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This is an archive of past discussions with User:Hag2. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Danny Casolaro

The enclosed is collapsed for usability. It contains mostly User talk: Wildhartlivie commentary from August 2008 to December 2008.

The following conversation took place in August.

Hi. Thanks for your note. I've only started using the checklink tool and it's very helpful. I've been going through my watchlist this weekend. I have it watchlisted and I look at your edits when they come up. I suppose I am guilty of not passing on props on the article, instead, I would have contacted you if I'd seen a problem. I'll try to do better and be more proactive. Before you re-nominate it for GA review, let me, or someone else I rely on for 2nd opinions to go over it for form, content, citations etc. and that should help a lot. Keep up the good work! Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:29, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi again. I've looked at the two types of notes for this and my preference would be to incorporate as many of the explanatory notes as possible in with the Footnotes section. It could be a little confusing to some readers to have two sections. It doesn't hurt for a line to have more than one reference.

I have a few comments, hopefully you'll find something constructive in them. Some are just routine housekeeping types. One comment I have is that you need to avoid including what could be construed as original research. Specifically, I'm referring to the notes about the absence of a Sheraton Inn. You need to find a reference that says this somewhere, I think. Another note is that you shouldn't refer to him as Danny unless that is in a quote by someone. He should be referred to by his full name or by Casolaro. The books listed in the "See also" section should be moved to the bottom under the heading of "Further reading".

One question I have is whether you've considered converting some of the quotes into your own prose. Too many quotes may be considered an issue to GA reviewers. Meanwhile, the attributes for them should probably be tied to a citation. Stylistically, it looks good, I'm just not sure how it would be received. An example:

One of the troubles in the case is separating the reliable information from the specious.

Along with some reliable information, Casolaro also sucked up... a lot of garbage. His notes show that he was influenced by the silly 'secret team' theory of the Christic Institute and that he chased down material fed to him by a reporter who worked for Lyndon LaRouche, the grandmaster of conspiracy theories.
— Corn, David; The Nation page 515

Could be written as (the reference markup is visible purposely):

One of the troubles in the case is separating the reliable information from the specious. David Corn noted that along with reliable information, Casolaro tend to suck up "a lot of garbage", and that he was influenced by the Christic Institute's "silly 'secret team' theory."<ref name="corn515">Corn, David; ''The Nation'' page 515.</ref> He also spent time following leads fed to him by "a reporter who worked for Lyndon LaRouche, the grandmaster of conspiracy theories."<ref name="corn515"/>

Let me know what you think. Wildhartlivie (talk) 21:04, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:Layout suggests using "Further reading". This would be the last section of the article, after the books. There is a bit of leeway on naming the reference and books section. When the material being cited in the article is to specific books, I personally prefer using "Bibliography" to "References." I then use "References" as the main footnote title. That's my preference, anyway.

I thought while I was here, I'd clarify the original research comment I made. What it amounts to, essentially, is to try and avoid drawing conclusions not presented elsewhere, or presentation of material that refutes referenced facts. The original research line is a fine one that's sometimes hard to see. One policy you might read to help clarify that is WP:SYN, which is about synthesizing a conclusion from two otherwise unrelated facts. I suppose the best way to think of it is that we don't have to present a solution or outcome to a mystery just because we're writing about it, AKA we aren't doing an investigation or news story. One article that I've worked on that had its fair share of synthesis battles is Karyn Kupcinet, whose 1963 death is a mystery. My Wikipedia editing partner and I had a long, drawn-out battle with a person who was bound and determined to present an article that solved her death. The official cause of death was strangulation, with the presence of a broken hyoid bone. Simple enough, one would say. But the other editor had dug into the Los Angeles newspaper archives and came up with stories from several year later about the coroner who had conducted Kupcinet's autopsy. In later years, (I want to say 1968 or 69, but I'm not sure without digging) the coroner had drinking issues and made some errors in autopsies. One or two of those involved the possibility that he had broken the hyoid bone himself during autopsy. The editor tried and tried to present this information in the article to cast doubt on the findings in the Kupcinet case. This was in spite of the fact that there was no mention of doubt cast on cases from 5 or 6 years earlier, nor on the Kupcinet case specifically. By taking these two disparate issues and presenting them as conclusion of incompetence in the Kupcinet autopsy, the editor was synthesizing a solution.

I'm not saying at all that I see this in the Casolaro article, but I did note the mention of the non-existence of the Sheraton Inn. If you could find something published that supports this error, it would remove any question regarding it. Does that help? Wildhartlivie (talk) 22:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I had a look, sorry to take so long (not feeling on top of the world this week). I made 3 or 4 minor style changes to how the refs and footnotes were displayed. I'm not as clear on the footnotes, but the refs section guidelines encourage two columns when the number of refs exceeds something around 25. The more refs there are, the more room they take so the trend has been to the reflist style. The Further reading section is fine, I just made it a subheading higher up the hierarchy, per layout. I would note that those entries are supposed to be in alphabetical by author's last name, then by date of publication within an author's works. It looks like you've been working and it is coming along. There are several places where multiple uses of one reference can be combined. Ridgeway and Vaughan; page 37 is one. They can be collapsed into one ref with abcd, etc., notations by using <ref name="ridgeway37"> for the first use and <ref name="ridgeway3"/> for subsequent uses of the same ref. I will either do it, or suggest to you that you make use of the ref combinations when it is looking like you're ready to polish it off. It's a point that GA reviewers will make. The Further reading section shouldn't contain what is being used in the refs above it. Hopefully this helps. Wildhartlivie (talk) 22:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Re: Your notes

Hi, Hag. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you on all of that, I was down with a migraine yesterday and it's only improving through last night. I looked over what you had presented in what you removed from my talk page. Some of the material on the INSLAW page was a bit out of my realm of expertise, but what I can say is that while what I saw being added, I don't think it was vandalism, but it does present other issues. I don't think the two IPs are connected. It appears that the 71. IP was answering the year old query by 76. about who William Hamilton was. 76.18.82.93 traces to outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and seems to have an interest in conspiracy theories. A great many high speed home connections show up as based at the national headquarters address, but the traceroute gives more precise info. The 71. IP, on the other hand, is a problem. While the WHOIS does show Reston, VA, that is a major internet hub which is the home of Verizon. It traceroutes to Washington DC. That tends to confirm that it may well be the head of INSLAW. And therein lies the problem. Have a look at WP:CoI - the head of a company has a deep conflict of interest in adding to an article about himself or his company. If he has corrections or other material that needs added, he has no place in adding it to the article. It should be posted on the article talk page, or perhaps a talk page of an interested editor, or he could contact the Wikimedia Foundation. To counter his comment on the 76. talk page, that someone can come in and make a change, or may, and say they are in charge of the company, is what would undermine WP reliability. It has to be sourced by reliable sources, not the word of an anonymous IP that he's the CEO. Otherwise, the contributions are dubious. Don't back away from challenging the veracity of it, it is incumbent on him to provide the sources. If it continues to be an issue, it can be taken to the WP:COI/N noticeboard for investigation. Does that help? Wildhartlivie (talk) 12:48, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Re:Project templates

I wanted to tell you that in general, project templates are placed and filled out by members of the various projects who know the parameter requirements and assessment criteria for project-connected articles. I've worked on WP Biography as well as WP Actors and Filmmakers for a long time, assessing articles, so I don't often omit a needed parameter in a template. Not all of them are needed or used for all people, and the template itself is a project housekeeping tool. In general, the article author doesn't complete the template, although it is acceptable to initiate one using only the basic data (name, living or not, listas). An author shouldn't assess his or her own article. Note that there is a red link in the current template. To request a peer review, you need to click on that red link and begin the review request.

Regarding the Inslaw article, I'm not entirely clear as to which projects this article belongs. One certainly is WP:Business, which uses either the {{Business}} or the {{Infobox Company}} template. You should just place this template on the talk page and then someone who works in the project will do the assessment. Other projects may, or may not, adopt the article as part of its work as time passes. Wildhartlivie (talk) 18:20, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

But you are one of the authors on the Casolaro article. You've done a great deal of work to it, working toward taking to good article status, and you are requesting a peer review for suggestions in improving the article. By all of those standards, you are an author. Anyone who puts that much work into an article is so. I'm only making that distinction because it allows for neutral assessment and progress of an article. In any case, I'll look at the peer review if you'll leave me a wikilink for it. Wildhartlivie (talk) 18:49, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: Questions Hopefully I don't overwhelm you with information. This is a matter of the differences in organization and process.

Wikiprojects are part of a system of editing organization that groups articles pertaining to given topics, or groups of topics, into a manageable system wherein interested editors can collaborate on specific articles or groups. {{Business}}-template and {{WPBiography}}-template) are tools used to identify and distinguish articles under that system. Some articles will fall under the jurisdiction of multiple projects. For a good example of diversity of interested projects, look at Talk:O. J. Simpson. Note that not all projects will attend to or deal with a given article equally. Project talk page templates are tools of each project, used to categorize articles based on type of article, specific policies that deal with them (biographies of living persons comes to mind), and quality. Assessments are a fundamental process in the article quality realm. The "stub, start, C, B, good article, A and featured article" classifications are basic quality determinations, which are based on fairly specific criteria. You can see the basic guideline for article quality here. Anyone can make quality assessments at class B or below, however there are work groups and detailed processes for higher classes such as GA, A, and FA. The {{assessment}} template is the base template for all project talk page templates, not intended for use by itself.

Infobox templates, such as {{WPBiography}}, {{Infobox Company}}, etc., are templates used to organize information across related articles in a standarized manner. Sometimes an can qualify for more than one infobox, although only one should be used. Editors may have to debate it out to decide which one to use.

As for things related to process on Wikipedia, the most fundamental of which is the process of article improvement on the path to feature article status. All articles are standardized based on manual of style guidelines. Project assessment is also part of this process. When an article has been worked and reworked and finally has evolved to a specific quality, the reviews process begins: good article, A and finally feature article. A peer review is an open invitation to other editors to make a quality assessment and make suggestions pursuant to the featured article status.

I hope this helps give you a better understanding. Wildhartlivie (talk) 20:46, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The above is an extended post that has been collapsed for improved usability.

Spellchecks

With reference to [1], you're very welcome. Thats what I do :) WikiRoxor ^talk 01:07, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Richard Mohun

Thanks for your note on my talk page, I can see the edit comment wasn't meant as anything more than a comment on why youstopped your copyedit at that point. I appreciate your copyediting efforts and thanks to them (and the contributions of many others) the article is much improved. I can honestly say that this is the probably the most editors that have ever been involved in an article I have created (even my FA didn't generate this much comment!) but I can see that everyone is just trying to make the article better. Hopefully it won't be long before it is up to GA standards (which is probably as far as I can take it at the moment) and I can move on to some other topics. Once again thanks for your edits - Dumelow (talk) 14:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Archive 1

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 ==Richard Mohun==
 Thanks for your note on my talk page, I can see the edit comment wasn't meant as anything more than a comment on why youstopped your copyedit at that point.  I appreciate your copyediting efforts and thanks to them (and the contributions of many others) the article is much improved.    I can honestly say that this is the probably the most editors that have ever been involved in an article I have created (even my FA didn't generate this much comment!) but I can see that everyone is just trying to make the article better.  Hopefully it won't be long before it is up to GA standards (which is probably as far as I can take it at the moment) and I can move on to some other topics. Once again thanks for your edits - [[User:Dumelow|Dumelow]] ([[User talk:Dumelow|talk]]) 14:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
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