me and Moni to look forward to… (Full moon isn't till tomorrow, but good enough for government work.) – iridescent 19:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to do my bit, even hesitantly with one of wikipedia's more important articles, perhaps even a core article, can't be bothered to check. I've fired a few opening shots, so I'll wait to see if any warriors return from the dead to defend the article in its present state before I do any more. (My experiences in dealing with a very clear COI on the ITIL series of articles has not induced any optimism.) I've long been amazed at how poor the vast majority of wikipedia's computing articles are; I blame the teachers who taught the kids who wrote them all that they know, which clearly isn't very much. Malleus Fatuorum 19:52, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Blame the Great Media Conspiracy between the existing computer giants. It's in none of their interests to admit that Gates and Jobs were insignificant players who just happened to get lucky, rather than the geniuses who saved the world they like to present themselves as. (Nolan Bushnell and Clive Sinclair are both in impressively bad shape, and they have as good a claim as anyone to be the founders of the modern world.) – iridescent 20:05, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Clive Sinclair in particular I think. I worked for several "computer giants" (not Microsoft or Apple), and what's clear to me is that none of them cared a whit about PCs, and only microelectronics insofar as they could be used in their mainframes. Gates was of course just lucky, and arguably a little bit dishonest. Malleus Fatuorum 20:15, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I suspect it's as much an artefact of the age of Wikipedia's core editor group—most grew up in a period when punchcards and reel-to-reel were psychologically as distant as the vacuum tube and the wooden aircraft. (My first computer remains a redlink but bizarrely, its UK rebadging does warrant an article). – iridescent 20:24, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right. I remember the excitement among the group in my little part of ICL when we finally got a minicomputer (I call it a minicopmuter, but it was about the size of a wardrobe) with exchangable discs, even though they were about the size of a car wheel, cost a fortune, and could only store about 10Mb. In my first programming job, at the MoD, computer time was so scarce that we were only allowed two compilations a week, one on Tuesday and another on Thursday. The history does seem to be forgotten, although I'm conscious that I'm starting to sound a little bit like that Monthy Python Yorkshireman sketch. :lol: Malleus Fatuorum 20:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

One summer course while I was at university, I did at Stevens Tech in Hoboken. We would hand in our programs on punched cards into an "in" bin, and watch as programmers would come out, collect our stuff, then run them through a machine and we'd get the cards back with a piece of paper, either the hoped for output or the errors in the run. Ah, those were the days.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:13, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

They were computer operators, not computer programmers. Malleus Fatuorum 21:39, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I got a very good grade, then. Back in the day, I'd walk from the train station to the campus past the Maxwell House factory, the most intense smell of coffee you'd ever get. It was all very rundown, the factory's gone and it's all condos and gentrification now.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:53, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

This brings back a memory of being absolutely transfixed, as a child, by the Kingdom game running on a VAX. In retrospect, it probably consisted of about eighty lines of code. (Unnerving thought; the current size of this talkpage alone is more than the total RAM capacity of a first-generation Apple Mac.) – iridescent 22:16, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Hah! You kids don't know how easy you have it these days. Why, when I was in high school, we had one computer for the students, which had one terminal, and you would save your programs (as well as the Star Trek game) on punched tape, and you had to feed it in and hope it wouldnt jam before you could use it.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:23, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Punch cards? Aren't those the things hieroglyphics are written on? Ucucha 22:39, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Why you little .... Doh!--Wehwalt (talk) 22:56, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I have a listing of the source code for that original Star Trek game, printed on the music paper of that time. Or at least I used to have, probably faded and gone to printer ink heaven by now. Malleus Fatuorum 22:46, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Someone could make good money encoding that for iPhone app.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:48, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Seek/Find – iridescent 22:52, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

You lot are wimps. I used to spend hours typing lines of code from Personal Computer World into my Dad's Commodore Pet. Parrot of Doom 22:51, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah, but did you have "Micronoia"? – iridescent 22:52, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I used to write some of that some stuff; I was particularly pleased with my C64 debugger, that was even syndicated in the States. I think I earned about £60 from that. Didn't change my life though. Malleus Fatuorum 22:57, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

And I thought writing 7,000 lines of VB code to make an AI chess game was tough... Alzarian16 (talk) 23:14, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Never had Micronoia, but we had a space invaders clone. I also tried to write a pacman game, but in BASIC. I never understood machine language, mind you I was 8 and it was 1980. My Dad's work colleague was madly into computers and wrote a slot machine game on the PET. He went on to create this game. Parrot of Doom 23:26, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

When I finally get banned from Wikipedia, I want the block message to read "A booming voice says ‘Wrong, cretin!’ and you notice that you have turned into a pile of dust". – iridescent 23:36, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

With that approach, maybe you'd be perfect for ArbCom after all. :) Newyorkbrad (talk) 07:53, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm flip-flopping; it's something I really don't think would be a good use of my time, but with some exceptions, the current crop of candidates aren't particularly inspiring. I'm also less than happy about the whole identification business; Scott does make good points, and given that this is the same WMF who hired CBD, I'm not exactly filled with confidence with them. – iridescent 22:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

FWIW I don't think it would be a good use of your time either. Malleus Fatuorum 23:16, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

It's what is stopping me from running. We got a fair number of people who can hobnob under the arb tree. We have fewer people who can write. Given that the idea here is building an encyclopedia ...--Wehwalt (talk) 23:18, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Isn't it all written? Just policing needed from now on? Malleus Fatuorum 23:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't see what you could possibly lose, other than time to do other more enjoyable stuff, as you say. If you find it's too time-consuming or stressful you could always resign. AD 23:29, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Wehwalt's position is pretty much the same as mine. My concern is that without at least some people who understand how things work in reality rather than in policy statements, the new committee has the potential to be totally dominated by the "you said poop!" patrol. If nothing else, I really hope Cas and David get through; I may disagree with them on a lot, but I at least trust them to think about what they're doing and not to kowtow to whatever the flavor of the month happens to be. Hopefully, a lot more will start coming forward over the next couple of days; looking at the current list, there's a real possibility that only two candidates will even reach the 50% requirement.

Re AD, don't mean to sound patronising but do you realise what it is Arbcom actually does? The visible "dispute resolution" side is a tiny part of it. Have you ever got one of Mattisse or Ottava's emails? Imagine getting 50–150 of those every single day, and being obliged to read and respond to every one. I've heard the figure of 30 hours a week mentioned, and I believe it. Also, as I've previously mentioned there's the whole passport business; would you trust the WMF with anything remotely sensitive? – iridescent 23:35, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm quite aware what it does. I haven't received any emails from those two, but I can imagine an arb can prioritise and decide which need answering and which don't. I'm not trying to pressure you into it, but you do seem to have the time, sense and knowledge to do a decent job of it. Just saying. As for the WMF, of course I trust them with my name. Has there ever been a leak of confidential data about editors from the WMF? AD 23:41, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Depends who you believe; information about editors identity certainly leaks out all the time from somewhere (Hivemind doesn't compile itself). The WMF has certainly had a Chief Operating Officer in the past who was convicted of check fraud, credit card fraud and petty larceny (as well as a lot of more serious but non fraud-related offences). That said, I don't think it's as major a concern as Scott's making out; identities always leak from somewhere no matter how much one tries to keep them secret. – iridescent 23:48, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I tend to think you're looking at it the wrong way. Those who try to out editors, (DB, ColScott, TU) etcetera are pretty much open about how they gather the information on arbitrators. They tend to do it from people's edits, (for example. if you looked at my edits, there's one town that keeps popping up, it's a pretty easy guess to say I live/lived there in the past). Another way is that folks are predictable. We tend to use the same usernames or email addresses in multiple spots. There's a LOT more information out there then you think. I think it's much easier to apply Occam's razor in thse situations. The Foundation knows the first time they get caught leaking this information will also be the last.. I can't speak for others, but if it turned out a member of the Foundation staff was careless with my personal information, (or actively malicious in turning it over without the necessary impetus of a subopena), I would resign, and I tend to think a good percentage of others would, for fear of a similar situation. SirFozzie (talk) 18:47, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

break

Is there a 50% requirement for election? I thought I had read that it had not been adopted for this year.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:52, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

"If we had a bizarre situation in which there is a serious difficulty in finding candidates with at least 50% approval at all, I think it would be wise to consider that a serious signal that something has gone wrong with the entire process, and I would call for a wide-ranging discussion about ArbCom composition, function, etc." is the official policy on it. Make of it what you will. – iridescent 23:57, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Constitutional monarchy ... ouch. Personally, think there should be an interim election at the time of the Checkuser/Oversight elections, to fill ArbCom vacancies. At present, I intend to vote in favor of only two, and plan on either opposing or abstaining on the others.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

If I were in charge, I still think my constituency idea is the way to go. That way, even if a member was universally loathed, they'd always have the approval of someone. And at least that way, candidates would only have to sell themselves to people who were already familiar with them and aware of their pros and cons, rather than trying to explain the argument they got into in 2006 to a bunch of people who've never heard of them before. – iridescent 00:20, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

<sigh> The opposes are of two types: (1) I don't like this candidate; and (2) I've voted for other candidates, so I'm advantaging them by putting a minus on this candidate's tally. The opposes should not be interpreted as wholly being a vote of no confidence in a candidate, when "strategic" voting is now quick and convenient via the private electronic voting system, and reason 2 is more in evidence. Therefore, the notion that more opposed than supported a candidate should not be interpreted as an absence of confidence. Just less confidence. There is now nothing magical about any particular minimum boundary, and it should not be applied. See my graphs on the reduction in neutrals and the increase in opposes between 08 and 09. Tony (talk) 08:43, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, sort of; if the number of candidates remains low, strategic opposes will presumably be less of an issue this year. There needs to be some kind of cut-off; as I write this there are 11 candidates for 11 slots, and without a cutoff of some kind it would be possible for a candidate to win even if the only support vote were their own. If that happened and Jimbo then had the choice between appointing them on that basis, or vetoing a legitimately elected candidate, we'd have a full-blown crisis, rather than the minor problem of a non-full-staffed committee. If there's going to be a cut-off line, 50% is the obvious place to draw it. – iridescent 09:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I must concur here with Iri, that if there are folks elected to the committee that did not gain a majority of "support" votes, I for one will consider the election rather a farce. And at the moment, I can't say I'm thinking this is going to be a good result so far. If we automatically elect all the candidates, what's the point of community input again? (As an aside, I have Moni trying to bribe me off-wiki to run. She needs to learn that I'm not THAT cheap ... $5 ain't going to cut it!) Ealdgyth - Talk 16:14, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. It does occur to me that we're currently in the very odd situation in which it's easier to pass an Arbcom election—and get every user right—than to pass RFA. (If Malleus, Wehwalt, Sandy or myself stood at RFA at present we'd be crucified; all four of us would probably scrape through an Arbcom election.) – iridescent 16:19, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Oooh, so very tempting. That would teach the bastards a lesson. Malleus Fatuorum 23:04, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Sadly for wikipedia though I hope to be rather busy next year, so I wouldn't have the time to spend on it anyway. Malleus Fatuorum 23:07, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Look, I said $5 and guaranteed mocking of your username by comedy shows. Specifically by Stephen Colbert. Who wouldn't jump at the chance to be mentioned disreputably by disreputable sources? --Moni3 (talk) 23:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I think I would pick up the 50 percent. I did last year. My guess is I'd finish about seventh with the present candidates, unless there is greater anger at the incumbents than I think there is. As for RFA, I think that if I got the benefit of the doubt we've seen shown to reconfirmations by the crats, I'd pass, but it would be something like 150-75-5.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:10, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd be somewhere between 40 and 60% depending on who turned out; ditto for Malleus. And this is England; no Colbert here, even on cable. A nation mourns. – iridescent 23:13, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Someone will no doubt now pop up to correct me and he'll turn out to be syndicated on some obscure satellite channel here. – iridescent 23:13, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

When I am tired of writing then it is time for me to run. That time is not here.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:18, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

My attitude as well; those train crashes in Eccles don't write themselves. However I do get the feeling that if the current Magnificent Eleven all go through, every single one of us will end up blocked for civility and Wikipedia will consist of half-a-dozen people cut/pasting copies of Rlevse's "Awesome Wikipedian" star onto each other's pages. (Am I the only one who sees the irony in people copypasting one of Rlevse's contributions?) – iridescent 23:22, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I see that you're thinking outside of the box; blocking for civility is a great idea, especially that obnoxious "have a nice day". Malleus Fatuorum 23:28, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I do sometimes get the feeling Wikipedia would lose 90% of its problem editors if we set up a bot to block any user who used the {{wikismile}} template on more than three occasions. – iridescent 23:31, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'd be pretty confident of getting more than 50% at RfA despite all of the inevitable Strongest possible oppose by the Master of the Known Universe stuff, but it would still be a bloody affair. It's curious that the threshold for arbitrators is so much lower than at RfA, when the threshold at RfB is so ridiculously high. Something has gone seriously awry. Malleus Fatuorum 23:20, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is like high school. Student council types running for ArbCom, a bunch of people slogging for academic achievement, and some behind the scene who are like the nerds in the A-V room. Which are the jocks?--Wehwalt (talk) 23:36, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

The reverters, no question—look at WT:Huggle and some of them really do treat it as a spectator sport. (This thread sums it up nicely; I get the feeling Gurch is getting increasingly horrified at what his invention has spawned.) – iridescent 00:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

break 2

• Well, folks, don't come crying to me in a few months because Arbcom doesn't operate in the way you think it should. I can't make anyone run but I can look you all in the metaphorical eye and say "you get the Arbitration Committee you deserve." If you don't like the range of candidates who are running, it's up to you to fix it. I'd prefer to see at least another half-dozen people running myself. Risker (talk) 23:42, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) The take-home message seems to be that very few expect very much of ArbCom now, and even less after these elections. You ought to be looking elsewhere for why that is. Malleus Fatuorum 23:47, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Malleus, I know perfectly well why that is, and so do you. I've spent a couple of years trying to change that, but the energies of a tiny number of people is insufficient to turn an ocean liner around. It takes more than just a few people pulling in the same direction to do that. I can read the writing on the wall as well as you can. Risker (talk) 00:16, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

My guess is that less than half of the current candidates will pass fifty percent. If there is sufficient anger at incumbents, it could be as low as two. I'm interested in seeing what Jimbo will do.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:45, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

My head says "run just to give some competition", my heart says "let the system go to hell and it'll force someone to come up with something better". Hopefully someone else will come forward; otherwise as we come to the wire a lot of people will be having the "does the nature of the disease require so sharp a remedy?" thought run through their heads. – iridescent 00:07, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

My goodness, Iridescent, I certainly never had you pegged for such optimism! :-D Risker (talk) 00:14, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I would run except, I am totally unsuited for the role, quite honestly. I would be an absolute mess as an arbiter. I don't perform well in high stress conditions, honestly. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:17, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Optimism and pessimism are flip sides of the same coin; Jimbo's not stupid, and he's not going to let his meal ticket run itself into the ground. One way or the other things are going to change soon for all the reasons I'm constantly mouthing off about (statistic of the day: two years ago the article/editor ratio was 600:1; one year ago the article/editor ratio was 755:1; current article/editor ratio 960:1). The questions are whether Wikipedia is better off having a crisis and sudden burst of radical change or a longer gradual change, whether the change would work better with or without me (and Malleus, and Moni, and Wehwalt, and Sandy, and Ealdgyth…) involved in it, and whether I want to devote a large chunk of time to it in a year that's likely to be unusually busy for me in real life. And of course you never know; the current 11 might well do fine. – iridescent 00:24, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I thrive on stress, I do hardly anything unless there's a looming deadline. I'd likely be one of the best administrators wikipedia never had though. More seriously, if you're even being half-serious Iridescent then give it a shot. I think you may find that you've got more support than you think. On the other hand, in your position I'd be of the "let the system go to Hell" school of thought. Malleus Fatuorum 00:28, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Everyone who thinks they won't pass, you might seriously want to consider it. Giano managed to get more than the 50% mark—and that was back in the days of open voting when a lot of people didn't want to be seen supporting him (lots of interesting characters in that 'oppose' section in hindsight). Since at least five of the current candidates are certain to get below 50%, this is the best chance for anyone who wants it. – iridescent 00:32, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm just worried that if I run, I'd have to reveal that I'm really the Stig. --Andy Walsh (talk) 01:29, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Hundreds of wikis get along just fine without an Arbitration Committee. And not just the small wikis whose characters don't even display in your browser. I think the "Ottava and Matisse" e-mail problem exists only because people choose to let it exist. The same can be said for a lot (most?) of the problems that the Arbitration Committee handles. There's a stage; of course people are going to get on it. The idea isn't to keep enlarging it until it consumes the project. The idea is to burn it down and move on. The actual problems on this site aren't addressed by the Arbitration Committee (or anyone, really) and the remaining "problems" are mostly the result of people feeding those who ought not be fed.

It's funny, y'know, there were actual democratic elections on this site and plenty of people participated, but they chose not to elect anyone (this was for CheckUser/Oversight this year, I think). Not anyone, but it was maybe one or two people who got through. Instead of taking that to mean that the others were currently not supported enough to take on those positions, the elections were simply abolished. Never mind that elections take place on nearly every other wiki—it's part of the standard operating procedure described at Meta. Never mind that the community™ came out in large numbers. The machine needed fed and there were going to be bodies, hell or high water.

I'm still waiting on a ballot option that says "abolish the damn committee and pretend it never happened." There's no reason to encourage people to run for such a time sink. It's rare that I even participate in the charade of an election (I generally skip most elections except the Board). We'll see if this year is any different.

(These comments said, of course, with a lot of respect for some of those who do serve on the Arbitration Committee, a few of whom I've met. Bless their hearts. Perhaps this is part of the reason I don't want to see more good people get ensnared in such abject stupidity. Unless they're into that kind of thing.... ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Busted!

DavellB5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

• Thank you for catching the cheeky monkey. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 02:49, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

• No problem—that was a cleverer one than most – iridescent 00:52, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

• Hardly surprising given that the particularly boring (or should I say bored?) impersonator likes to follow Baseball Bugs (and his friends, that includes me!) around and impersonate as others to gain our attention just for the kick in his nuts. Best. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦™№1185©♪♫®} 01:44, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to the Arbcom Elections

Dear Iridescent, thank you for nominating yourself as a candidate in the 2010 Arbitration Committee elections. On behalf of the coordinators, allow me to welcome you to the election and make a few suggestions to help you get set up. By now, you ought to have written your nomination statement, which should be no more than 400 words and declare any alternate or former user accounts you have contributed under (or, in the case of privacy concerns, a declaration that you have disclosed them to the Arbitration Committee). Although there are no fixed guidelines for how to write a statement, note that many candidates treat this as an opportunity, in their own way, to put a cogent case as to why editors should vote for them—highlighting the strengths they would bring to the job, and convincing the community they would cope with the workload and responsibilities of being an arbitrator.

You should at this point have your own questions subpage; feel free to begin answering the questions as you please. Together, the nomination statement and questions subpage should be transcluded to your candidate profile, whose talkpage will serve as the central location for discussion of your candidacy. If you experience any difficulty setting up these pages, please follow the links in the footer below. If you need assistance, on this or any other matter (including objectionable questions or commentary by others on your candidate pages), please notify the coordinators at their talkpage. If you have followed these instructions correctly, congratulations, you are now officially a candidate for the Arbitration Committee. Good luck! Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 10:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Waits for WR to light up like a Christmas tree… – iridescent 11:20, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Yay! --Andy Walsh (talk) 13:20, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Echoing Andy! Ealdgyth - Talk 14:09, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I haven't always agreed with you Iridescent, but I'm glad you've nominated yourself; I believe you have a good chance of being elected. Good luck. AD 16:54, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Depends who turns up on the day (well, in the week). Don't underestimate how many people will come out of the woodwork to oppose; some people here hate being told anything that isn't a variation on "you're a genius", and I've told a lot of members of Wikipedia's more powerful lobby groups things they didn't want to hear. One of the well-documented perversities of Wikipedia's model is that the more experience someone has here, the less likely they are to win any kind of vote—people you've annoyed watchlist your redlinked future RFA, but people you've helped eventually forget about you. There's a reason this redlink has 42 people watching it, for instance. – iridescent 17:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Only 42? I'd have expected more. I'm sure I've upset more than 42 people here. Malleus Fatuorum 17:07, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

PS. Good luck in the election. Malleus Fatuorum 17:08, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Which is why they should only allow active editors to vote. Coming back to get their revenge on a candidate that upset them in 2008 is hardly legitimate, in my opinion - as is coming back to support their friends. Uninformed voters are something to be avoided imo. That link is curious - I know Malleus was renamed, but should he ever go to RFA again, would he stand under his old username? I'd have thought he'd run under his current username, and have links to the first two. Not that it matters, as I'm quite aware of his feelings about RFA :) AD 17:11, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Well, if 42 people who might want to oppose can't spell your name right, Malleus (now that you spell it "Fatuorum" not "Fatuarum" as once you did), you might just sneak by in an RFA without them noticing: "Malleus Fatuorum 3" (and "2", and unnumbered) each have less than 30 watchers... Bencherlite^Talk 17:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Get thee behind me Satan! There would have to be some very radical changes at RfA and the whole admin for life philosophy before I'd even consider another hazing there. Malleus Fatuorum 17:22, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I want to ask you something (after my initial no way! reaction), and I can't seem to keep it under 75 words or make it make any sense. --Moni3 (talk) 17:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Moni, lengthy and nonsensical questions are welcome on the talkpage to the succinct sensible ones – you can join me there! Skomorokh 18:52, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Iridescent, you've probably been dreading this question, but is your identity on a certain BADSITE and the comments made under it fair game to bring up on-wiki? Skomorokh 18:52, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Have a look at the statement - Iridescent mentions the fact she registered Eva Destruction here, and her account on the "bad site" is even linked back to here. AD 18:54, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I am aware of that, but wanted to know how Iridescent felt about the issue before dredging up dead drama to sate my own curiousity. Skomorokh 18:57, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Fire away; that I have a WR account is no secret. Yes, WR has some truly obnoxious people, but so does Wikipedia itself; I've never seen any reason to condemn everyone on that site just because they grudgingly tolerate the presence of a few obsessives. – iridescent 19:01, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Great, added. I think most editors these days would agree with that stance on WR. Thanks for humouring my questions thus far, the responses have definitely been of interest. Skomorokh 19:09, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Questions from Lar

Hi. Best of luck in your upcoming trial by fire. As in previous years I have a series of questions I ask candidates. This year there are restrictions on the length and number of questions on the "official" page for questions, restrictions which I do not agree with, but which I will abide by. I nevertheless think my questions are important and relevant (and I am not the only person to think so, in previous years they have drawn favorable comment from many, including in at least one case indepth analysis of candidates answers to them by third parties). You are invited to answer them if you so choose. I suggest that the talk page of your questions page is a good place to put them and I will do so with your acquiescence (for example, SirFozzie's page already has them as do the majority of other candidates). Your answers, (or non-answers should you decide not to answer them), that will be a factor in my evaluation of your candidacy. Please let me know as soon as practical what your wish is. Thanks and best of luck. (please answer here, I'll see it, and it keeps things together better) ++Lar: t/c 18:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, wherever you want. I won't necessarily commit to answering all of them; IIRC from last year, it was an enormous wall of text. – iridescent 18:38, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Added. Most candidates this year (and previous years) have done just fine. Yes, there is a lot there, but the generic questions are sadly deficient in a number of areas, just as they were last year. As a long time WR reader you no doubt remember the in-depth analysis that Kato did of candidate answers, I think it was two years ago. Perhaps someone will do that again. ++Lar: t/c 19:08, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Answered. – iridescent 20:46, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations on being CheckUsered

I'd been meaning to congratulate you for ages, but just hadn't gotten around to it. Now that it's possible that you're going to have access to the logs yourself, I can't really wait until April 1 of next year to make this post. Oh well.

Two ArbCom cases here, but I've never been checked. Meanwhile you've been checked twice. Life is unfair.

Best of luck in the elections. I may even vote, given some of the candidates. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:37, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm truly touched. Do we know who and when? – iridescent 19:53, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to know if someone was checkusered without having access to logs? AD 21:41, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

@AD Theoretically no, but if you pester the right people you can find out.

@MZM was it this account, or "Iridescent" on Wikiquote? That one's not me; I think it's a Poetsock set up back when he had CU/OS there. – iridescent 23:22, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

• May 4, 2008, Dmcdevit got IPs for Iridescent, strange behavior
• August 24, 2008, Thatcher got IPs for Iridescent, suspect one of the usual vandals, verify and check for proxies

English Wikipedia only.

Off-hand, I'd suspect that the second check was by accident. But you never know.... You'd think the interface would highlight admin names (and the names of a few others) in bright red or something. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:39, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't. To be honest, the whole interface and way it works suggests "hack cobbled together in 45 minutes" to me. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 23:54, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

MZMcBride, where did you get this information? AD 23:57, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Looking at my contributions for those dates to see if I was doing anything unusual, I see this. Anyone who says I don't AGF is getting pointed straight at that. – iridescent 00:29, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Miss Moppet

After The Story of Miss Moppet was promoted at FAC, it was discovered that the primary contributor had closely paraphrased or copied many sentences in many articles, and that in some cases facts presented were not backed up by the references cited. The user was indefinitely blocked as a sockpuppet of a banned user - for more details, please see Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/ItsLassieTime.

Truthkeeper88, with help from Ruhrfisch, has since made sure that the language used in Miss Moppet does not closely paraphrase or copy that in the original sources, and checked almost all of the sources used to make sure the facts cited are backed up by the sources. We are now asking all editors who contributed to the FAC to please review the article and comment at Talk:The Story of Miss Moppet#Post-FAC cleanup review comments on any concerns or issues they have with the current cleaned-up version of the article. Thanks in advance for any help, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

No promises; likely to be fairly busy this week. Will try to take a look. – iridescent 22:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

José Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco is now a FAC

Hi, I am the same editor who wrote Pedro II of Brazil and I've nominated another article, José Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco, as a FAC. It is about a 19th century Brazilian statesman and is closely related to Pedro II's life. If you enjoyed the Emperor's article I believe you might enjoy this one. Thus, I'd like to see your opinion on whether you would support or oppose its nomination. The link: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/José Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco/archive1 --Lecen (talk) 12:38, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Per Miss Moppet above, I'll try to have a look but I won't make any promises at all. The next couple of weeks are likely to be extremely busy. – iridescent 16:56, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

If you don't have the time, don't bother. Thank you very much for answering back. Regards, --Lecen (talk) 19:12, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Albert Stanley, 1st Baron Ashfield at FAC again

I'm also begging your attention at FAC. I have renominated Albert Stanley again. Karanacs acknowledged that the last closure was probably premature, so hopefully it will attract sufficient attention this time around.

As you supported it last time, might I ask you to repeat your support this time around. --DavidCane (talk) 00:48, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

That was quick! Thanks. --DavidCane (talk) 00:53, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Already did… You might want to ask some of the people who are familiar with English topics at FAC level but don't usually pay any attention to the train articles (Malleus and Parrot of Doom spring to mind) to have a look as well, to see if there's anything over-technical or not obvious to people not already familiar with UERL. – iridescent 00:54, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Catching up on multiple

Take a few days off and the WikiWorld Keeps Turning, but catching up is hard !! Rolling everything into one:

Sandy's argument here is (or appears to me to be) that you ignore prose faults in articles by your friends, which you'd oppose for in articles by other people, and I was pointing out that I don't think that's the case.

Yes, that was my argument, and I do think that was the case (I've been reading Tony's FAC commentary for four years, and that comment was atypical, and led to that most ill-prepared FAC being carried until others rewrote and fixed the article), and it followed right on ResMar and Tony1 having a disagreement with me over the direction The Signpost has been taking lately. It would be a shame for Tony1's prose analyses at FAC to be compromised by a Signpost COI.

The Signpost in general is heading in the wrong direction in mutiple areas: feeding the reward culture, feeding the Essjay phenom, biased reporting on ArbCom, poor writing and fact checking, others I can't remember.

On the current crop of arb candidates:

Judging from the current candidate list, we're about to elect-by-default an Arbcom which will make the 2007 committee pale into insignificance ...

and

... we're currently in the very odd situation in which it's easier to pass an Arbcom election—and get every user right—than to pass RFA. (If Malleus, Wehwalt, Sandy or myself stood at RFA at present we'd be crucified; all four of us would probably scrape through an Arbcom election,

versus Tony's

Therefore, the notion that more opposed than supported a candidate should not be interpreted as an absence of confidence.

Most alarming, and a lot of this predicament is because of the short-sightedness of last year's RFC. Yes, because of the changes forced upon ArbCom by last year's RFC, we are now in a most disturbing position of possibly have an ArbCom made up of candidates who wouldn't pass RFA, and to whom at least half of us probably wouldn't entrust the kinds of sensitive, confidential info the arbs must deal with. Last year's RFC removed discretion from Jimbo to handle unforeseen circumstances such as this year's particularly bad crop. I do hope there will be a move to restore discretion to Jimbo to at minimum reduce the size of the Committee to around 12 and avoid appointing anyone who gets less than 60% approval just to fill up the Committee to 18.

On the dearth of admins like the old-style JzG; we're passing so many admins who only know vandal-whacking by tools that we can't expect them to know how to actually handle, ummmm ... things like content. They only know how to vandal whack and police civility because they've never engaged content.

And then there's the whole strange discussion above from Wehwalt, where he continues his trend of referring to Natalee Holloway as a dead horse, and worrying about the amazon.com reviews [written] under my real name. It escapes me why he's concerned about amazon.com reviews written under his real name (which was revealed on WikiReview and is easily obtained by googling his wiki name) that reveal his POV on Natalee Holloway, when a simple google search on Wehwalt Holloway reveals far worse things that he's written, that reveal his long-standing POV on those articles and far more disgusting commentary than comparing Holloway to a dead horse, like stating that her mother never left the "world's oldest profession" or wishing she would follow her daughter into the sea.

Wehwalt, you have such an entrenched pro-Aruba, anti-Twitty POV (that I have always pointed out is present on that article) and you've been active on message boards and amazon.com advocating that POV for so long that you shouldn't even be touching the topic, but troubling things about your character are revealed in some of the things you write, not only here on Wiki, but also off-Wiki. I hope your other articles don't contain the sort of POV that Holloway does-- I dare say most other editors might not see that POV if they haven't spent as much time in Aruba as I have. I can't understand why you were so proud to feature a Twitty-bashing article on Wiki's mainpage on her dead daughter's birthday; again, it seems to me you must not have children of your own, because such insensitivity astounds. Don't you think someone else should be adminning that article? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:41, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

• Regarding Tony, I honestly don't see a problem. Everyone has a duff FAC review in their history at some point; I enthusiastically supported Miss Moppet, and these characters—none of whom are pushovers—all need to do a bit of looking-down-at-their-shoes.
• The RFC is only binding in Wikipedia theory. There's no question that the WMF trustees have ultimate authority both in law and in practice; if Jimbo and co genuinely believe that the new Arbcom are seriously problematic, they not only have the right but have the legal obligation under company and charity law to step in.
• Regarding Natalee Holloway, quite honestly I don't know or care who's right. I'd never heard of her until this thread; since I speak neither Dutch nor Spanish, there's no reasonable way I'll have an opinion on it. I agree that the "dead horse" comment looked horribly insensitive, but I'm willing to chalk that up to an engage-mouth-before-putting-brain-in-gear attempt at a lame joke. – iridescent 19:42, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

• The insensitivity continues, and considering his POV, I don't think Wehwalt should be adminning that article; he's written far worse things than the "dead horse" commentary, and he was all puffed up to get an anti-Twitty article on Wiki's mainpage on her dead daughter's birthday. It was my most embarassing day as a Wikipedian, and Wehwalt brags about it off-Wiki. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:44, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Sandy is free to continue her rants. I will not revive the argument, nor will I reply to her attempt to do so. If my or her conduct becomes an issue anyplace, in that case I will reply as I see fit. End of story.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:53, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Someone will have to explain to me what makes this comment particularly insensitive. If the recently found bone had proven to be hers, that discovery would be enough to treat her as dead (we currently still treat her as a living person, and apply WP:BLP standards), but would not conclusively point to "murdered" (as opposed to accidental death or dead by manslaughter). SandyGeorgia's portrayal of a fairly NPOV article as "pro-Aruban" has always bothered me. The way that I decide it must be fairly neutral is that Arubans think it's too harsh on Aruba, Americans think it's too easy on Aruba, JvdS fans think it's too rough on him, and others think it leaves his guilt in too much doubt. Since it pisses everyone off, it must be fairly neutral. It's quite possible to believe that Beth Holloway capitalized on her daughter's disappearance for personal profit and still write a reasonably neutral article.—Kww(talk) 01:41, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The rule of thumb is: what you believe is not important, it is what you write in the article. Appreciate your support, Kww. --Wehwalt (talk) 02:06, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

British Welfare State

In an effort to put some historical context into the workhouse article, a long, long-term project, I've been reading an excellent book by Derek Fraser, The Evolution of the British Welfare State. Unfortunately I've got to return it to the library imminently, as there's a queue of reservation requests for it, but it reminded me of just how poor wikipedia's coverage is of what must be some of the most socially significant legislation ever passed. Malleus Fatuorum 21:59, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

You mean like this? I've been doing a lot of digging recently on the early Industrial Revolution and am finding the same thing; the number of redlinks (let alone stubs) on key figures and world-importance buildings is remarkable. – iridescent 22:31, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

That's exactly what I'm thinking of. That article is a disgrace. Malleus Fatuorum 22:39, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

The redlinks of Childwall Hall and Childwall Abbey are my current bugbears. It's not as if the Manchester–Merseyside conurbation has so many pre-industrial historic country houses they can afford to pick-and-choose which get included. – iridescent 22:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

The Manchester project is but a fluttering flame, all energy spent. Malleus Fatuorum 22:55, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, your members do insist on getting themselves blocked with startling regularity. The Manchester project is about to get larger by one extremely large article, if that's any consolation. – iridescent 14:52, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

There is that, but it's just a coincidence I'm sure. Anyway, what's the large article? Malleus Fatuorum 14:59, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The behemoth currently taking shape here. – iridescent 15:05, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

That's looking very nice indeed. So many firsts in there. Malleus Fatuorum 15:35, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Just checking the official version

Re your comment here, in the light of the current plagiarism/copyright witch hunt, is it not the case that copy-pasting into mainspace would always be deprecated because it could hide the derivative nature of an apparently original piece of work? Malleus Fatuorum 22:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I believe no, provided the only person to work on the sandbox version of the article is yourself. The issue with cut-and-paste moves isn't plagiarism from external sources, but attribution (that by cut-and-paste moving, you're claiming credit as far as the GFDL is concerned for the edits of everyone who ever worked on the article). Certainly I've always worked in userspace and pasted chunks into the mainspace as they're finished, and I know Giano and Moni both work the same way; since all three of us have plenty of people watching for us to trip up, I can't believe nobody would have complained if there was anything to complain about. – iridescent 23:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that those are two different issues though (claiming attribution and derivative work), but as I hardly ever work in sandboxes it's not something that affects me anyway. I was just curious. 23:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I find it a lot easier. That way, as well as not worrying about edit conflicts, one can throw in uncited facts that you know are true and will look up later, assorted images you think might be useful but haven't decided which to use, notes to yourself, blocks of {{lorem ipsum}} text, and so on, without having to worry about it. The history is preserved somewhere wherever you do it, so it's not like it's 'hiding' anything. Plus, it stops the history being overwhelmed with a zillion minor edits as you correct all your spelling mistakes and shuffle blocks of text about. – iridescent 00:45, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I've done both (moves and copy-paste) for draft articles in user space. I think the problem with moving is that unless someone examines the history carefully, it gives the false impression that the article existed in mainspace, being read by the world-at-large, and was written there as well (also, it gives the impression that you were editing in mainspace on such-and-such a date, when in fact you were editing in userspace). If you look at some of the atrocious formatting and spellings and content of some early drafts while in userspace, you can understand why some would not want those edits moved into mainspace. On the other hand, you might invite others to look at the article, and then they might edit it, and then you are stuck, and have to move it. Carcharoth (talk) 02:17, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I can't see the consistency here. On the one hand if there was ever a plagiarism/copyright violation in an article's history then that article is considered to be a derivative work, and it has to be purged back to the version before the violation, no matter what it looks like now. Whereas if the plagiarism/copyright violation takes place in userspace it's OK. Doesn't make any sense to me. Malleus Fatuorum 03:43, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was talking in general terms for any userspace draft. I agree that having an editing history helps show how an article has been constructed, but valid and non-valid edits can be made in large dumps. It just makes it harder to work out what has come from where if dumped all at once. Consider articles written off-wiki and then added in one edit. Same problem, so the problem is independent of the practice of userspace drafts. Carcharoth (talk) 04:53, 28 November 2010 (UTC) For the record, I think the practice of purging revisions following a copyvio is overdone when lots of intervening edits are made to other parts of the article - losing the attribution to the subsequent alterations to the non-copyvio bits seems to throw the baby out with the bathwater (and yes, I know the whole article is considered one work, but that's not the reality of how articles are read or edited).

A bit of admin help...

Here one then I remove and now its back. I don't wanna get nasty or get my butt blocked, but really... Ealdgyth - Talk 22:20, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Although it's bending policy, since the editor in question is adding defamatory content about a living person I've put a 24 hour semiprotection on it. Hopefully that will resolve the issue. It's probably better if you (or Dana or Montanabw) do the talking to the editor, rather than me, as what I know about Quarter Horses could fit on a postage stamp so I won't necessarily know what's legitimate and what isn't. – iridescent 23:14, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

It may be legit (actually probably is), but the problem is it's totally unpublished and thus it's hearsay. Someone on vandal/recent changes patrol came through and plopped something on the talk page that will hopefully point them towards the policies on sourcing and stuff. It's not that the horse info is wrong ... it's that it's unpublished and defamatory, which makes it impossible to prove. It fails WP:V, but on these little watched pages it's really hard to avoid looking like I'm claiming ownership rather than just protecting the pillars. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Brad and Wehwalt are both (presumably) still watching this talkpage. Given that it's a potential legal issue, one of them is probably better placed to advise what's appropriate. – iridescent 23:24, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I think this addition can be treated as a straightforward violation of the BLP policy (it contains unsourced negative information about a living person), and impermissible for that reason, without getting into any legal issues. Removal of clear BLP violations is, as you know, not subject to 3RR, nor to censure from any reasonable administrator. I've also left a note for the IP. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:59, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I find legal issues, in general, are not a good first resort, therefore I agree with Brad. Use Wikipolicies.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:09, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Medieval bishops don't generally run into BLP issues, so while I'm all for keeping unsourced BLPs out of the 'pedia ... it's not a problem area I'm familiar with. Thanks for the note, Brad, my head is pounding with a headache tonight and I find Im not in a diplomatic mood. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:16, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Neither am I, actually, and a read of this page would make it clear why, especially since diplomacy seems to result in further abuse. Shall we burn down the wiki? I have an aspirin here somewhere.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:21, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Blocks

Given some of your answers to Arbcom questions on blocks of regular contributors, perhaps you'll be interested to see how a block was administered to me earlier this evening, here. Reason: I removed a word from an AN/I thread title after it had been archived. No warning from the blocking admin prior to the block, and the admin invokes an essay as part of the reason for the block. I'm not asking for anything from you (for one thing, I'm obviously unblocked now), and I accept that there's a possibility you will conclude the block was justified despite your Arbcom answers (though I hope not) -- again, just as a matter of possible interest. regards, Nomoskedasticity (talk) 23:33, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I've been watching that unfold on Scott's talkpage all night. Although I certainly wouldn't have blocked for it, since you were posting to ANI (which is horribly clogged at the best of times) with no apparent effort to talk to the admin in question first, and reverted closure when the ANI thread was (rightly) archived, I can understand why they did. Both you and Scott seem to have a battleground mentality going on here. I'm not at all sure why you've come to my talkpage about this, though; this is a dispute in which I have no involvement at all. (19th century social engineering schemes doesn't tend to have many BLP issues.) – iridescent 00:27, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Main page appearance

Hello! This is a note to let the main editors of this article know that it will be appearing as the main page featured article on November 30, 2010. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 30, 2010. If you think that it is necessary to change the main date, you can request it with the featured article director, Raul654 (talk · contribs). If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :D Thanks! Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 05:07, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The Brill Tramway was a six-mile (10 km) rail line in rural Buckinghamshire, England. It was privately built in 1871 by the 3rd Duke of Buckingham as a horse tram line to help transport goods between his lands around Wotton House and the national rail network. Lobbying from the nearby town of Brill led to its extension to Brill railway station and conversion to passenger use in early 1872. Although locomotives were bought, the line had been designed for horses and trains travelled at average speed of only 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h). In the 1880s, the Duke of Buckingham planned to upgrade the route to main line standards and extend the line to Oxford, and in anticipation, the line was named the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad. The extension to Oxford was never built. Instead, the Brill Tramway became part of London's Metropolitan Railway. In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway became the Metropolitan Line of London Transport, and thus the Brill Tramway became part of the London Underground, despite being 40 miles (65 km) from London and not underground. In 1935 the London Transport management closed the Brill Tramway and the infrastructure was dismantled and sold. Little trace remains other than the former junction station at Quainton Road, now the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. (more...)

Arb

I voted for you, silly goose. GoodDay (talk) 21:43, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

You done gone crazy. I voted for you and 2 others. Best of luck, you are quite possibly the only sane person that I've had any level of communication with on wiki. Being the lone voice of sanity in any groupthink environment may not end well, be sure to stiffen your drink ;) Keeper | 76 22:22, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I am soooooo offended. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Of course, what I meant to say is "the only sane person running for arb", therefore making oneself crazy. Catch-22 is a good read, I recommend it. :-) Keeper | 76 03:11, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

As you can probably guess, I opposed you, but I doubt it'll be me tipping the balance. ╟─TreasuryTag►Woolsack─╢ 22:28, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll call your oppose and raise you a support. I think that it's quite likely Iridescent will be one of the best arbitrators wikipedia ever had. Malleus Fatuorum 22:58, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Don't get your hopes up too high. Even if I get through (I'll get a lot of supports, but I think I'll have the third-highest number of opposes, and Arbcom elections work in terms of percentages), neither me nor Giano are likely to be the man on a white horse some people seem to be treating us as. I have a limited amount of time and am not intending to spend an unhealthy proportion of it reading interminable arguments, or trying to change the unchangeable single-handed; I imagine I'll be far more Martin Bell than Tommy Sheridan. – iridescent 17:34, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I was that man on the white horse, once upon a time.... The process of evolving from freshfaced newcomer to being perceived as the establishment feels, frankly, strange. Now off to read those two articles. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The journey from outsider to insider is a lot shorter than most people think. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. I know all the arguments against it, but I still think Arbcom should either have one-year terms, or a single two-year term after which the candidate is banned from standing, for precisely that reason. – iridescent 17:44, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I have no great hopes of anything here at wikipedia. In fact I think there's a distinct possibility that Jimbo would refuse to ratify you anyway, and especially Giano, even if you both got landslides.

He'll ratify me, I imagine; I've never been one of the Toxic Personalities, as far as I know. Regarding Giano, I doubt Jimmy Wales would refuse to ratify him (after the 2007 fiasco, where Giano and Raul 'lost' despite having the second- and third-highest support levels of all the candidates, all played out against the backdrop of one of the more embarrassing incidents in Wikipedia's history, I can't imagine he wants to go through that again). Giano, I imagine, would be a lot more diligent and fair than his opposers suspect. – iridescent 18:11, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Geeeez, Raul lost with 65% support, and we now have arbs appointed with 59% support-- something is really amiss in this new WP:CREEPy arb election structure. I, too, have no doubt that Giano would arbitrate fairly; it's a matter of clue, pride and principle, and he has those. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I voted for you too. I expect to be repaid with gold taken straight from Fort Knox. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:00, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

License tagging for File:Norwich Market proposed 'Pod' redesign.jpg

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What was incomplete about that? If anything that FUR went well above-and-beyond in covering the rationale. – iridescent 16:24, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Apparently you need another template. Ucucha 16:29, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

…and they say we have too many arbitrary rules… – iridescent 16:30, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

December Metro

. Simply south (talk) 08:21, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Query

They say every man has his price. If I vote for you, will you buy me a beer? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:06, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Whatever I reply here, someone will no doubt complain that it's inappropriate. In the interests of preventing this talkpage from ballooning to the 120kb it reached a couple of weeks ago, diplomatically abstain. – iridescent 21:02, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Boris: In the interests of circumventing preventing any appearance of impropriety: if you vote for Iridescent, *I'll* buy you the beer. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:59, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Deal. Wrap bottle of Pilsner Urquell in a towel to prevent breakage and place in sturdy box. Send it to the usual place. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:48, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Americans are famous for voting for the candidate they'd most like to have a beer with. Results have been mixed, at best. I would happily help distribute some walking around money, in the form of beer, to potential voters, though. MastCell ^Talk 23:33, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

This is probably a good time to mention my connection to Nero Wolfe. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:44, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Rfc: Nyttend

A proposed closing statement has been posted here. Please could you confirm whether you support or oppose this summary. Thanks. Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:08, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Put me down as "neutral". I'm intentionally not supporting/opposing anything anywhere until voting closes, to avoid any appearance of trying to sway the voting. (You don't have the same problem, but you don't have a significant number of Wikipedia's various nutcases watching for you to trip up; I note that other than his duties at Arb cases, NYB, Giano etc aren't touching any form of RFanything either.) – iridescent 21:39, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

*Except for Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Albert Stanley, 1st Baron Ashfield/archive3‎, but that was a restart of one in which I'd already commented.) – iridescent 21:39, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

No problems. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:26, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway

No surprises here. Review completed and GAN easily passed. I've left a couple more comments, but nothing that gets in the way of passing this. --DavidCane (talk) 01:31, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Replied to all of them there. – iridescent 15:18, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Bagnall at Quainton (cropped).jpg

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That was removed as someone (can't remember who) debated the FUR; deleted. – iridescent 15:19, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

A Mediæval deletion discussion

• The Durham Proverbs (AfD discussion)

If you or your lurkers are bored of fictional history, you might care to try an actual historical subject instead. Uncle G (talk) 13:09, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

• Go with whatever Ealdgyth says. On this particular topic I'd trust her judgement as to what's savable and what isn't. – iridescent 15:25, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I already knew that it was rescuable right from the start, thanks. ☺ In the meantime, you and your lurkers might like to assist with a biography of a dead headmaster. You might like to help work out what we're going to do at Vulgaria. (I'm thinking a headnote, myself, at this point.) Uncle G (talk) 22:33, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
    • And so we learn of the Grammarians' War, another subject that we didn't know that we didn't have. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 06:11, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

A Tolkien deletion discussion

• Years of the Lamps (AfD discussion)

I don't have a "go to" person for Tolkien AFD discussions, they being quite rare. So I picked you and your lurkers, who may be interested. Uncle G (talk) 10:34, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Per my reply to Elen above, I'm intentionally not participating in any process with a support/oppose element, to avoid accusations of back-scratching. Will have a look in a couple of days once the elections finish. – iridescent 15:24, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

You might want to consult with Carcharoth, at least if usernames are anything to go by. Newyorkbrad (talk) 12:22, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

My user name is based on the Malleus Maleficarum, but I wouldn't be a good person to ask about European witchcraft ... oh, wait, I see what you mean. Malleus Fatuorum 13:01, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I hope that the bystanders are enjoying the assertions that Karen Wynn Fonstad is not a good source and that people like Tony Tyler are just "one of the publisher's business partners". Uncle G (talk) 17:45, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Main page appearance

Hello! This is a note to let the main editors of this article know that it will be appearing as the main page featured article on December 7, 2010. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 7, 2010. If you think it is necessary to change the main date, you can request it with the featured article director, Raul654 (talk · contribs). If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions of the suggested formatting. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :D Thanks! Tbh®tch^{Talk ©} Happy Holidays 06:04, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Daniel Lambert (1770–1809) was a gaol keeper and animal breeder from Leicester, England, famous for his unusually large size. He was a keen sportsman and extremely strong, on one occasion fighting a bear in the streets of Leicester. He was an expert in sporting animals, widely respected for his expertise on dogs, horses and fighting cocks. In 1805 the gaol of which Lambert was keeper closed. By this time he weighed 50 stone (700 lb; 320 kg), and had become the heaviest authenticated person in recorded history. Unemployable and sensitive about his bulk, Lambert became a recluse. In 1806 poverty forced Lambert to put himself on exhibition to raise money. In April 1806 he took up residence in London, charging spectators to enter his apartments to meet him. Visitors were impressed by his intelligence and personality, and visiting him became highly fashionable. After some months on public display Lambert grew tired of exhibiting himself, and in September 1806 he returned wealthy to Leicester, where he bred sporting dogs and regularly attended sporting events. Between 1806 and 1809 he made a further series of short fundraising tours. In June 1809 he died suddenly in Stamford. At the time of his death he weighed 52 stone 11 lb (739 lb; 335 kg). It took 20 men almost half an hour to drag his casket into the trench, in a newly opened burial ground to the rear of St Martin's Church. While others have since overtaken Daniel Lambert's record as the heaviest person in history, he remains a popular character in Leicester. (more...)

Deep joy. Can I ask anyone reading to watchlist it—this is going to be a magnet for vandals, well-intentioned cluelessness, and people trying to change it from British to American English. – iridescent 15:22, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

You seem to have had quite a few TFAs this year, or is that just my imagination? Malleus Fatuorum 16:57, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't think so; the only ones I can think of in the last year were Alice Ayres, Brill Tramway (which I requested, for the 75th anniversary) and Halkett boat. Tarrare and Charles Domery got plastered across Reddit and Stumbleupon and got as many hits as a TFA, but have never actually been TFA here. – iridescent 17:03, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Just the three then, nothing to shout about really I suppose. :-) Thinking back, PoD and I had a few this year as well, but the furore over wife selling was priceless, even though Awadewit hasn't spoken to me since. :lol: Malleus Fatuorum 13:07, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Congrats on two TFAs in eight days --Redrose64 (talk) 19:39, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks—although it's an honor I'd happily forego. There aren't many less pleasant experiences on Wikipedia than a high-traffic TFA. – iridescent 2 20:26, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Daniel Lambert

You wrote this article? Wow I'm impressed! Now that was one large mother crunker!!♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:55, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Already up to 180 pointless edits, and we haven't yet hit the peak period. This has a good chance of overtaking the 245 edits to Wife selling, which I believe is the record for the most-disrupted TFA. (It'll be a short term record if it does, as John Lennon tomorrow will almost certainly smash the record.) I've now given up even trying to maintain it; I'll wait until it's off the main page and the kids have had their fun, and then clear out whatever nonsense has crept in. – iridescent 2 17:56, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

One day I'll understand why folks get so excited about having an article they've edited on the main page as featured article... for me it's just a pain in the rear. DYK ain't too bad, it's not the concentrated vandalism magnet that the TFA is.. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:10, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

^ What she said. If we're going to have all this Flagged Revisions business, I can't see why they can't put it on TFA as a matter of course. – iridescent 2 18:12, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

^ What IP said. Seems like these kind of situations are absolutely perfect candidates for flagged revs. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Pretty pointless really in keeping the article open. I think all featured articles on the main page should be locked from editing.. It wastes so much unnecessary time reverting kids.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:17, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Well that is one significant advantage of flagged revs just in case a wandering IP spots a complete howler at TFA. At least someone will review it rather than just ignore it. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:18, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean flagged revs as originally conceived, or pending changes as it morphed into? I don't have any reviewer rights, or any others for that matter, so if an article of mine was on the main page I'd simply have to abandon it to its fate. Malleus Fatuorum 01:19, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

FR as originally conceived, or Pending Changes if the devs could actually get it to work. The existing Pending Changes software couldn't have kept up with this one; the reason the trial was abandoned was that it couldn't cope with the Barack Obama and Jesus–type of articles for which it was intended. (The unreviewed changes would stack up, and people would end up approving the wrong things.) In an ideal world, I'd full-protect TFA, set up an anyone-can-edit duplicate copy, and then do a history-merge of the two pages the next day, importing only those edits which were legitimate. – iridescent 11:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Ealdgyth, I think it's an effect of saturation. I felt quite proud the first time I had a TFA (marsh rice rat), but cared a lot less the second time (Noronha skink). The newness factor goes away; the people who know better and the vandals stay. Ucucha 18:35, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Likewise. I seriously think someone ought to suggest a "significant contributors request that this not be TFA" marker. We have (literally) hundreds of FAs whose authors either want them on the main page or are indifferent. All Raul scheduling vandal-magnets like this achieves is wasting a lot of time for a lot of people who end up having to clean up the mess. – iridescent 2 20:29, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a feeling that soon wears off, as the wife selling nightmare proved to me. I'd be quite happy for any FA I'd helped to write to be on the main page, but not as the vandal magnets so many of them are. IIRC Moors murders was put on the main page semi-protected for the whole day, and I think that's got to be the way to go. Malleus Fatuorum 01:16, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely; as long as this "we don't protect articles on the main page" mentality persists, it just wastes a lot of time for a lot of people. I'll certainly not nominate anything remotely controversial at FAC again after this fiasco, and I'd encourage everyone else to do likewise until we have a workable policy for article protection. "Anyone can edit" made sense back when TFAs only got a few thousand views, but when they're getting 200,000+ hits in a day all it means is that a not-insignificant number of those readers are seeing a vandalised version of the page, and a lot of people are tied up reverting crap, trying to keep it stable, and arguing with "I don't care what the sources say, I don't believe it" cranks. – iridescent 11:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

PS. Is it just coincidence that Daniel is TFA as The Fat Man Who Never Came Back gets blocked? There has to be a deeper meaning there. – iridescent 11:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

With the number of active editors in a long-term gradual decline (3,644 with more than 100 edits per month as of last September) any method like pending changes that creates additional reviewing work is pretty much doomed I suspect. Semi-protecting all TFAs would at least be a step in the right direction. Malleus Fatuorum 13:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I know—IIRC I'm the one who first said that about PC, and it's why I don't support it being rolled out to all articles/all biographies/all high traffic articles. The issue wouldn't arise in these limited circumstances, though; anything that makes it as far as TFA can be reasonably assumed to have someone watching it (even if the author's left someone will be watching, even if it's just Raul and Sandy) who can then accept/reject the proposed changes. – iridescent 18:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Reverts to Daniel Lambert

Hi - Since you reverted several of my "fixes", here is a more detailed explanation of why those fixes were made, and why I would like you to reconsider your changes:

1. Perhaps it should be Portrait of Daniel Lambert, or at least, Daniel Lambert that should be italicized, as it is the title of the work. Following: MOS:TITLE.
2. Ref name "icon" and the 2nd ref notation should not be removed, as that same quote is present twice in the article. If anything, the 1st appearance in the article of the quote should be the one referenced, not the last one. Following: WP:FOOTNOTE.
3. Linking "fighting cocks" and "burial ground" twice- the links were removed because there are links for those words already present in article. Following: WP:OVERLINK.
4. Removed parameter "right" from images, because this is a deprecated parameter. The default placement for a "thumb" nail is on the right. Following: WP:Thumb.
5. "Inn" vs. "inn". This might be a difference between Br./Am. English. Usually "Inn" is capped in Am. English.

As you can see, some thought was put into making these revisions. I would appreciate your response, thanks. --Funandtrvl (talk) 19:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

1. It's a picture of Daniel Lambert. Every picture of a person is a portrait; it doesn't need to be labelled as such;
2. We don't add citations to the lead unless the fact doesn't appear in the body text, which this one does;
3. We link the first occurrence in the lead, and the first occurrence in the body text; you left the link in the lead, but de-linked the first occurrence in the body text;
4. The 'right' parameter is most certainly not deprecated. It's not necessary, as images default to the right on en-wiki, but Wikipedia articles are written in the expectation that they'll also be picked up by other sites, not all of which use our defaults;
5. Firstly, this is a British article in British English; secondly, I don't believe for one moment that "inn" is capitalised in any variant, unless it forms part of a proper name. – iridescent 19:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Response

1. Then, I would suggest adding (1770–1809) after the name, as it is shown on the Oxford DNB image details: see Oxford DNB site.
2. Okay, I see that in WP:LEADCITE; although, "The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus." would suggest that it can be left up to discussion.
3. Okay, it says: "It may be desirable to have a smaller proportion of links in the lead section than in the main text;...", so I see your point.
4. What I meant is that the "use" of the "right" parameter is deprecated. According to Meta-Wiki, the coding for a "thumb" nail is the same across all Wikimedia sites, see: m:Help:Images and other uploaded files#Options. Thus, removing the "right" parameter would be fine, and it would use less kB.
5. Because I had read About Stamford, which uses the upper case "Inn", I assumed it was a proper name. Is there a reference that shows that "Inn" was not part of the company's name?

Regards, --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

No, pictures of people shouldn't include their birth and death dates, unless there's some particular reason to include them. The lead gives the dates already.

Removing the 'right' parameter is not "fine"; again, this parameter is not deprecated, and I don't know where you've got the idea that it is. On en-wiki, thumbnails indeed default to 'right' at the moment, but that doesn't necessarily mean that will be the case on all our mirrors (few of which use MediaWiki, so the MW defaults are irrelevant). If image placement and alignment is important—and once you get to the FA level, it almost always is—it should be specified.

"Pub" and "inn" are not part of the proper names of pubs. It was an inn, and it was called the "Waggon and Horses". Since you link to the ODNB entry above, I presume you've read the line "He died at the Waggon and Horses inn, 47 High Street, Stamford". – iridescent 21:34, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Some inns have the word as part of their name: The George Inn at Barford St. Michael for example, and these have "Inn" capitalised as part of a proper noun; and some do not, so for those, "inn" is lowercase, being a common noun. In the absence of a contemporary depiction of the signage of the hostelry concerned, go with the capitalisation given by the source. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Jeez, when do the egg-sucking classes begin? Malleus Fatuorum 21:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It never ceases to amaze me that no matter what the TFA happens to be, there's invariably someone who's certain that they've spotted a problem which every single reviewer at FAC managed to miss, and that's so serious it needs fixing immediately without any discussion. No matter what the article, it always happens. Even the mighty Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Baxter Healthcare managed to get them. – iridescent 22:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Just another example of the purple bike shed I think. Malleus Fatuorum 22:35, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

As has already been pointed out, 'inn' can sometimes be part of the accepted proper name for a pub. Another example that immediately comes to mind, because I visited it last month, is the Cat and Fiddle Inn in Cheshire.

It is also not quite true to say that all pictures of people are 'portraits'. If someone sits for an artist or photographer, the resulting posed picture is referred to as a portrait. If a paparazzi photographer grabs a shot of someone in the street, it would not be correct to call the image a 'portrait'. By the definition I have given this picture of Lambert is a portrait. Having said that, I don't think it is necessary to state that in the caption here, mainly because it is obvious what kind of picture it is. Dubmill (talk) 22:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I would say that Cat and Fiddle Inn is misnamed; it should be Cat and Fiddle inn. If you examine the two images in that article, neither show the word "Inn". --Redrose64 (talk) 22:08, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, I should have said any posed picture with a person as the primary subject. It still doesn't change the basic point, which is that labelling portraits as "Portrait" in the caption is a daft suggestion, since no reader would ever assume they were anything else. – iridescent 22:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

That's an interesting point about the Cat and Fiddle. The proprietors definitely refer to it as the 'Cat and Fiddle Inn' on their website. There seem to be a lot of other references to it like that elsewhere. Arguably the 'Cat and Fiddle Inn' is its widely accepted current full name (historically possibly not). And just because it says only 'The Cat and Fiddle' on the sign outside doesn't contradict that. It could be interpreted as being just another way of referring to it. It's a bit like referring to the Savoy Hotel as 'The Savoy'. In that case they seem both to be accepted names for the same thing. Dubmill (talk) 22:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Proprietors of establishments like pubs and grocery stores don't always have a flawless grasp of the English language like wot you and I do. Malleus Fatuorum 22:28, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Surely you mean pub's and grocers store's? – iridescent 22:34, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

WRT to the "portrait" thing - I think something as obvious as it being a portrait isn't necessary to the article. Might as well say "Picture of Daniel Lambert". Or, "Photograph of x" etc. Unless it's a particularly unusual, different or special image I don't think adding "portrait" or whatever is useful. AD 22:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

However, I don't agree with the suggestion that 'inn' can never be part of the name. For example, there's a 'Church Inn' near me (yes, with the capital I) and it's always referred to as that. Referring to it as "Church" wouldn't make any sense. AD 22:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

You might want to double-check what I actually wrote, before you start telling me how wrong I am. Particularly the part that says unless it forms part of a proper name. – iridescent 22:35, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

"You might want to read what I actually wrote". Are you normally this aggressive to someone misreading? I read your "proper name" as being the actual name, not a proper noun. AD 22:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Aggressive? lol. Parrot of Doom 23:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Someone turns up out of nowhere, tries to start an argument, and accuses me of being "aggressive" when I reply. Gotta love Wikipedia. – iridescent 23:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Whatever. You're proving my point - you believe there was an argument, when all I was doing was offering my opinion. The bold text and the needless patronising language was a completely over the top response, but not atypical from you in my experience. If you don't want people offering opinions that differ to yours posting here, all you have to do is say. Bye for now. AD 23:46, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

John Drakard's 1822 The History of Stamford has "Waggon and Horses inn" on page 564. Uncle G (talk) 00:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, I can see that I have started a malström. However, I would like to respond to a few points:

1. In regards to the "right" alignment default that is already within the "thumb" parameter, I'm not an expert at coding, so I don't know if using the "thumb" parameter without using the "right" parameter will affect any images on WP's mirror sites. However, since there are over 3,000 featured articles, and for example, looking at Bill Russell, and Mary II of England, both featured articles, I have found that they do not use the "right" parameter, but they do use the "thumb" parameter in the images within their articles. This would mean that either: a) the featured articles with images not using the "right" parameter, along with the "thumb" parameter are really screwed up in the way they display images on WP's mirror sites; or b) leaving out the "right" parameter, while using the "thumb" parameter does not affect the way images are displayed on WP's mirror sites.
2. In regards to your statement: "It never ceases to amaze me that no matter what the TFA happens to be, there's invariably someone who's certain that they've spotted a problem which every single reviewer at FAC managed to miss, and that's so serious it needs fixing immediately without any discussion." --I'd like to remind you that a good number of my revisions, which included adding commas where they should be, the dot (.) after the "Mr" in several locations, the redirect correction for 'Maria Theresa of Austria', and the addition of URLs for two of the sources, were improvements that were missed by previous editors. I already stated in the edit summary that they were 'minor', and usually those types of edits do not require any discussion.
3. A thank-you to Uncle G for finding out that "inn" is actually in lower case, and to RedRose for finding an "Inn" in England.
4. And yes, I agree that the picture is much better without the words "Portrait of". Maybe it is because the article does not have an infobox, that it looked like something was missing to me. I saw the discussion about why there should not be an infobox, but I don't agree, as I prefer them, and many stand-alone articles have them, including, for example, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, which is also a featured article.
5. Lastly, I would like to complement you and the other contributors to the article, because I noticed that the 'footnotes' were in perfect form. Having been a member of WP:CCLEAN for a while, it was great to see it done correctly!

Regards, --Funandtrvl (talk) 00:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that you're completely misunderstanding so many things that it's difficult to know where to start. I'll just point out that it is the common practice in the UK to omit the fullstop after abbreviations like "Mr". As for infoboxes, well, your personal preferences carry no more weight than anyone else's, and many other editors dislike them. Malleus Fatuorum 00:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Hadn't even noticed that you'd changed it from British to American punctuation; now undone that as well. Regarding infoboxes, have a read of User talk:Dwiakigle to see what happened last time someone thought "biographies need infoboxes". – iridescent 01:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Also a quick note that it's not required to fix links that are to redirect pages, in fact, linking policy discourages edits just to fix those sorts of links. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixing the link for the Empress actually reduced the kB, and you may want to have a look once again at the article, as you did miss a few of my American "Mr." corrections. I think I'll let you find them, as I'm obviously not British. --Funandtrvl (talk) 01:48, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The ones I've "missed" are in direct contemporary quotes, where we reproduce the formatting of the original; American English preserves the 18th century punctuation which is no longer part of Br Eng. – iridescent 01:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I read somewhere that the Appalacian hillfolk preserve pronunciations that folks who study such things think are the closest to Shakespearean English still being spoken. Americans, for some reason, preserve archaic systems, such as imperial units and weird pronuciations. (This doesn't count my horrid spelling, which is all my own.) Ealdgyth - Talk 01:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't surprise me at all; I suspect rural Quebec preserves a lot of 18th century French, and the more isolated parts of Argentina a lot of 18th century Spanish, as well. I've heard it claimed (don't know how true) that Northern Ireland preserves a lot of traditional pronunciations as well, because it was relatively isolated from the trends which affected England, Scotland and Dublin. – iridescent 02:00, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Quebec French retains much of 15th to 16th century's French, and not just in rural areas. Not just vocabulary and grammar, either: the 17th century vowel shift that occurred in much of France never took place here. I suspect this is not so much an "American" thing as it is a "Former colony" thing. — Coren ^(talk) 17:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure of it; the American colonies were isolated enough not to be directly affected by the spread of Parisian French in France, RP (and later Estuary English) in England and Lowland Scots in Scotland; those were an artefact of the railways and the radio. (I believe 'dinkum' was originally a British term as well, which completely vanished outside of Australia.) – iridescent 18:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

.......reminds me of the US preserving "gotten" Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The one that really grates on me is "oftentimes". I'm perfectly well aware that it was once a part of standard English, and is still a valid word in parts of the US—however, whenever I see it written down it always seems to be the mark of really bad writing (unless one is writing about 16th century England or deep-south dialects). – iridescent 02:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway

The DYK project (nominate) 00:02, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations

What? What do you mean you didn't know about the robes? I thought the only reason anyone ever ran for such a thankless job was so that they could get a nice set of plush golden robes. "In it for the community" you say? Bah! The bling is where it's at. Even the Supreme Court can't top this swag. You could pawn this for a house! Why the heck else did you think that the foundation needed 20 million dollars?

So you're really serious about the whole "helping the community" and "for the good of the project" business? Aww, shucks. Go ahead and keep the robe anyways then. Do us proud.

Congratulations on your victory, may your tenure be peaceful and have a net low adverse interaction on your sanity. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations and good luck! Ucucha 00:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

A few disappointing results there, although not Iridescent's, of course. Malleus Fatuorum 00:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Assuming they pick the top 11 in terms of percentage—which after the 2007 fix last-minute change can't be taken for granted—that actually restores my faith in the Wikipedia community quite a bit. I have to disagree about the disappointing results; if I'd been given the list of candidates and asked to hand-pick the 11 I thought would do the best job, only one didn't make it in (or if you want to look at it glass-half-empty, there's only one winner who I think should have lost), and all four of my personal "absolutely not" candidates failed to scrape in. (I will confess to being surprised how many neutrals there were for me; I was expecting it to be much more polarised in my case.) – iridescent 01:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The neutrals are a bit of a statistical artefact I think. I have one winner who was an "absolutely not" and one loser who was an "absolutely". so maybe it's not so bad. Malleus Fatuorum 01:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

"I think I'll have the third-highest number of opposes" indeed; perhaps you're not as hated as you imagined? Sincere congrats and best of luck on the committee, white horse or no. Skomorokh 02:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I am genuinely surprised by that. Given that the archives for this talkpage run to six megabytes (!) and a significant proportion of that consists of people complaining about how I'm EVIL and PART OF THE CABAL because I didn't agree with them even though they know THE TRUTH, I was expecting a lot more people with grudges to crawl out of the woodwork. – iridescent 03:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to the pit! — Coren ^(talk) 01:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, congratulations. I must say, I'm rather more surprised by the level of support I received than by yours, of course. Jclemens (talk) 01:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Congrats, nice to see some sanity round here :) Black Kite (t) (c) 01:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations! I look forward to working with you in the coming year. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 01:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to all of you… Don't expect too much; as I tried to be absolutely honest in saying throughout, I'm neither the time nor the inclination to be the Great Reformer. Hopefully I can at least give a nudge towards getting a workable ACPD in place, though. – iridescent 01:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Isn't there some kind of official annointing process yet required? Malleus Fatuorum 01:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but I'd be surprised if Jimbo doesn't go with the top 11; the only one there he dislikes (AFAIK) is me, and I think I've ranked too highly for him to veto me. – iridescent 01:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Honestly? I don't think "dislike" even enters into it. I doubt Jimmy specifically "likes" all members of the committee, and I know he very much disagrees with some. He's never exercised his veto to date, and I very much doubt he'd start now absent desperately catastrophic circumstances.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 01:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If Giano had made it through, I suspect Jimbo would have found a way… I actually have very little to do with the man, but since my last interaction with him involved him accusing me of "lacking respect for human dignity" I'm guessing I'm not on his Christmas card list. – iridescent 01:54, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Jimbo made it very clear that he wouldn't ratify Giano, although to be fair that was because Giano refused to identify to the foundation, not for reasons of personal animosity. Even though the identification process seems to be an elaborate farce. Malleus Fatuorum 02:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

12, probably, with Steve Smith resignation before the election started.
Congrats on your strong showing, Iridescent, and good luck. Amalthea 01:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, technically; but I don't believe there's any reason to expect any surprises at this point. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 01:46, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec/2) The oil is freely given, the rest is ritual.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 01:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Congrats, Iridescent. You know, I don't know much about you at all, but when I read voter guides of people I trusted, one thing that stood out to me was that they all not only endorsed you, but endorsed you heartily. So it was clear to me that the only option that made sense was to support. May you use your arb votes for good and for awesome. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 01:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Congrats Iridescent. Also, regarding ACPD: please, do it better next time? NW (Talk) 01:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I can give you my back-of-a-napkin scheme for ACPD 2 right now; Arbcom and Govcom of 12 members each, and BASC beefed-up into a general block-appeals panel of perhaps seven members. All three are directly elected, nobody is permitted to sit on more than one of the three at a time, and nobody—other than the WMF themselves in emergency situations—can overturn an unblock by the Block Panel. WP:AE may be necessary, but it desperately needs its wings clipped, and a separation between a user-conduct Arbcom and a policy-decision Govcom would at least start to break up the editor-admin-arb hierarchy. – iridescent 02:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Add to that "nobody can overturn a block held by the panel" and you've got (IMO) a good solution to a perennial problem. — Coren ^(talk) 02:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) So, um, where do we sign up to support you as the new God-King?

On a slightly more pedantic note, would blocks directly imposed by ArbCom as sanctions in a case be appealable to BASC? Conversely, could editors unblocked by BASC later be blocked as the result of an ArbCom case? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 02:13, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(re Coren) Yes, that too, although I'd want any system to default to "don't block"; as I've said elsewhere, a wrong unblock causes a few minutes of hassle followed by a prompt reblock, while a wrong block can make people resign in disgust. It would be a thankless job, but at least it would give a clear guide to what is and isn't acceptable. I don't think it's any great secret that a lot of the problems on Wikipedia are down to people having different standards of what's appropriate. If there were someone who had the authority to say "this is acceptable, this isn't", it would at least give an idea of how to act. (And no, I don't mean Jimmy's nobody ever be rude to anyone, ever scheme.)

(re Kyrill) Yes, blocks imposed by anyone for any reason would be appealable, although I imagine the likelihood of an Arbcom block being overturned would be negligible unless there were evidence of serious Arbcom misconduct. Think of it as a court of final appeal. A BASC action would only be able to be overturned if new evidence came to light, or if an unblocked user subsequently misbehaved (although I imagine in practice blocks would expire after the usual standard-offer time). The whole point is to weaken the judge-jury-executioner concentration of authority in Arbcom, without destroying our governance structure altogether or making it unmanageably complicated. – iridescent 02:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict):::::@Kirill, one would hope so I think to both...@iridescent, hahaha, I might be back to London some stage next year - could have quite an amusing arb (and/or functionary)-gathering :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Jimmy guns for an ideal, which is laudable if not practicable. My own standard is more along the lines of "if this would get you disciplined (or fired) in a typical office workplace, it doesn't have a place on Wikipedia either". — Coren ^(talk) 02:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but "typical office workplace" is a cultural construct that varies wildly depending on where you are. The kind of language that wouldn't raise an eyebrow in (say) a Manchester office-supply warehouse, would lead to instant dismissal in a California bank. – iridescent 02:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

You got that right. There's also the issue of speaking to colleagues or to customers. Only yesterday in Asda (Manchester) I heard a supervisor say to one one of the minions "for fuck's sake clean that up". Wouldn't have been acceptable to say to a customer of course, but food for thought. Malleus Fatuorum 02:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

There's a fairly decent difference between "two colleagues" and "supervisor & colleague" though. NW (Talk) 03:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

If you work for Asda (or are engaged by them as a temp) it's very easy to get fired: dissing them on the Internet is one way. Me? I was fired for being too careful... --Redrose64 (talk) 21:45, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

You've heard my personal guideline (stolen from Giano) often enough; always assume whoever you're talking to is 14 and speak to them the way you'd speak to someone of that age. It's a surprisingly effective system in the Wikipedia context. – iridescent 02:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I may be mis-remembering, but I've always thought Giano was talking about articles when he wrote that, not interaction between editors. For myself, I always feel more comfortable knowing at least a little about another editor: whether they're male or female, in school, that kind of thing. Nothing creepy, but allows you to tailor your language. In real life I speak differently to men, women, and children; I suspect that we all do. Malleus Fatuorum 03:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

He was; I customised it. I agree if you know the person—if you know someone's a middle-aged ex-soldier who currently works as a bulldozer contractor, you can assume they won't faint at a "fuck"—but "assume teenager" is a very good rule of thumb until you've established otherwise. As I said to you once in a totally different context (about treason trials, IIRC), if there are two ways to word something, one of which will potentially offend someone and one of which won't, there's no good reason not to go with the latter unless you're specifically trying to offend people. The reason you and Giano get in trouble is that you're both intelligent enough to know how to reword things, so when you snap at people, the Civility Police assume you've intentionally set out to offend, rather than just writing as you'd talk to someone in normal life. – iridescent 03:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it might have been about calling someone who was convicted in a court of law of causing harm by witchcraft a witch, but I take your point. Malleus Fatuorum 03:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Nicely done. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:16, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

(undent, bottom post to disentangle) I think you're right about the variability of "typical office workplace", and this probably would be best refined as "typical academic workplace" where I believe the standard deviation would be much smaller. Or, indeed, "typical academic workplace where the public is free to wander in" (say, a museum or a library) might be more apt; part of the problem with language that is unnecessarily coarse or aggressive is the effect it has on onlookers and potential new contributors. There are myriad talk pages where some random reader wandering would be scared off for good. — Coren ^(talk) 03:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Congratulations, Iridescent; I very much look forward to working with you. There's an email en route to you, with an admittedly boring subject line. The fun has just begun! Risker (talk) 03:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Congratulations, glad to see you did so well Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 09:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Congratulations! Shinerunner (talk) 11:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
• Is this the place where the syncophants say congratulations? Well, congratulations, then! I'm sorry my guide opposed you, my sympathies and condolences on your victory. ++Lar: t/c 15:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Your guide supported me—have you got me mixed up with Brad? – iridescent 16:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

a) I'm a contrary indicator. 2) No, I don't, and I'd like to hope it stays that way III) I have it on good information that you're handsomer. ++Lar: t/c 23:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh fuck. I was seriously hoping that a strong support from a shit like me would drive votes away from you, hell that tactic backfired big style. Sorry you have to serve with the array that you do, they are not all bad, just half of them. Polargeo (talk) 16:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I refuse to congratulate anyone until the appointments are officially made; I find the fuss of retractions a waste of time. Nevertheless, I might mention that Iridescent's candidacy is for the most part what has induced me to vote in this election (and not just vote, but read up on the candidates and do proper research), something I had never before felt sufficiently motivated to do.

Ah, and in case anyone is thinking of pointing out that I had conveniently failed to mention this before the results were made public, I can tell you in advance that I intend to blame my secretary. Waltham, The Duke of 17:24, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Hooray, some good news! It may not be official yet and the stats aren't quite what I expected, but it should be safe to say "well done and good luck". Alzarian16 (talk) 22:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• My God in heaven. An intelligent, rational voice of reason on ArbCom? Surely someone somewhere made a mistake? Congrats. → ROUX ₪ 00:42, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations. It's a nice refreshing change to finally have an ArbCom member who is willing to tell the honest truth without playing with words to avoid offending anyone. access_denied (talk) 06:55, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• Congratulations! Look forward to..um..whatever the future holds Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:56, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations

Congratulations from me as well. I look forward to working with you over the next too years. I am also confident that you will be able to balance, to a greater extent than many of your predecessors and colleagues, the conflicting demands of arbitrating and of keeping up your work in mainspace.

By the way, I'm not sure if you ever happened across this during the election period. If not, take a look sometime when you have a moment; it's probably a dialog we'll have occasion to return to sooner or later. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:18, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I saw it. Without wanting to sound too arrogant, I think an ability you and I share, which isn't shared by everyone here, is the ability to understand (without necessarily agreeing with) what other people see as the problems with us. You understand why some people think you're too keen to indulge incompetence for fear of jeopardising 'the community', and too fond of pontificating at length while sometimes saying very little; I understand why some people think I'm too willing to treat incompetence as disruption, to overlook problems in people with a demonstrable history of competence, and to offer glib solutions. As I've often said, but not many people listen, the next couple of years will probably decide whether the Wikipedia experiment survives (the big players aren't going to sit and watch forever, and the editor/article ratio has already gone over the line into 'unmanageable'). What's needed now is to keep as many competent people working on the project, even if they don't always get along, unless and until someone else comes up with a better alternative. – iridescent 19:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Blurb on you

Hi, I wonder whether you'd mind reviewing the short blurb on you at The Signpost's "Election report", which is due for publication in not much more than 24 hours. I cobbled together the information from your RfA, your userpage, and wherever else I could, hoping it's not a plain repetition of the information about you that was part of the election process. Some of it might be a little out-of-date, and please check for balance, inclusion, tone, etc. We are happy if you edit it yourself, if necessary. Thanks. Tony (talk) 17:00, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Done. Made one (very minor) change, but other than that that's fine. – iridescent 20:28, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I thought you said you were desysopped. Simply south (talk) 18:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I was desysopped for a year after two years; I've always maintained it should be standard practice to prevent the admins from becoming an ossified elite, and I wanted to demonstrate that the admin/non-admin distinction is almost completely artificial. It's not as if I was dragged kicking and screaming out of the ivory tower. – iridescent 18:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I know. When were you reinstated? Simply south (talk) 19:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

12 July 2010; surprisingly, one year after I was desysopped for a year. – iridescent 19:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Kbthompson

Thanks for your help. BTW, just in case you see it (I have already had to revert it once), I do not think that Kb wanted his first name published on Wikipedia, or his full birthdate. His widow is concerned about privacy and authorized me to add only his year of birth. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Although it theoretically violates the deletion policy, I've performed a revdelete on the edit in question. In the circumstances I don't think anyone would raise an objection; to my mind, in these circumstances his family should have final say. – iridescent 19:33, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. BTW, should we remove this statement, currently located near the middle of his userpage: "If I can help you, I will. Please leave a message on my talk page (please bear in mind that I may not always be immediately available). You can also review my :- Block log, Deletion log, and Protection log. (Edifying, it ain't) Uploads". I'm not sure about this, as it demonstrates his sense of humor. Perhaps just remove the sentence that says: "Please leave a message on my talk page (please bear in mind that I may not always be immediately available)." ? All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to leave it. Should anyone try to contact him, they'll see the message on his talkpage; it seems somehow disrespectful to edit his words. "Email this user" should probably be disabled, though; I'm not sure of how that can be done but it must be possible. – iridescent 20:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• I think the thing to do is leave as much as posible unchanged until a day after the funeral (which is on Wednesday, 22 December 2010); that's the way these things are handled in the cultures I have lived in; then one can start to tidy up and move on.  Giacomo  21:09, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

• Good point. Agree about the funeral being a marker for these sort of events. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Have you looked into turning off Kbthompson's e-mail option? I know his widow doesn't want to get e-mail from random Wikipedians. Thanks for any help. -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:05, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, only the Stewards have the ability to alter account settings remotely. I've asked Avraham, who seems to be the only en-wiki steward currently active. If I don't hear back from him—or he says it's not possible—I'll ask the WMF to disable the account from their end. – iridescent 11:52, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not possible for a steward to alter things like blocking email. You'd need a developer. AD 12:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I've asked Jimmy Wales to disable the account from the WMF end. Hopefully that should work. – iridescent 13:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

She can turn off the "accept email" option by logging in to the account and changing the preferences, and if she does not have the account password, but has access to the linked e-mail address, requesting a password reset at the login screen should send a temporary passwprd to the linked email account which she can use to log in and change the setting. -- Avi (talk) 13:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

So we couldn't do this for her? I'm sure she has others things on her mind right now. Nev1 (talk) 14:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

If she is willing to reset the password and e-mail one of us with it, we could log in and do it for her, otherwise, I don't know of any other way, unless the developers can tweak something in the back-end tables. I'm sorry, I wish I could be of more help :( -- Avi (talk) 14:08, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

In hand; Jimbo is going to fix it. – iridescent 15:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Great, thanks for being on top of this, and belated congratulations on the election. I look forward to working with you and the other new members of ArbCom. -- Avi (talk) 16:36, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Let me know if I need to get back to his widow about anything. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:38, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Unknown territory

I'm getting into unknown territory here, but you've blazed the trail ahead of me. What happens when you get to 100,000 edits? Do you get a medal or do you get committed as being insane? Malleus Fatuorum 01:58, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I think you get a bunch of barnstars here, and declared insane in a thread at Wikipedia Review. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, you get cold feet, file a rename at WP:CHUU, and watch with glee as the wiki servers self-immolate due to the load -- Avi (talk) 02:06, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I didn't get anything :( --Closedmouth (talk) 10:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

You get officially reclassified as a bot. – iridescent 11:22, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Best medal available to both Iridescent and Malleus is {{Senior Editor II}} (35,000 edits and 4½ years' service); you'd need to wait until 2014 to qualify for a {{Master Editor II}} (100,000 edits and 8 years' service). --Redrose64 (talk) 13:15, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Re: Image request

I think it would help to point out in the article that the "Infamous Pods" were the "most berated" of the proposals,[7] and that the designs were "too futuristic";[8] i.e. add more commentary to Norwich Market. The Purpose of the Fair use rationale could also be tailored to be more specific on why this image is needed:

To illustrate the best example of the proposed redesigns that were heavily criticised; this was the "most berated" that was panned for its "unattractiveness" and "radical redesign", which was "too futuristic". The image is to help readers understand the aesthetic differences that provoke the reactions as documented in the article; words alone would be insufficient to convey such a point.

The use of copyrighted images on the project (compliance to NFCC) is mostly subjective, so it might help to ask Fasach Nua to clarify what his "Yes" meant. A more specific explanation (or a link to previous comments about this image) would help to pinpoint any issues with the image. Delegates are more than likely to dismiss vague assertions when assessing the FAC.

Sidenote: Why is "NHP" pointing to Ursula Priestley's The Great Market? ("Priestley 1987" does not go anywhere.) The initials do not seem to match; is "NHP" supposed to be "Norwich Heritage Projects"? Jappalang (talk) 02:35, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Because I put the CITEREF tag in the wrong place—now fixed.

I've removed the "pod" image altogether. I don't want to go into very great length about the three proposed schemes, otherwise it's giving undue weight to one particular design dispute in a 900-year history. (The article doesn't discuss the merits of rival designs for the 1404 Guildhall, or the 1938 City Hall, both of which were just as controversial.) – iridescent 11:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations on your ArbCom candidacy!

Although I'm not sure if we've ever interacted (I think we have at some point or another), I have noticed your name pop up frequently and I've always found you to be reasonable even when I disagreed. I think MastCell said it best — "I'm not aware of anyone who's more thoughtful and incisive on the project and the problems it faces." Good luck. =) Master&Expert (Talk) 22:07, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! As I've said to others, don't expect seismic change; I'm likely to be one of the less active of the new batch. – iridescent 17:33, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations from me. I'm sure you'll do a fine job. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 17:39, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Puzzled

Are you OK? This level of anger seems quite out of character - especially as it's misplaced, and from someone I've collaborated well with on many occasions in the past.

I've not nominated that article for TFA - I nominated another article altogether, which is currently adorning our front hall. All I did was open a discussion, which you could have responded to with "Hmm, I'd rather not, thank you, because...".

I'm sorry if you've had a bad experience of articles you've worked on appearing on main page. On each of the several times I've done so, yes, the vandalism has been a little tiresome, but the feedback has been excellent and helped improve articles I thought perfect even further. As an example, this article appeared on main page 18 months ago. There was a certain amount of vandalism, but one improvement I could cite is that someone noticed I needed to clarify this bit of obscurism.

(Slightly off-topic, but hey-ho) indeed despite the rigours of FAC and TFA, a significant factual flaw was only noticed by another editor in the last week!

Mind you, I take your point about April 1 - I've not had a TFA on that date and I do imagine it's worse.

Would it help you change your mind if a cadre of admins and editors pledged to watch the page on whatever day it might appear on main page? I think it's a fascinating and outstanding article and it's a shame it doesn't get more attention. When I saw the title I incorrectly assumed it must have been one of the last remaining FAs from the days before FAC became more rigorous on standards of citing. When I read it, I was supremely impressed. Hence my comment on the talk page.

Sorry if it was ham-fistedly brief I've been unwell for some time and editing is both a pleasure and a drain on my energy, sometimes leading to me being too quick.

Cheers --Dweller (talk) 09:17, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm an idiot... this shows what I'm talking about, most eloquently. --Dweller (talk) 09:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Chalk and cheese. Bill O'Reilly (cricketer) is an uncontroversial article on a low-traffic subject; as I write this, it's had 50 edits today. Pig-faced women is an article on a controversial topic which is certain to be picked up by Reddit and Stumbleupon; in addition, it's an open goal for all kinds of vandalism, and aside from anything else is already on the target list for one of Wikipedia's most prolific sockmasters. Frankly, I have better things to do with my time than spend another day dealing with this kind of crap, only on a larger scale and over a longer term. (In any case, it won't happen; the last April 1 TFA was on 18th-century English history, and Raul won't run the same thing twice in a row.)

If you can find "a cadre of admins and editors" with enough of a knowledge of 17th- and 18th-century mythology and literature to spot Mattisse & co's subtle vandalism, good luck with that; I can only think of four other active Wikipedia editors with the necessary background knowledge, only one of whom is an admin, and one of whom is currently indefblocked. To me, the "find the most controversial thing we can find and put it on the main page!" mentality represents Wikipedia at its worst; we're here to be informative, not to cherry-pick things we think will be shocking in an effort to boost pageviews, regardless of how many editors are driven away in the process. (Personally, I think the whole April Fools thing should be put out to pasture, along with the rest of the creeping liturgical calendar approach to the main page—I can't imagine Britannica indulging in crap like this, and just look at how well Halloween turned out—but that's another matter.) – iridescent 20:04, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll stop poking with my stick. I've added the article to my watchlist and hope I'll be of use in reverting vandalism some time. --Dweller (talk) 20:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Tassels

(An unexpected subheading!) The OED will have none of "tassle" and insists on "tassel". Tim riley (talk) 16:01, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Later: I see that the Chambers and Collins dictionaries also insist on "tassel" and have no truck with "tassle". So sorry to, er, hassel you! Tim riley (talk) 16:11, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Yup, you're right; just double-checked the original quote and it's "tassels" in the original. – iridescent 16:34, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Good! It wasn't going to stop me voting for the promotion to FA, but it's as well to get these things right. Best regards. Tim riley (talk) 16:42, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry, merry

Bzuk (talk) 22:27, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Tis the season...

		Happy Holidays
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. (The image, while not medieval or equine, is by one of my favorite poets and artists, William Blake.) Ealdgyth - Talk 01:34, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs has given you a Christmas tree! Christmas trees promote WikiLove and are a great way to spread holiday cheer. Merry Christmas!

Spread the WikiLove by adding {{subst:User:The Utahraptor/Christmas tree}} to any editor's talk page with a friendly message.

--The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 03:47, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/The Pig Faced Lady of Manchester Square and the Spanish Mule of Madrid 2

Hey, seeing as you were involved in the last nomination of this image, I thought you may be interested to know that I have renominated it. J Milburn (talk) 20:11, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I won't actually support it—I have issues with the FP process, and think it would look a bit "off" for me suddenly to support/oppose on a topic I'm involved with when I've never been involved with the process before—but good luck with it. (Not sure about the April Fools thing, though; per my conversation with Dweller a couple of threads up, I think the vandalism potential of highlighting "half woman half pig!" on the main page will be a massive time-sink, if what happened when Daniel Lambert was TFA is anything to go by.) – iridescent 14:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

That's fair enough, I can understand that. As with the first time, I'm getting the distinct impression people don't get it; I guess having read your article on the subject I can understand the point of the image, while passers-by perhaps can't... J Milburn (talk) 01:11, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I can see the point of view—if something needs to be explained for it to make sense, it's possibly not suited for the FP process. (While I disagreed with Durova on a lot, I think she was spot-on with some of her criticisms of FPC. A lot of the time, images seem to be judged far more on aesthetics than on encyclopedic value. One of my bugbears is that this image has somehow managed to retain FP status for four years; while it's undoubtedly a pretty picture and would make a good postcard, it has an EV approaching zero. Tower Bridge has six notable features which distinguish it from other bridges^*, and this image manages to omit all but one of them.) – iridescent 20:18, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

*The bascule mechanisms which allow it to open; support towers designed to blend in with the Tower itself; an extremely narrow roadway, designed for horses and unsuitable for cars, but unable to be widened due to the bascule mechanisms; the contrast between the 1890s stonework and the glass-and-steel skyscrapers on the north bank; the large cluster of riverside warehouses surrounding it caused by its acting as a choke point for shipping; the dual-level decks (which are shown).

Small problem...

Someone earlier did a redirect here, but also appears to have copy-pasted the information into the new page here. I've undone the redirect (as the Handbook of British Chronology gives his name as "Byrnstan", not Birstan, but something needs to done about the other Birstan page... no clue on what though! Ealdgyth - Talk 21:28, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

And it's been redirected again. ARGH! TPSs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ealdgyth (talk • contribs) 21:45, 25 December 2010

See WP:CUTPASTE: if you then list relevant pages, plus what you would like doing to them, at WP:REPAIR, then somebody (almost certainly Anthony Appleyard (talk · contribs) will merge the page histories. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:50, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I've merged the two pages to the title of Byrnstan (after a slight hiccup when I missed out the 'n'). There's redirect in place for now but I'm happy to delete it if no source uses it. Now the pages histories are in one place I'll leave it to Ealdgyth to assess Roman Zacharij's changes. Nev1 (talk) 13:38, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

It turns out there were copyvio problems so most of Roman's edits to the Byrnstan article have been deleted. It also affected Saint Josse so this problem may go deeper. Nev1 (talk) 14:07, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I wondered if there might not be a copyright problem, that text seemed rather... polished, but I don't have a copy of the book it was sourced to. Saint Josse should be at Josse, anyway, we don't use Saint unless it's REALLY the common name (which is unlikely). Thanks, Nev, I knew someone would know how/where to fix the issue. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:14, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I'd already put the book away when it occurred to me to read beyond the first line of Byrnstan's entry as the formatting looked a little off. Anyway, I've moved the saint to Josse with hatnotes to Joyce (name) as there was previously a redirect there and one to the commune in France. Does that seem ok? Nev1 (talk) 14:24, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that works. I should probably hunt down a copy of that book, but I've been pretty happy with Walsh's A New Dictionary of Saints, East and West. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:45, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Urf. See this diff from CorenSearchBot... Ealdgyth - Talk 14:49, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

And Henry of Coquet seems to be copied largely from Farmer as well, from what I can see on Amazon. And Bercthun. Lovely. (Am ordering Farmer's book now too...) Ealdgyth - Talk 14:56, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

The stuff referenced to Farmer in Henry's article is copied straight from the source. I don't have a copy of The Penguin Dictionary of Saints, but I'd be surprised if that wasn't copied too. I'm going to ask Moonriddengirl for advice. Looks like this is heading to WP:CCI. Nev1 (talk)

I've speedy deleted Bercthun's article as Farmer was the only source. Nev1 (talk) 15:24, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to steal your page, Iri, but check this page against Joannicius the Great. Also earwig. Also Saint Glyceria - here and earwig. A quick check of other possibles saints didn't turn anything else up, but it was a very quick check. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:42, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I checked the latest articles he created to see if there was anything obvious. Most of them don't include references, and just one mentions Farmers book (Locution_(paranormal)) uses quotes; while the quotes may not be necessary, they at least aren't plagiarised.

It's turning into a busy Boxing Day as I've just discovered that someone has been targeting articles related to Winnie-the-Pooh to remove mention of the original illustrator E. H. Shepard and to emphasis Walt Disney as much as possible. It goes back to at least May 2010. Nev1 (talk) 17:01, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

KBThompson

Hello!

As you can see here, we have disabled emailing for KBThompson's account per request. If there's anything else that I can help you with, please let me know.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! – iridescent 21:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to you both, and happy holidays! -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:31, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Classified documents RfC

Hi Iridescent, I was curious about something. There's currently an RfC on the use of classified documents, but there doesn't seem to be much participation from established and uninvolved editors, so mostly it is the involved editors in the topic area who are participating. I am a bit concerned because, as it stands, the RfC is tending to show a very different consensus than what was established in other discussions such as the one at WP:ELN, Wikipedia:ELN#Propriety of linking to WikiLeaks 'released' documents. I have no intention of contacting every participant there to ask why they participated at ELN, but not at the RfC, but I figured I'd ask you at least, since you seemed to feel strongly about things at the noticeboard... Are you not participating at the RfC because you didn't hear about it, you've changed your mind, because you're busy with holidays, or some other reason? Thanks, --Elonka 18:48, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know about it, but I don't think this is something it's appropriate to decide via RFC. To me, it's one of those rare occasions where it would be appropriate for Jimmy Wales to exercise his god-king powers regardless of what the community consensus is. Since the issues essentially boil down to "potential legal implications" and "potential impact on Wikipedia's public image", this is something that ought to be decided ex cathedra by WMF executive decision, regardless of what the community consensus is, since it will be with the WMF that any bucks ultimately stop. – iridescent 14:48, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, and I agree that it would be nice to have a WMF statement on this. But their stance right now seems to be, "Let the community decide, and then if they get it wrong, we'll step in." This is a concern, because there is a certain sense of urgency on some matters. For example, the Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative article is currently undergoing a DYK nom, even though its sourcing is in dispute. If the DYK passes, then this would mean that the article would appear on the mainpage of Wikipedia. Much of the information in the article is fine, and sourced reliably to secondary sources. However, the article is also reproducing, pretty much verbatim, the classified section of the leaked document, and this has been deemed sensitive enough that no major news outlets have reproduced it verbatim. It's effectively a list of places around the world that, if attacked, would cause the most chaos. Some sections of the list have been reproduced in reliable sources, and that's fine, but the only source for some sections of the list is the Wikileaks document itself, along with one other disputed source, a business blog site, Business Insider, that reproduced the classified section verbatim as well. I would also point out that the agenda-driven editors on the article were so excited to find the Business Insider blog, that they created a section on the article talkpage, *laughs maniacally*,[9] which pretty much confirms their bias on the matter. I have been trying to speak up about the sourcing issues at the DYK nom, but again, there is very limited participation by other uninvolved editors, which tends to be skewing the discussion. Or in short: This isn't something where we should just say, "Let's see what the WMF says," this is also a matter for the community to deal with in the meantime. --Elonka 17:33, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

After a few days thinking about this, I've decided I'm not going to express an opinion at this stage. It's highly likely this is going to end up in front of Arbcom, and if I come down on either side now I'm just binding my hands when it reaches the next level. One passing comment I'll make (which I've been saying for years, and isn't specific to this context) is that in the absence of a clear consensus Wikipedia policy should always be to default to the status quo. – iridescent 20:06, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, and I understand, but since you've already expressed an opinion at WP:ELN, wouldn't that mean that if there were a case, you'd have to recuse anyway? I'll admit that I'm a bit fuzzy on where the line should be drawn for arbs in terms of involvement in a dispute. How do you see it? --Elonka 16:21, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

My view (others may differ) is that the line between "having an opinion" and "prejudicial comment" is blurry, and different in a Wikipedia context to that which would be in a court of law. My opinion on the broader issue is no secret; that we should be defaulting to the pre-Assange status quo (that is, no Wikileaks material) unless and until Jimbo and co offer an opinion to the contrary, since they're the ones who'll be left holding the baby if the big corporate donors start withdrawing support, or the US government gets irked enough to start looking more closely at the WMF's claim to charitable status. Why I'm reluctant to weigh in now, is that this is likely to become a broader user conduct issue, and I don't think I ought to be passing judgments on behavior at this stage (although I'd love a pretext to recuse from the inevitable Franco-Mongol Alliance style wall-of-text war that will inevitably break out). – iridescent 2 17:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

January Metro

Please also see User talk:Ssilvers#January Metro. Simply south (talk) and their tree 23:19, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Julian of Norwich....

Was it you, Iri, that was interested in Julian? I can't remember anymore... if you are, I've turned up some possible book sources... Ealdgyth - Talk 00:48, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

It was, but it's something I'm unlikely to return to for the foreseeable. At the moment I'm taking a piece of sensible advice, and cutting back everything I do here to the bare minimum of maintenance, until I can assess how much time this Arbcom business is going to consume. (To put things in perspective, I just returned after a four day absence to find 292 mails in my inbox, and that's despite none of the usual suspects knowing my new email address yet.) Besides, "controversial religious figure" and "Wikipedia" don't mix well. – iridescent 19:55, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

No worries. The books will still be at the uni library when you're done with arbcom ... Ealdgyth - Talk 20:00, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I do want to do more on Norwich in general at some point—for various reasons, Norfolk is poorly covered on Wikipedia despite its significance—but there'll probably be quite a long delay. I still need to finish the Metropolitan Railway series, which is likely to take a long time. At some point I also want to do justice to Brookwood Cemetery; the current stubby article doesn't do justice to what is one of the oddest places I've ever been. (Russian Orthodox monks venerating the Anglo-Saxon nobility? A graveyard with its own railway system for shifting corpses? The empty tomb of Dodi Al-Fayed, from which he's since been exhumed? Yup, all present and correct.) – iridescent 14:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Quick query

Hi, I have a quick question for you. I've recently nominated an article for FAC, and it transcludes the box for Portal:Trains. An editor claims that the image used in the portal link, File:P train.svg, does not qualify as a free image and needs to be verified through OTRS. I completely disagreed with this assessment, and SandyGeorgia suggested that I ask you for insight, because you've written several rail-related FAs that didn't include portal links. Could you please weigh in on this?
--Gyrobo (talk) 04:54, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Replied there. – iridescent 12:27, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! --Gyrobo (talk) 15:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Imagine that! But anyhow, Deletion proposal

Iridescent, You helped me out several years ago now with an article I wrote and which I subsequently agreed to the deletion of (cf. "Sebastian Cole"). Today, I am contacting you again, regarding a completely different article: Tesseraction Games. You show up as a person who did some light editing to this article some time back, and since the original author of the piece apparently no longer has a Wikipedia login or talk page, I am trying to find someone-- anyone-- who might have any interest in the deletion debate.

The article seems to me to be nothing more than a page describing a non-notable organization which is now defunct and which never really did much when it existed except produce a single video game which itself is of dubious notability. I have only ever proposed one other article for deletion in my years on Wikipedia, and I want to become better at this (since I sometimes come across stuff like this piece and I say to myself, "What?? This doesn't belong here!").

I have placed a tag at the top of the article's main page, and I have attempted (and failed) to notify the article's creator. My question, then, to you: Am I doing all this correctly and according to Wikipedia policy?? Please give me direction/ instruction. You were a boon to me in the past and I appreciate any of your thoughts on this matter, since you are the only person I can find to contact (and YOU, of all Wikipedians! What are the odds, really?? I dunno, but I am pleased).

Am looking forward to hearing back from you when you get a chance. THANK YOU! KDS4444^Talk 05:26, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

You've done it correctly. I've declined the speedy-deletion on technical grounds—speedy deletion is only for cases where there's no possible doubt that the article is inappropriate, and since we have an article on a piece of software this firm publish it's conceivable that someone may want to keep an article on the firm as well. I've set up a procedural deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tesseraction Games, should anyone want to say why it should/shouldn't be kept. – iridescent 08:37, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

That is exactly what I needed direction on. Thanks!

Wikipedia Ambassador Program is looking for new Online Ambassadors

Hi! Since you've been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, I wanted to let you know about the Wikipedia Ambassador Program, and specifically the role of Online Ambassador. We're looking for friendly Wikipedians who are good at reviewing articles and giving feedback to serve as mentors for students who are assigned to write for Wikipedia in their classes.

If that sounds like you and you're interested, I encourage you to take a look at the Online Ambassador guidelines; the "mentorship process" describes roughly what will be expected of mentors during the current term, which started in January and goes through early May. If that's something you want to do, please apply!

You can find instructions for applying at WP:ONLINE. The main things we're looking for in Online Ambassadors are friendliness, regular activity (since mentorship is a commitment that spans several months), and the ability to give detailed, substantive feedback on articles (both short new articles, and longer, more mature ones).

I hope to hear from you soon.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:47, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I support the principle, but not the implementation. You started to lose me with an application process of bloated length (if five years experience as admin, arb, reviewer, writer and sniper-from-the-sidelines isn't enough to judge by, I don't know what you expect by asking me to summarize in a little box); you lost me irretrievably with the list of prerequisites. ("Appropriate responses in disputes"—who decides what's 'appropriate' in this context? "Experience helping on IRC" as a positive? Frankly, looking at the list of requirements, the editors who best meet those criteria are Mattisse and Ottava, and I'm not sure either are quite what you're looking for.) Wikipedia does need a group of people who'll explain Wikipedia's maze of policies and procedures to people who want to participate but are too scared to try, but this process won't find them; it looks like the blueprint for the recruitment of a cadre of wiki-missionaries. Although I have issues with some of their actions, WP:GLAM did this kind of thing much better. – iridescent 20:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't have your track record (five years as admin ...) but I do have a record that anyone can look at, of helping new users find their feet, as for instance I'm sure that User:JimmyButler's students would testify, amongst many others. Admittedly I don't always or even usually display the same degree of patience with established users, but that's also a matter of record. Fundamentally though I will not apply for anything here on wikipedia, for reasons that I have explained elsewhere. Malleus Fatuorum 21:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

What if they came and said, "Malleus, say yes and you're in" rather than an application? I will not do an application personally. I'm not certain I'm a good fit for them, first I don't use IRC, ever, and second, I don't know if I could teach or guide. When I write, I have a decent idea what will work, but that comes from forty years of reading, rather than from anything I could pass on to others.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:11, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Far be it for me to weigh in on topic being debated by such Wiki-heavyweights, but I think this program is rather more simple than is being purported here. In the main, it's about understanding how to collaboratively edit, how to try to ensure edits meet policy and how to try to encourage them to meet guidelines. I don't think the program is about developing a group of FA-capable editors in three months. I could be wrong but it's more about a friendly, constructive, easily-accessible introduction to Wikipedia. If we're lucky, some of the students will be inspired enough to continue editing and build featured content and so on. But right now, it's about providing a friendly "face" and a guiding hand to new editors. If this isn't what any of you fancy doing, then not to worry. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:18, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

That's a little strong, TRM. Each of us guides new and inexperienced editors here informally. We are not dragons, blowing fire at anyone who comes near our caves.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe. I've seen Sage doing his best to gather support for what is a good cause. I hoped not to imply any of you were fiery dragons, I would never dare... but oops. I still maintain that if it's not what you fancy, don't worry too much. It's one of those things (I think) that you either buy into (so sign up) or you don't (so not to worry). The Rambling Man (talk) 21:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but there's no need to be all "well, if you don't want to save the world, then just put your feet up, don't mind us".--Wehwalt (talk) 21:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll wind my non-fiery dragon neck back to its normal extension level. I just wanted to support Sage with a vaguely gentle reminder that this project seems to be either buy-in or don't. I'm pretty sure showing a 17-year-old how to use the {{Cite web}} template isn't quite saving the world. If only it were. The Rambl:ing Man (talk) 21:35, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Good ideas can be ruined by bad implementation. I don't think anyone is tearing down the project. Good advice on how to approach editors may be a big plus for the project. And I'd like to thank Iridescent for letting us use her talk page like this.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:39, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed on most counts. Not sure who said anyone was "tearing down the project" but I suppose good faith in experienced editors should transcend a little bit of the "politeness". The project is slowly grinding to a halt, anything that could re-energise it should be encouraged. Implementation aside, the aspiration to encourage new editors must be embraced in whatever form otherwise your marvellous contributions, Malleus' marvellous contributions, my sporting endeavours, &tc will simply fade into disrepair. I'm sure if you could suggest a better/different implementation of ambassadorial assistance to new users, you'd find support from many quarters. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:46, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I write. That's it. I think this is more likely something i might monitor for a semester rather than get involved immediately, were I to choose to be involved.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, iridescent. It's a tricky thing, creating a good selection process for people who want to take on this role of helping newbies in a structured way. It has to be pretty lightweight, but not arbitrarily controlled by the people leading it. Someone like you would pretty much be a shoe-in, but the questionnaire is important for users more on the borderline, for whom it is hard to tell just from browsing their history whether they would make good mentors. There's no single good way, that I've found anyway, to mobilize a large portion of the community all at once for something fairly structured like this. But that structure is precisely what the professors (themselves generally Wikipedia newcomers) are looking for before they commit to doing a major Wikipedia assignment. If you have suggestions for a better way of finding Online Ambassadors than the current one, please bring it up. Everything about how it's working now is open to change. There's clearly a lot of potential for this kind of thing, but I don't think anyone assumes we've gotten all the details right.

Maybe this should be made more clear, but that isn't a list of prerequisites, it's a list of things that might indicate someone would make a good ambassador. It's not a matter of someone fitting all of them; the point is that those are things that can be looked at to figure out (as Skomorokh put it) whether someone has the real prerequisites: experience, knowledge and clue.

Wehwalt, I hope you like what you see this term and get involved later on.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Personal opinion, but I think this falls far too hard on the policy-wonk side. A full scale application-and-vetting procedure is arguably appropriate for a position of authority, but (as I understand it) what you're looking for is effectively a greeter. By adding that long list of tick-boxes, you're going to attract the sort of people who hang round ANI trying to get themselves noticed, rather than the people (of which there are hundreds, if not thousands) who work quietly in the background explaining to newcomers what they've done wrong, what they've done right, and encouraging people who show promise (whilst having the nerve to tell people who are acting inappropriately that they're doing so; AGF is a good policy, but not a holy grail; sometimes, potentially very good writers need a good hard kick up the backside to get them headed in the right direction).

I've watched a lot of the people who have talkpages plastered with "Awesome Wikipedian" barnstars and a userpage consisting of 200 userboxes treat good-faith newcomers like pieces of worthless shit for not understanding a policy even Arbcom haven't heard of; I've also watched some of the people with the worst reputations as vicious troublemakers spend hours of their lives patiently helping complete strangers (not that uncommonly, complete strangers they intensely dislike) write about obscure topics on which I know they don't have the slightest interest, because they see the sparks of enthusiasm and potential and want to encourage them. I have a feeling that this recruitment process as currently constituted will attract a lot of the former, and very few of the latter. The approach of WP:GLAM—"unless anyone has any strong objection, you're in if you want to be"—is in my view the only appropriate one in this context. (If I had my druthers, it would also be the criteria for adminship, 'cratship and Arbcom, but that's for another day.) Do you (both you personally, and you-the-WMF) really think anything is gained if the first person on Wikipedia with whom they have any extended contact is the kind of person who's memorized the Manual of Style and the civility policy, rather than the kind of person who understands why we have a manual of style and a civility policy? – iridescent 22:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with Iri's point here. I just basically ignored the "invite" I got on my page. One, it's basically a huge time sink of an application process, and (sarcasm on!) two, I NEED to apply to greet folks and help them out? Gee, isn't THAT wiki-like. (sarcasm off). It was just entirely too much process driven and not really what would be needed. A better solution would be spent trying to make the actual learning curve here easier as well as providing support for folks who want to help people learn the ropes - wouldn't the WMF be better off simplifying the help pages and maybe supporting GLAM-like options? Ealdgyth - Talk 23:01, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

In the current iteration, we're asking a lot more of mentors that just friendly greeting. The most important thing we're looking for in mentors is the capacity to give substantive feedback on the students' articles and/or help them get real feedback on their work from other editors. And that is something that takes a level of skill beyond just being a friendly greeter. But yeah, we're also trying to make the learning curve easier.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 23:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Excellent to hear that steps are being taken to make the learning curve easier, but what are they? Nev1 (talk) 23:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) In which case, take your list of volunteers and compare it to WP:WBFAN and ANI edit stats, for instance, and ask yourself why you're attracting a lot more people represented on the latter than on the former. You can have "mentors" in the sense of people who help nurture articles from stubs to FAs, or you can have "mentors" in the sense of people who'll teach you to game wikipolitical debates and fabricate pretexts to get those you dislike blocked, but the two groups rarely overlap. – iridescent 23:14, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Sage, I think the problem is that wikipedians are being recruited to do the work professors should be doing. Having strong content editors, such as those adding to this discussion, involved in the Ambassadors program might be a fine idea, but obviously isn't getting a lot of traction in this wiki corner. Were it up to me (which it's not, but...) , I'd suggest a strong program to bring academics to the site and teaching them how to edit, and how to use wikipedia as a teaching tool in the classroom. It's the Awadewits of the world who are the future to academia. She clearly took the effort to teach herself, quite stunningly (!), how to become an effective wikipedian, experience she brings to her classrooms. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 23:20, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Feedback from a community of peers is one of the main things that makes assigning Wikipedia attractive. I think the kinds of feedback the community gives on students' work is different from the kind professors ought to be giving. I agree, certainly, that getting more academics themselves to edit is a great thing to do. That's not easy, though. But the professors who are working with us learn the basics themselves by the end of the term, and doing it this way is a lot more fruitful (from what I've seen) than the direct route of trying to get professors themselves to contribute. Awadewit is a rare bird; I don't think she's a model we can expect many people to be able to emulate, as great as that would be.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 23:31, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I disagree that Awadewit is a rare bird we can't emulate. She's exactly who professors should be emulating. Much of the current crop of wikipedians consists of students and graduate students - some will go to become the Awadewits of academe. As it happens, I know a few academics who are quietly plugging away on this site, doing what they can, and bringing it into the classroom. Yet, I don't see them being asked to be ambassodors. Might not be a bad idea to identify, if they chose to, editors who have taught or currently teach in higher education, and try to get them on board. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 23:39, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) The last couple groups (before I started going through an 'Awesome Wikipedian' list) that I focused on recruiting were people active with Good Article Nomination reviews and people who did reviews at FAC. The logic there was that people who like to review and give feedback aren't necessarily the ones who write the most content, since many of them focus on their own work and don't spend as much time evaluating others'. But all in good time... I expect to go down the WPFAN list too, and any other list that represents a high concentration of clueful users. Most everyone who is an Online Ambassador so far has at least some experience building substantial content; it's not as if people who work in project space and people who build good content are mutually exclusive populations.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 23:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd argue that "who" is invited is of relatively little importance compared to the rigor of the application process. And yes, I will actually argue that a good application process is needed. Too much is broken in the relationship between Wikipedia and academia to leave it in the hands of whoever wanders by. The only other way to do it is have the mentors hand-picked, but we all know you can't do something like that around here without everyone crying foul. --Andy Walsh (talk) 23:28, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Reply to Wehwalt: "What if they came and said, "Malleus, say yes and you're in" rather than an application?". It would make very little difference to be honest, as I'm not really a joiner anyway, and I have never used and never intend to use IRC. The Rambling Man is way off base though. If anyone asks for my help, newbie or otherwise, I invariably offer it. Malleus Fatuorum 22:28, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

• "The last couple groups (before I started going through an 'Awesome Wikipedian' list) that I focused on recruiting were people active with Good Article Nomination reviews and people who did reviews at FAC. The logic there was that people who like to review and give feedback aren't necessarily the ones who write the most content, since many of them focus on their own work and don't spend as much time evaluating others." I'm rather astonished by that, and rather discouraged. Or rather I might be if I believed that it was true. Malleus Fatuorum 02:33, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Maybe that's not true. That was the quick impression I got from surveying FAC, though. Most of the nominators didn't comment on other FA candidates, while the same names popped up over and over as people giving feedback on the candidates. In any case, reviewing for GAN or FAC is a good indicator that you like to give feedback on other people's work... because you're doing it.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 02:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
    • The best reviewers are those who're also writing stuff, and as Iridescent commented above, how many of the substantial content contributors have signed up? And why haven't the rest? Malleus Fatuorum 02:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
      • Most of the Online Ambassadors (excepting the ambassadors-in-training who aren't serving as mentors) have some kind of solid content contribution. Why haven't the rest? A lot of reasons. It's a big commitment. They prefer to stick to their own area. They are waiting until it's not just US schools and (mostly) public policy classes. They would rather keep focusing on their own writing. They just don't know about it yet (that's a lot of them, I think). A few are turned off by the application process. The most common reason I've seen, among people who responded to say they didn't want to do it, is some variation on "I'm just too busy and have too many other (on- or off-wiki) commitments."--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 03:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
        • Ed has asked me to give my thoughts on how I think they should recruit, on my talk page, and I have agreed to (I almost never turn down requests to help, but I am increasingly leery, both IRL and here, of open-ended commitments.) But I think the short version will be something along the lines of: decide who the people are who you would kill to have (obviously not me) and invite them. Have an application process for everyone else.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
          • To use the analogy of football teams, the players aren't usually required to fill out an application form. Malleus Fatuorum 03:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Mallard

....is the new bird collaboration - could be a whopper of an article. When you were looking up stuff for Aylesbury Duck, did you find anything pertinent about Mallard/duck breeds to add here? Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:21, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Not really for the biology-and-anatomy side; Aylesbury Duck is unusual for a biology article, in that it's much more about the impact of the critters than on their actual biology and behaviour, other than how they differ from other breeds. (Similar things go on with the horse breed articles.) Regarding the social impact side, I can't recommend Duck by Victoria de Rijke highly enough (full details of it in the Aylesbury bibliography); while it's intentionally vague on the the evolution and anatomy side, it's by far the best book on human-duck interaction and the why and how of mallards becoming the present day duck breeds, and is written for a general-interest rather than an ornithological or poultry-breeding readership, so isn't swamped with jargon. Mallard is going to be a bugger to do justice to, though; there are so many things that ought to be included, but bringing them all in will make it a bloated monstrosity. If I were doing it alone and from scratch, I'd start with the more prominent subspecies and maybe even separate articles on hunting, commercial breeding etc, to get as much as possible out of the main body. – iridescent 2 13:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Main page appearance

Hello! This is a note to let the main editors of this article know that it will be appearing as the main page featured article on February 6, 2011. You can view the TFA blurb at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 6, 2011. If you think it is necessary to change the main date, you can request it with the featured article director, Raul654 (talk · contribs). If the previous blurb needs tweaking, you might change it—following the instructions of the suggested formatting. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :D Thanks! Tbhotch* ^{۩ ۞} 20:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Battersea Bridge is a cast iron and granite five-span cantilever bridge crossing the River Thames in London, England. It is situated on a sharp bend in the river, and links Battersea south of the river with Chelsea to the north. The bridge replaced a ferry service that had operated near the site since at least the middle of the 16th century. The first Battersea Bridge was a toll bridge commissioned by John, Earl Spencer. Designed by Henry Holland, the bridge was poorly designed and dangerous both to its users and to passing shipping, and boats often collided with it. Although dangerous and unpopular, the bridge was the last surviving wooden bridge on the Thames in London, and was the subject of paintings by many significant artists such as J. M. W. Turner, John Sell Cotman and James McNeill Whistler, including Whistler's controversial and influential Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge. In 1879 the bridge was taken into public ownership, and in 1885 demolished and replaced with the existing bridge, designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and built by John Mowlem & Co. The narrowest surviving road bridge over the Thames in London, it is one of London's least busy Thames bridges. The location on a bend in the river makes the bridge a hazard to shipping, and it has been closed many times due to collisions. (more...)

Postage stamps

I thought you might find this of some interest, considering your recent FAC, though most interesting British stamps are sadly unusable on Wikipedia for general illustration purposes due to copyright. Well done on the promotion, by the way; I am eager to read the article and will do so as soon as I find the opportunity. Waltham, The Duke of 21:52, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

feb metro

Hi. I originally asked Davidcane to do this mon's metro but then withdrew because I thought I would have time. However I developed unexpected computer troubles. I cannot do the newsletter properly or a while. I am unable to edit it that easily and am wondering if you could do both this month and next month's editions. Sorry and thanks.Difficultly north (talk) 23:49, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Naughty page move

Hello. Long time. Got mop? An editor has cut and pasted Optimum Population Trust to Population Matters, the org's new name. The histories have been left behind. Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:13, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Anna asked me to step in and fix that move, which I reluctantly did :). Materialscientist (talk) 11:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Wow

I leave for three months and come back to an upside down world. Iri as an arb?!?! Woohoo! Karanacs (talk) 19:45, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

An arb who's considering resigning, though—by a piece of bad timing, real-world events mean I've barely been active on Wikipedia for the last two months. Although things should stabilize soon, it doesn't seem fair on the others for me to be this inactive. I've set an arbitrary deadline of the end of March and if RL hasn't calmed down by then, I'll drop out. (Sandstein is next in line to take over if I go, which I'm sure will delight Malleus.) – iridescent 2 20:10, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I was worried about you, and wondering about your absence. Sandstein will delight me even less than MF, considering the latest. Please don't go. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:12, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I thought you'd moved onto some higher plane of existence, and that your talk page was now operating on a wavelength invisible to my eyes! Parrot of Doom 20:14, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not aware that there's a line of succession for arbitrators? Your slot wouldn't be refilled before the next election. Amalthea 20:26, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

So if they all resigned, there'd be no arbcom? Of course Iridescent would be replaced. If it was right near another election there would be no point, but as it's only February Sandstein would undoubtedly take over. AD 21:03, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Vassyana retired 20 January 2010. Fritzpoll retired 18 February 2010. Neither was replaced (see Template:ArbitrationCommitteeChartRecent). We ended 2009 and 2010 with 12 arbitrators; as long as we're above that there quite certainly won't be any replacements (presuming that I didn't miss consensus/dictum for early replacements), and if the number of active arbs would ever drop too low to manage the workload we can still think about the options. The committee was expanded to 18 seats to cope with the attrition between elections, not because 18 arbs are needed at any time. Amalthea 21:19, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Just outstanding. Recommended by only one of the serious guide writers, and 51%. User:SandyGeorgia/ArbVotes2010/Guides. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:08, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

You're one of the saner and (definitely) more honest members of the committee, so I implore you to stay and do what time allows. Even retaining the position as an inactive placeholder would be better than creating an opening for Sandstein. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:10, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Iridescent, I strongly urge you not to resign from the committee even if your availability problem continues for awhile longer. It's a two-year term, and everyone goes through a phase or two of having little or no time for wikiwork due to real-life commitments; it's just bad luck that your real-world busy-ness is happening to come at the beginning of the term. And, although limited in number, the contributions you've made on the mailing list have all been useful ones.

As a sidenote, typically, arbitrators who resign at mid-term have not been replaced unless the committee started to be understaffed. It makes little difference really whether we are 18 arbitrators or 17, so I would not expect that anyone resigning this year would be replaced. (This is not, of course, meant a comment about anyone who might have been a runner-up in the election.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:42, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Echoing what Newyorkbrad says here: every arbitrator should take a bit of a break periodically (I'm going off gallivanting for a bit in the coming days, the first *planned* break of any length I've had since election). So you have your break earlier in the term - that means you're a little less burnt out in October. :-) While we miss you, there are plenty of hands to keep the ship stable while you take care of other business. If you're not back by June, then we'll think about things. We know (more or less) that you're busy IRL. Risker (talk) 22:03, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Whew, that's all a relief to read. Whatever is happening IRL, Iri, I hope it improves soon. It usually does :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:44, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

^That.

As a separate matter, Iridescent, I wanted to let you know that I marked you as inactive at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Members. Please feel free to undo my edit or drop a note on my talk page if and when you feel that is no longer applicable. NW (Talk) 05:01, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

But what about whether you're 18 arbs or 16, does that matter? Considering that John Vandenberg has left and deleted his pages over the Jack Merridew issue. Praeterea censeo Boris has it exactly right about Sandstein. Bishonen | talk 00:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC).

Huh, totally missed the Jack/John thing. Looks like both are just raging a bit, though. Anyway, Sandstein for GodKing! --MZMcBride (talk) 16:59, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Btw, I would certainly oppose any attempts to declare failed candidates elected as replacements. There is just too much that a person can do between an election and sometime the following year to make the community lose confidence. If there is to be replacements (and I see no immediate need for same), I don't think that is the best way.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:56, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Would someone please point me towards the latest Merridew saga? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:49, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't follow this stuff. I find out about it on the talk pages of those who do--Wehwalt (talk) 21:56, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Jack Merridew ban review motion#Request to amend prior motion: Jack Merridew. I don't follow this stuff either, but his contribs (and those of User:Gold Hat) make things relatively clear... I think. Alzarian16 (talk) 22:04, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

March Metro

Better late than never. Simply south...... 22:13, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Contributions

Hi Iridescent - My name is Andreea Gorbatai and I am a Ph.D. candidate in Organizational Behavior at Harvard University. My dissertation focuses on understanding the processes through which individuals contribute and collaborate in creating Wikipedia articles. I noticed you contributed a lot to Wikipedia and I would like to ask you a few questions about the way in which you contribute (such as how you interact with other editors, whether you have strategies of contributing to articles etc.)

Would you be available to talk on Skype, phone or some instant messaging interface? Thank you very much, I appreciate you taking the time to read this! Andreea

Buburuza (talk) 19:24, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not available on Skype etc. You're welcome to email me; I'll warn you that as part of Arbcom I get 100-200 emails per day, so there may be delays in replying.

I'm possibly not the best person to be speaking to, though. I've been barely active on Wikipedia for the last couple of months—if you want active people involved in "high level" articles, you may be better off going to WP:WBFAN and asking some of the people there. I'd suggest Johnbod, Wehwalt, Malleus Fatuorum and Slimvirgin as four users who'd give a very broad cross-section of differing approaches to article writing. – iridescent 19:03, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you; I am very pleased with that. I bought it this afternoon from PC world; I had no idea building a computer was so easy - it only took me about 45 minutes and then a very helpful Indian lady talked me through conncecting it to the internet (a small problem because I had forgotten the account pasword) and then that was it - all built and working - even a mouse with no wires that works through some form of magical radar. I can't think why all these people have to have boxes boasting about it, any fool can do it, so my box will encourage others to pioneer. I think I shall seek out a few more similar user boxes. Thanks again. Giacomo Returned 23:10, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Even back in the old days before it was a case of slotting modules together, building computers was always surprisingly easy. Although the big IBM and DEC behemoths that were the size of a small tower block always came preassembled, until the early 1980s "home computer" meant a big bag of microchips and a soldering iron, which one put together in the same way teenage boys made crystal radios—right down to nailing it to a piece of wood to serve as insulator. Malleus and Parrot could probably reminisce for hours on the topic. (The other Thing They Don't Want You To Know is that almost every PC component is replaceable; rather than pay a fortune to replace your old computer, it's usually perfectly straightforward to yank out the old processor and drop in a snazzy new one.) – iridescent 23:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

What a pity you did not think to mention that £699 ago!!!! Giacomo Returned 23:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

More Credo accounts

Hi Iridescent, some more Credo accounts are available, and we've been asked to draw up criteria; see here.

I wanted to ask about something you said last time, that all UK residents can join any UK public library. Looking at Westminster as an example, you can join, but you have to go there to show proof of residence before you can pick up your card. So I'm wondering how realistic that would be for most Wikipedians. I want to write the criteria in a way that excludes people who genuinely have easy online access, but I don't want to, in effect, exclude all Brits just because they could join other libraries in theory.

Or have I misunderstood the library thing, and it really is easy for all British residents to join any public library? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 15:22, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

In the UK, anyone is entitled to join the public library system operated by their local authority. This will give them access to any public library run by that local authority. The authority may or may not make a separate charge for eg access to online publication databases - it depends what they've got, and whether it's more trouble to collect the fees than it's worth. You often need to call at the library in person with proof of ID, but some libraries (ours for instance) will issue you a library card over the internet, and post the card to the address given (I think they may check adult tickets against the Electoral Roll). Users do not have to live in the district to join the library. In the UK, many university libraries will accept community readers (ie not connected to the university). Whether you can borrow books depends on the university, as does whether there is a fee, but it gives access to whatever online publication databases the library has access to. Hope this helps. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Elen, that's very helpful. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 18:12, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Elen's correct, in that while every UK authority is obliged to allow any UK resident to join their libraries, how they go about this varies. Some allow you to do the whole thing remotely; some allow you to register online but demand you come in to show identity before you're activated; some insist on you coming in to sign up.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the UK (and particularly England) is a lot smaller and more densely packed than Canada. Unless you live in Northern Ireland or the more remote parts of Scotland, you'll almost certainly be within an hour's travel of at least half a dozen local authorities (and in the big conurbations of the southeast and northwest, anything up to fifty; remember, London alone contains 33 separate local authorities).

Regarding anything to do with public services in the UK, be careful when saying anything is or isn't available. The ConDem cuts programme is now in full flow, and local authorities are having their budgets cut by around 8% per annum. With so much of budgets being services which can't realistically be cut (roads, child protection, garbage collection etc etc), this in practice is translating into a massive slash-and-burn of anything deemed non-essential, and libraries are very much in the latter category. Meanwhile, universities in England have had their budgets cut by £449 million, and "helping a bunch of slackers publish stuff for free which directly competes with the products sold by their own presses" is unlikely to be very high up their list of priorities. – iridescent 19:19, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I have wondered what tangible effects the budget cuts are having in the Old Dart, seems so abstract from over here. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:19, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Think the entire span of the Howard government in Australia, condensed down into a one-year period. Because the coalition government's so unstable, they're ramming through as much as possible at the start. The Liberals are belatedly realising that they're taking the blame for anything unpopular the government does, but the Conservatives get the credit for any successes—at the last byelection the Liberal candidate trailed in sixth behind an anti-Europe pressure group, a neo-Nazi and some random guy who ran as an independent. There is a good case to be made for getting all the cuts out of the way at the start rather than an extended drip-drip-drip of bad news for five years, but I don't envy the at least 490,000 people (government figure, so the reality will probably be higher) who are being fired from the public sector all at once as the cuts go in. – iridescent 23:47, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Erg. Well we just had this here. Doesn't sound as bad though, best thing is that Barry O'Farrell appears to be what we call here a small 'l' liberal...State government funds education and hospitals while federal gov't here funds GPs etc. Confusing....Casliber (talk · contribs) 18:11, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. There seems to be a problem with our article on Barry O'Farrell. While it is quite lengthy, it fails to mention his positions on the most important issues facing the world today, such as gay marriage, flag-burning, and the teaching of alternatives to evolution in schools. Also, our article completely fails to discuss the status of O'Farrell's birth certificate, nor his dependence on a teleprompter, nor whether his wife thinks we should eat more vegetables. Please bring this article up to American political standards. Thx. :P MastCell ^Talk 18:22, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Currently open cases

Do you intend to be active on the two cases that are currently open? NW (Talk) 16:51, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe so. Coanda is almost done-and-dusted and my appearance would just complicate things, while I think I ought to recuse from Enforcement, given my past public expressions of frank opinions regarding some of the parties involved. If it makes things easier for me to post formal recusals from those two, let me know. – iridescent 17:53, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

It shouldn't be an issue, considering that you're already listed as inactive for both cases. Are you going to recuse from Rodhullandemu as well? NW (Talk) 20:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Recusing from RH&E; I have a very definite prior involvement there. – iridescent 21:23, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes I wish I was on ArbCom after all

[10] Bishonen | talk 22:41, 29 March 2011 (UTC).

Full points for trying, anyway. (In fairness, he's obviously upset, and the whole thing will probably be water under the bridge by next morning.) – iridescent 22:46, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Sure. He probably wasn't in a state to notice, much, but I actually did try to advise him in a friendly way. Not perhaps my best blade, I guess. Bishonen | talk 01:03, 30 March 2011 (UTC).

Sockpuppetry case

Your name has been mentioned in connection with a sockpuppetry case. Please refer to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Jimbo Wales for evidence. Please make sure you make yourself familiar with the guide to responding to cases before editing the evidence page. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 02:15, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Note

For future reference, I agree 100% with your reasoning here. Raul654 (talk) 02:24, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

It might be worth adding a section on the relative significance of various types of anniversaries to your FA Thoughts page. This is (presumably) not the last time the issue will come up, and it might save arguments if there were something concrete to point to. (Plus, it's perfectly possible that someone will be working away somewhere trying to raise an article to FA status in time for the anniversary of its subject's death; if it were clearer what is and isn't usable, it might save on bad feeling further down the line.)

Although I agree with the thinking, in some ways how we do things is inconsistent; aside from a few people born into royal families, any given subject's birth almost certainly received less coverage (and hence less "notability" in Wikipedia terms) than their death, but I doubt many people would consider birthdates an inappropriate anniversary. I wouldn't be sorry to see TFA selection policy changed to "only the anniversaries of events for which the subject is primarily remembered" and ditch birthdates altogether unless the birthday itself is significant (celebrated as a public holiday in their honor, say), but I can't see that one flying—it would exclude too many people who led a notable life but without a particular defining event. – iridescent 22:19, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

You're an arb?

Wow! I've been way out of the loop. Then again, I've been kind of away from the whole wiki-politics then for awhile now. I was even proud that my main page edit percentage slowly rose to around 70% in the past 100 edits. I'll still always remember you as the one to save Antonine Centre and completely rewrite it from scratch...almost four years ago! hbdragon88 (talk) 04:19, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Good to hear from you again! Yes an arb of sorts—I'm not a very active one.

I still have a fondness for those shopping mall articles, even though they're looking dated now—given the impact these places have on their communities, people tend not to appreciate just how significant even a relatively small shopping mall is both architecturally and economically. (I'd wager that even the mangiest strip-mall gets more visitors-per-day than the average cathedral.) At some point I need to clean a few of them up, but don't hold your breath for it. – iridescent 22:25, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Unwarranted closure

I disagree with your closure of WP:AN #Peter_Damian_block_violates_WP:IAR. I concede that my initial post was clumsy and incomplete. However, I belief that my elaboration has set this straight. I started the topic by placing the finger on what I saw as a “sore spot” under the assumption that a subsequent discussion would develop an adequate formulation of the problem. Accordingly, my post

1- is not an attempt to reinstate Peter Damian and

2- is not a discussion of the definition of ban versus block.

Specifically, the problem is the various allegations of the existence of an unhealthy “admin culture” at March 2011 Update. To address this problem I proposed

that a project group be formed to investigate the possibility that there are indeed instances of “admin culture” as currently being alleged at the Foundation (as mentioned above) and I further propose that it would be prudent to reinstate Peter Damian and invite him to join that project group.

The rationale for inviting Peter Damian is

1- as the saying goes “keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer” and

2- the precedent of the employment of hackers by security firms.

The problem of there being a possible “admin culture” is very serious and deserves proper discussion. I assume you closure was done in haste and I request you revert. -- Hpvpp (talk) 00:18, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

My closure was not "done in haste", and I am not going to revert it. If you want to discuss this further, please email me. – iridescent 00:23, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I have no interest in off-the-record dialog. If you are not prepared to keep this open I will lodge a complaint. -- Hpvpp (talk) 00:31, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to force you to cease posting on the matter—however, I strongly advise that you actually contact the user in question to ask him whether he wants to be unblocked at this time, given the conditions and restrictions which would be attached to any unblocking at present. I'd also suggest you examine the history of the user making the allegations of an "unhealthy admin culture". – iridescent 00:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I second Iridescent's comments. Your actions here are not necessarily in the interests of the person you are trying to help. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:12, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Neither you nor Iridescent has read what I wrote. My principal interest is not in helping Peter Damian, but in sorting out this alleged “admin culture”. -- Hpvpp (talk) 08:24, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Iridescent. You have new messages at WP:ANI.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

RFA

Pardon me for not being clear, I meant that I would do a simple search first, then go deeper if necessary, and that the page doesn't necessarily have to meet WP:RS or WP:VERIFY. And that the "simple search" is not my sole platform for decision. I will be going to bed shortly. Rehman 15:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Update: Perhaps because of the very wide generalization of the question, the answer has not been understood in the context in which it was given. If a specific question could be forwarded, perhaps the answer could come out much better? And the relevant command over CSD could also be tested. Rehman 16:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

You're missing the point, and it's an fundamental point as regards the way en-wiki operates. The question is explicitly about A7, and speedy deletion has nothing to do with sourcing—the fact that you're even mentioning "WP:RS or WP:VERIFY" shows that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the way Wikipedia's deletion processes work. Since you're explicitly saying you want to be active in speedy deletion—and since misapplication of CSD is one of the fastest ways in which new users can be driven off—I don't feel at all comfortable with the idea of you having the ability to delete pages, as I can easily imagine you deleting new articles because you feel the sourcing is inadequate or missing. – iridescent 16:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

No, I do not mean that. Maybe I'm going haywire because I'm staying up late to answer questions. I'll be back tomorrow. (Yes, I do start my day very early). Rehman 16:23, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Rehman, I think the issue is that you haven't mentioned once (or even clearly alluded to) the fact that A7 is based on a credible assertion of importance or significance. I can't read your mind, but all I can say is that, as you haven't discussed anything about the claim of notability (sourced or not), your answer is being interpreted as focusing on a Google search rather than on what is actually in the article. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 16:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your comment above ('…that the "simple search" is not my sole platform for decision') makes it clear that you do mean that. Searching and sourcing have nothing to do with speedy deletion, and the fact that you keep mentioning it indicates that you don't understand either how Wikipedia's deletion processes work, nor why they're (very intentionally) set up that way. – iridescent 16:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Please reconsider at Q5, that was a genuine human weakpoint. Rehman 23:46, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I've just read your answer to Q5 and you're still talking about searching and verification. Wikipedia's speedy deletion process is very explicitly set up to judge only on the basis of content of the articles and not in terms of searching and verification; that you're still talking in these terms seems to show me that you don't understand how deletion works on en-wiki, and more importantly why it's set up in this intentionally cumbersome manner. Being an admin at Commons is irrelevant to this; although both are owned by the WMF and they work closely together on occasion, Commons has very little in common with en-wiki when it comes to policy. (Neither WP:NOR nor WP:NPOV, the two basic rules underlying all Wikipedia's content policies, apply on Commons.) – iridescent 07:25, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Little me?

Timid little me block an arb? No, no. [/me trembles at the thought of asserting self to that extent. ] That was Bishzilla.[11] And what a good illustration it is of the deplorable state of RfA that Bishzilla made admin, while it seems impossible for Malleus. I'm sure he'd make an excellent admin. Instead, we get twelve-year-olds opposing on the strength of "maturity issues." Fuck that. [Zilla! No typing in my posts! ] I mean, what a waste. Bishonen | talk 12:14, 10 April 2011 (UTC).

Maturity n.: A positive character trait shared by everyone who agrees with you.

Immaturity n. A negative character trait shared by every poopy-pants pee-pee head who disagrees with you.

—Source: wp:wikispeak

Malleus Fatuorum 16:05, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Blocking

I've been taken a lot from you lot today and have been labelled "talking useless bollocks" and"Troll" by Pedro who quite frankly has done nothing constructive to wikipedia in years. If you can't see that my comments are light hearted and intended in good jest rather than homophobic or racist then I am very sorry. You of all people should know by know that bringing on the civility BS at me is the least constructive thing you can do and in fact if nobody had made a mountain out of my response then the conservation on Malleus's talk page would not have taken place. It is pointless attacks from non contributors like Pedro who have nothing better to do other than observe my "behaviour" that make such situations unfold. You of all people should know by now that I'm not the sort to tolerate such nonsense and that blocking me would be the dumbest thing you could possibly do. I will not comment any further on this on Malleus's talk page and will continue editing to prevent any unrelated admin going to an extreme but you disappoint me with your outlook on this at the end of what was imply just a frickin infobox and map I had made added in good faith. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:23, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't know who "you lot" are supposed to be, but the issue is not infoboxes; the info is that you're making blatantly homophobic and racist edits. Regardless of how funny you think you're being, not everyone shares your sense of humor, and you don't seem to understand this. Per the many previous comments to you, you're past the point at which many admins would be considering a lengthy or even an indef block; please cool down and don't dig yourself any deeper into this hole. – iridescent 20:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

No, I simply questioned why you and Malleus stuck so strongly together with Giano at my post to him and the truth is I simply get a comical impression of Pedro being a little Spanish waiter and always have whenever i've seen his name at RFC . Sorry if it is offensive but what he said inflamed a situation which had already died down and I sorted out my issues with Risker by email. It was not me who turned it into a conservation about anal sex or racism. It was gross exaggeration of what was originally said that sparked it off. I guess I shouldn't have said anything but I don't like being told I'm wrong and then have you and Malleus who I thought was on better terms with now turn up to seemingly gang up on me. If it was just one editor that would be fine but the fact you also turned up looked like you relished the chance to put Blofeld in this place. The bizarre thing in this is that my edit which I thought was constructive and I made a map especially and it turned into accusations of homophobia and raciasm which to be honest with you is very extreme. During all this I've been trying to move forward constructively and indeed address the issue about infoboxes civilly with Giano. But one editor upon another stacking attacks on what I've said always adds fuel to the fire and I'm not content for people to talk about me like that. As soon as Giano indicated he knew what I said wasn't intended maliciously, jsut a conflict of views, he cleared the air. And did you notice how I suddenly started speaking civilly and maturely to him? I dish back what I'm fed. Start accusing me of things and making situations worse than they really are always brings out the worst in me and one post after another about "bum sex" turns in a juvenile conservation which turns into something rather embarassing for intelligent adults on here. Sure i like a bit of crude humor, but would certainly rather do it in an environment where people are not attacking each other but laughing together.

Now I apologise if your perception was that I was out of line or whatever. But once again it is the judgements of editors and playing the moral judge which are too blame for this current scenario. Refrain from making judgements about me and attacking me and I'll refrain from heated debates and talking pointlessly and unconstructively. In this instance I am glad you and Malleus were not active in the attacks on me and I think it is likely because you know this, the others who commented against me didn't . No I dislike having any edits I make reverted and especially multiple editors turning out one by one to make bad light of them which is what started this. The fact of the matter is still that the decision to have an infobox or not in the Winter Palace is a personal choice of the editors who wrote it, there;s no policy which says I was wrong to add an infobox or indeed that nobody wants them. I think the infobox or without and larger image has its strengths. Personally I would rather wikipedia was consistent as possible. Maps are my thing, I can make a close view birds eye view of the palace locations to add to the article if it is desired. Believe it or not I would rather not get into conflicts but one thing leads to another and before you know it a simple infobox adding procedure turns into a ludricrous situation where you are being accused of some rather serious allegations. I'm far better than to stoop as low as juvenile conservations, so people taking swipes at me clearly want to bring out the worst rather than the best in me. "Your thirdly" post was exactly what started this whole ordeal. Didn't it occur to you that your vote stacking might provoke a strong reaction, or is that what you wanted, you appear to dislike me, so you rejoice in pointing out my errors and making a fool of myself? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:02, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

OK this edit is not acceptable. You can support Giano all you like but NOBODY has a right to remove good faith GA nominations. That's disruption. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:39, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Giano's explanation seems quite fair. According to your user page you're on a wikibreak and as Giano isn't interested in GA a reviewer would probably be wasting their time. Nev1 (talk) 20:42, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Zuggernaut's ban

Please take another look at Zuggernaut's ban, request made as per Use remindersYogesh Khandke (talk) 17:47, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Please look at this fresh statement Yogesh Khandke (talk) 18:12, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm recused from this case due to prior involvement with one of the parties, and that won't change come what may. – iridescent 21:52, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Noun "due to", verb "owing to". There's really no excuse for this kind of slackness Iridescent. Malleus Fatuorum 22:11, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Even I knew that and I'm foreign, we will have to strictly enforce grammar soon, or we shall have split infinitives next. Giacomo Returned 22:19, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I do stick to that when it gets to FAC level, but I've never been convinced by it. "Due to" always sounds more accurate—compare the Google hits on "closed due to" (5.3 million) vs "closed owing to" (150,000, and probably most of those are pedants making the same point). There comes a point when "overwhelming common use" trumps "what Fowler's says". – iridescent 22:20, 15 April 2011 (UTC)