User talk:Joe Decker

List of intestinal stem cell marker genes

I added some descriptive sentences to this article, I hope it makes it clearer now. If you need more on this subject, I can try to write more--give me an idea of what else you'd like. Also, I think that I re-submitted this appropriately, but if you could let me know if it is "in the que" that would be great. Best regards! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eprofessa (talk • contribs) 21:55, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Wow, that was more than I'd hoped for, I added a single lead sentence, made a handful of formatting tweaks, and approved the article. Thank you, that's some great work. Cheers, --j⚛e decker^talk 13:45, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Great! Glad it was helpful. I'll try to add more context in the future. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eprofessa (talk • contribs) 04:50, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

07:52:45, 10 August 2014 review of submission by GlennLawyer

• GlennLawyer (talk · contribs)
  • User:GlennLawyer/sandbox (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hi, Joe,

Thanks for the quick review, and your efforts to maintain the standards of Wikipedia.

I have fixed the punctuation issue.

You state that the article "may well meet our [Wikipedia's] inclusion criteria", but have doubts about the strength of the reference.

Some background: I've spent the last 6 years as a post-doc researcher at the Max Planck Institute; see https://bioinf.mpi-inf.mpg.de/homepage/index.php?&account=lawyer The wikipedia article reports the fruit of serious scientific work, and the citation is to a published scientific article. Wikipedia guidelines on source credibility state: "Academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, medicine, and science." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliable_sources

Thanks,

+glenn

GlennLawyer (talk) 07:52, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Glenn,

I must have misspoken, because we have no disagreement about the reliability of the source you provided. My apologies.

The key word here is "multiple." Our inclusion criteria require multiple (appropriate) sources, you've provided one, but our inclusion criterion (we call it a "notability" guideline, it is at WP:GNG) require two or more. Cheers, --j⚛e decker^talk 15:58, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

14:07:52, 11 August 2014 review of submission by TheRock2014

• TheRock2014 (talk · contribs)
  • User:TheRock2014 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

I pressed the review button twice by accident. Also, I'm not sure as to why this page on Ed Day was rejected. I am the communications director at the County of Rockland and I work for County Executive Ed Day personally. Therefore, all the info there is accurate and in my own words. 

TheRock2014 (talk) 14:07, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

While this can be surprising to new editors, Wikipedia guidelines go more than asking that articles be true, it askes that they be verifiable, and our basic inclusion policy for biographies, which you can read at Wikipedia:BIO#Basic_criteria, tries (not very clearly, I feel) to explain what's required. Essentially, articles need to be based on reliable resources available to readers who arrive, they want to know not only what we say is true, but why we say it is true.

There are other reasons for that guideline but verifiability is one of the most important.

In any case, in terms of understanding the types of sources we require? You may also take a look at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable. I'm still working on refining it, but my hope is to provide a more step-by-step (if still not simple) approach to explaining what we need in terms of demonstrating notability. I hope that it will be helpful.

I've also left some links on your talk page which may help provide a broad overview of our policies and guidelines. Hope that helps. Best regards, --j⚛e decker^talk 16:32, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

USS Oriskany draft references

Howdy! The reference issues with the USS Oriskany fire draft have been resolved. I have no idea where the Stewart reference came from; I must've had a brain fart on that one. RGFI (talk) 18:47, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Happens to me a fair bit, I also occasionally see weird stuff from RefToolbar if you're using that. Anyway, congrats, the article is now in mainspace. Best, --j⚛e decker^talk 04:02, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

09:38:49, 12 August 2014 review of submission by Kharetirtha

• Kharetirtha (talk · contribs)
  • User:Kharetirtha (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Kharetirtha (talk) 09:38, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

again it is deleted. please edit my article. please help me

Hi,

Unfortunately, with over two thousand editors waiting for individual help, I am not able to simply write articles for anyone who asks.

There are explanations of the problems with the draft in your sandbox at that page. Do you understand the explanations? May I help explain them?

Best regards, --j⚛e decker^talk 19:27, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

PS: : You may also want to ask specific questions at the WP:Teahouse, they are a wonderful resource for new editors. Thanks!--j⚛e decker^talk 19:37, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

18:11:58, 12 August 2014 review of submission by Listen2star

• Listen2star (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Mount of Delta (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

hello, I chatted with an online help, he told me I need to publish mount of Delta first in the newspaper or magazine before I can continue on wiki. Or is there something else I need to do? Because I want to do it right!

Listen2star (talk) 18:11, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi,

Yes, there are two issues, and one of the is the "references" thing. This is an aspect of our policies that often confuse new editors such as yourself.

Each article on Wikipedia should contain, and to some great extent be based on, reliable, third-party references--these are the newspaper articles, magazine articles, and so forth that talk about the subject. Our policy pages do a bad job of explaining what specifically we need from those articles, an essay I'm working on, User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable may explain it in a better way, I'm not sure.

The other issue is that the article must be neutral. That is, it must not be promotional and positive about the subject beyond what is said in reliable sources, and similarly, it must not be unduly negative either. Generally it makes the text sound more formal. You can read more about neutrality at WP:NPOV. In the case of your article, this should just involve changing some wordings here and there.

You may also want to ask specific questions at the WP:Teahouse, they are a wonderful resource for new editors. Thanks!--j⚛e decker^talk 19:36, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Thomas Solomon

Hi Joe,

Could you please take a look at my edited Thomas Solomon (art dealer) article draft to see if it looks ready to resubmit for review?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ccboehne/Thomas_Solomon_(art_dealer)

If there is any problematic language that you feel still should be taken out, would you mind letting me know? Also, in your mind, have I adequately proven his notability with the press coverage he has received from significant publications/art writers and through the summary of his achievements?

Thank you so much for your help with this.  I truly appreciate it.

Best, Charlene

Ccboehne (talk) 20:29, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about the delay in responding, to my quick evaluation, that looks a lot better. I'd submit it and get it in the queue, we've got quite a backlog, and it might take some for the next real review cycle. Best, --j⚛e decker^talk 00:40, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Bio work in progress

Hope I'm doing this right. OK, so we had a long talk about this in chat the other day and you were very patient (and calming, LOL!) I hope you don't mind if I ask your opinion again.

• Original article @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siva_S._Banda
• Sandbox version (incompletely updated) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ChandVeda/sandbox

I've since had feedback from another chat helper who raised the following objections or red flags. He was really trying to be helpful but I don't think everything he told me was correct.

Footnotes - one for every sentence, or just related groups of sentences?

This helper stated that every single sentence needs to be footnoted. He was quite proud of an article he was in the process of writing in which that was demonstrably the case and had nearly 100 citations, and climbing - it was about a couple of celebrities so of course there are many places to FIND these citations.

Had I ever written a professional paper wherein I footnoted every single sentence, I would have had my hands slapped, and been taken out to the back alley and beaten to a bloody pulp had I persisted in doing that after the first warning.

Facetiousness. But only slightly. Surely wiki articles are not all about citation mining? Anyway.

Can I just cite entire paragraph(s) or groups of sentences to which the information applies, or must every single sentence have a reference?

Citation format for books and publications

This helper criticized the format of my (one at this time) publication, a book. I haven't published the rest yet because I'm trying to get more accurate cite numbers since Google Scholar seems to be so far off on those. I also would like to verify that I can go ahead and use the template, which I got from wiki itself, for the rest of the publications.

In REAL WORLD publications, only the first author is listed lastname, first name and all subsequent authors are listed firstname lastname, instead of listing all authors lastname, firstname. But the wiki templates do it BOTH ways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_templates#Examples

They also say, or at least seem to imply, that the exact form you choose to use for your citations doesn't matter that much, as long as it meets SOME standard, whether it's Wikipedia specific or not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_templates#Variations

I just picked a template and copied it without noticing that the wiki itself is inconsistent. I could still change that easily - I only have one publication up yet - but I DID follow one of the wiki-published templates. Need I bother?

Or, I could use the citation formats provided by Google Scholar - but there are 3 formats GS provides. APA, MLA, and Chicago. This, being a simple cut-n-paste - would certainly be easiest.

Of the many choices offered via the Wikipedia templates and Google Scholar's auto-generated formats, is one of these preferable over these others? Or rather - the easier question - are any of these TOTALLY DISALLOWED by Wikipedia?

Nationality/place of birth

This helper insisted that I cannot mention birthplace or nationality of origin because there are no online sources to verify that information.

In the first place, it was my understanding that Wikipedia does not require all citations to refer only to online information. In the second, verification of national origin does not seem to normally be necessary, as I never see this done except in specific cases where there is reasonably some confusion about this - such as for Bob Hope, who though raised in the USA, was technically British, having moved here with his family when he was 3. This is not one of those cases.

The helper said that even though I personally know this information to be true, unless I can provide suitable SPECIFIC online references (eg referring to him as "Indian American" won't do, they should say "Dr. Banda was born in India"), it must be removed from the article.

I have since delved more deeply into the details of the matter of the place of birth and related issues and this is what I have found:

Under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

It states

The prohibition against OR means that all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable published source, even if not actually attributed.[1]

1. By "exists", the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online—even if no source is currently named in the article. Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy—so long as there is a reasonable expectation that every bit of material is supported by a published, reliable source.

Emphasis mine. And BTW I think "exists" or "existing" is missing from the quoted sentence, since the footnote for that sentence refers to it but it doesn't appear there - they seem to be referring to the additional criteria for verifiability that follows. Still, the import seems clear.

My contention is that this supports some of my assumptions about what is and is not required to be footnoted in that it is a reasonable assumption that a birth certificate exists on file in India, and that there are INS records related to his subsequent attainment of US citizenship which perforce include those details.

In addition, it is reasonable to assume there have been various and sundry announcements in the papers local to his city of birth (starting with a birth announcement), and later, as he gained fame, Indian national newspapers and other sources, that support his nationality and place of birth, as well as his actual date of birth.

The fact that I do not read Telugu or Hindi or any of the other myriad languages in India, nor do I have access to printed newspaper archives in that country, should not preclude inclusion of this information, which is of great import and interest to NRI's (non-resident Indians) as well as the general population in India. In fact this article has been re-published on the Telugu wiki at https://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B0%B6%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%B5_%E0%B0%8E%E0%B0%B8%E0%B1%8D.%E0%B0%AC%E0%B0%82%E0%B0%A6%E0%B0%BE. So clearly folks over there care.

I contend that it is reasonable to assume this information exists even though I personally am not able to access it; that this is not information that would normally be challenged; and that in fact it has not been challenged by the man himself (and he has had access to the page, though I can't cite any verifiable source for that, LOL!)

Additionally, he has been widely referred to as an "Indian" or "Indian American" scientist or engineer in every online source to which I DO have access. He has TWO degrees - his 2 first degrees - from Universities IN INDIA. The number of foreign students who attended University in India prior to the '80s is very close to 0. Even now, if you're there, you are either Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan (all of which are basically genetically and phenotypically, if not ethnically, Indian) or you're the scion of Indians who (fairly recently) emigrated to a bordering or nearby country. There is a preponderance of evidence that makes it reasonable to assume that the man is in fact Indian.

Sorry to go on about it, but I was and am a bit flabbergasted that someone expected this to be excluded if not referenced to an online (let alone any other specific) resource.

My understanding is this: if someone has evidence they can cite that shows that he was, in fact, born in Oslo, that would be a viable challenge and I would have to provide evidence to the contrary, or remove the entry. However since it is in fact the case that he was born and raised in Vijayawada, India, no evidence that conflicts with that exists. I don't have to produce actual citations for this UNLESS someone were to produce conflicting (cited) evidence, according to the wiki guidelines.

Because the helper was insistent that I must find an online source to prove he is Indian by birth (despite his name and the place where he got his first 2 degrees) I kept digging until I came up with this reference:

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-97138555.html

In this article in a magazine published by and for NRIs (non-resident Indians), he is specifically referred to as a member of the NRI population. I cannot give a direct link to the online India Abroad archives because they only go back to 2009, so I plan to just reference the newspaper itself rather than this link (especially since this kind of link is highly susceptible to rot).

I know that there have been MANY articles published about him in India Abroad over the last 35 years (it used to be a newspaper) but most of that would have occurred prior to 2009, so no online references are available. In recent years, they have concentrated more on Indian CELEBRITIES and business magnates than "normal" scientists and engineers. You have to pay to get access to their online archives anyway, so that's really not a viable place to go looking for online links anyway. Offline is the only way I really CAN reference that article.

But I digress. Sorry.

I don't feel I NEED this to support his nationality, but should I go ahead and use it that way anyway (sticking it on the sentence in Background that specifies his place of birth)? It's one more footnote to satisfy the citation miners, basically.

Number of references cited for career/education

The helper was also concerned that I had a single online source for evidence of his educational background and career. My feelings on the matter are

1. He has only ever worked for one employer since graduation (excluding adjunct faculty positions) which is a period of nearly 35 years, so how many different places are we likely to find that information online?
2. In this day of hypervigilence - or rather decade+ - do we SERIOUSLY think the Federal Office of Personnel Management is going to get that wrong for a USAF employee with the maximum security clearance available to a civilian? (Yeah yeah, I have no reference to support his security clearance, nor do I have any intention of adding that to his bio - but what kind of security clearance is it reasonable to assume that a man who is literally King of the Lab for the USAF's major research facility would have? LOL!)
3. We are back to Footnote #1 from the No Original Research criteria above, as it is reasonable to assume that such evidence exists in offline sources (such as the records offices of the Universities from which he graduated, and real-world published announcements from the various and sundry places he has lectured, organizations he has been on the board of directors for, journals he has edited, and organizations that have awarded him honors). That's assuming one rejects the reliability of the Federal Office of Personnel management.
4. Who is going to challenge this anyway? Unless it were blatantly false, in which case he's fooled everybody including the Royal Aeronautical Society, the National Academy of Engineering, the OPM, two national and reputable professional organization (the IEEE and the AIAA), an INTERNATIONAL professional association (IFAC), NATO itself, and 2 different presidents who pinned medals on him. Well, shook his hand and handed him a certificate of achievement, anyway.

It wasn't NOT footnoted; the objection was that there was only ONE footnote for his education/career. Given who he works for and how often that information has been cited in other sources (admittedly cut and pasted from OPM), I really feel like this was a non-issue.

However I have dug up a couple of other references that aren't clearly lifted wholesale (direct copy-paste) from the OPM website:

1) do you think these will do

• http://www.nps.edu/About/News/World-Renowned-UAV-Control-Expert-Presents-GSEAS-Distinguished-Guest-Lecture.html
• http://books.google.com/books?id=xMy8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA424&lpg=PA424&dq=Siva+Banda+engineer&source=bl&ots=Vbl0IEbOsf&sig=oPG7ZOGRbHyxpoCt34--ovPDjbs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=oETrU4rLHIfvoASVx4CgAg&ved=0CCEQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=Siva%20Banda%20engineer&f=false

2)and should I clump the references together since they all show the same thing [1][2][3] or alternate among the 3 (so only one reference shows up at a time, I feel the former is correct). I ask because the helper sounded like I needed distinct sources for the footnotes for each different sentence. And in fact it did appear that that is how he was handling his own celebrity article. He didn't recycle many, if any, of his references.

Notability issues

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_%28academics%29#Criteria

So if I understand all that correctly, he meets the following criteria for notability:

1. Criteria #1 - Significant (to his field) scholarly contributions published in peer-reviewed books or journals, which I am actually not sure how to prove significance nor that I actually need to, see below about h-index. Also he has been editor for at least 2 journals, though not head editor, which should provide evidence of significant scholarly contribution to his field as well. (The latter is not yet added to the sandbox). Being head editor would meet Criteria 8. I have been told that he has turned those opportunities down due to being only one person, LOL!
2. Criteria #2 - Significant awards and honors of which he has 2 at the presidential level, several at the national level, and 2 at the international level.
3. Criteria #3 - Induction into nationally or internationally known and well-reputed professional societies, of which he has a total of 3, IEEE and NAE nationally, and IFAC internationally - IEEE being specifically referenced in Criteria #3
4. Criteria #7 - He is a member of the NATO Research and Technology Organization Technical Committee. I think that meets Criteria 7 for having impact outside of academia (I haven't added that to the sandbox yet either)

At this point do I need to worry that much about the h-index or notability, what with 2 major international awards (IFAC and the Royal Aeronautical Society International Silver medal) and 2 major Presidential awards, on top of induction into the IFAC (international), IEEE, NAE and AIAA (domestic)? If not I can stop worrying about cherry-picking journal articles for maximum cites and just list whatever looks good.

I think you thought this was OK before, but since having more doubts raised by helper #2, I wanted to double-double check.

Conclusion (and isn't that a relief!)

I hope asking for more help here is OK. I'm sure you have a ton of other things to do and you didn't even review this article, but you were so helpful on chat I was hoping I could get some more help from you. I HOPE this is about done and most of the concerns raised by the reviewer and the helper I spoke with the other night will now be addressed (or soonly, anyway). I hope this article is shaping up, and would value your opinion before republishing and running the gauntlet again (maybe - hopefully not).

I'm afraid to go back to chat lest I get yet a third series of new objections, and I'm not ready to face the scrutiny of the original reviewer again yet. So I hope you don't mind.

ChandVeda (talk) 00:00, 15 August 2014 (UTC)