User talk:DGG

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About: your eloquent summary of what does and does not improves this project

Hi DGG, or if I may be so bold, David,
You wrote at WP:AN/I Archive691: <block quote>There is more than one valid way of working here. Some people prefer to create only high quality articles, even though they may do very few of them. Some prefer to create many verifiable articles of clear notability even though they may not be of initially high quality. As this is a communal project, I think every individual person is fully entitled to do whichever they prefer, and the thing to do about people who prefer otherwise than oneself is to let them work their way, while you work yours. The only choice which is not productive is to argue about how to do it, rather than going ahead in the way that one finds suitable.</block quote> Many editors include a statement about their attitudes to editing on their user pages. I am not one of them, that is until I came across what you wrote. I would really like to include this on my user page. While I can add anything at all I like to my user page subject to WP:USER PAGE, I nevertheless ask for your permission to add the quote. OK with you? I'm fine if you decline this.
--Shirt58 (talk) 12:37, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Of course. DGG ( talk ) 21:04, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure I've seen you reference this essay

WP:TALKINGSOFASTNOBODYCANHEARYOU. Is my memory that faulty? I can't find it, and it's possible the syntax isn't precise. Did you use this a sort of irony? I seem to remember you used the link to represent bullying behaviors. I'm seeing one such user who seems to be wanting to turn the entire AfD process on its head by using such a technique. BusterD (talk) 11:48, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I have sometimes used pseudo-links like these as a statement for their own sake, without writing an actual essay. I remember saying something like this, but I can't find it. I think this one was TALKINGSOMUCH... -- but I can't find it either. As for the problem, I've commented pretty extensively at AN/I: [1], and will comment at the RfC also, But please don't confuse the reasonable message, with which I am in agreement -- that Deletion Policy is overbalanced towards deletion, and one step towards rebalancing it would be to require some version of WP:BEFORE -- with the unreasonable way it is being over-expressed. DGG ( talk ) 23:23, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, David. I was a debater in school before "talking so fast" became the current style. I feel anything which games the system deserves appropriate response in order to keep the system sound. I appreciate your valid concern about deletion procedures being over-weighted toward one outcome. Thanks for your valuable comments in those forums. Be well. BusterD (talk) 23:37, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, I had forgotten that context. And so was I,in college--a very valuable experience, especially in facilitating the sort of intercampus experiences only the athletic teams otherwise gave occasion for. But the stimulus is interesting: if I take a turn at NPP, the amount of junk turns me for a while into a deletionist before I catch myself and stop being so unfriendly to all the newcomers. If I take a look at AfD, the number of unwarranted nominations makes me want to give a similarly snappy and unjust response to all of them, with the less than rational thought that if I argue against all of them, maybe there's a chance the good ones will make it. Several good inclusionists have run into trouble here falling into such temptation. DGG ( talk ) 23:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

uw templates

FYI. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:21, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I think you and I with our combined experience could go a long way to help develop this. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:52, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Ping about Wikipedia talk:WikiProject user warnings/Testing

Hi! If you still have suggestions for any of the 9 listed as "in-progress" at WP:UWTEST, please drop a note on the talk page for that template. We're going to start the new test now and would rather not change the templates in the middle, but it's easy to do a new test or simply incorporate changes afterward, since all we need is a week or so of data. I'm interested to see what you'd like to do, because my feeling is "the shorter the better" on these warnings. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:21, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Guide to information sources

This seems a bit strange to me. The one reference that I can access does not even mention the term "Guide to information sources". Perhaps it should be moved or redirected to a more suitable article? --Crusio (talk) 06:38, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

it's an appropriate article; I'm not sure there is a really standard term. The one I used in teaching was guides to the literature. The most common beginning words of the titles of such books is however, A guide to information sources in (subject), In any case, it can be much expanded, and I will do so: I know of over a hundred, many in multiple editions. Perhaps it should be List of guides to information sources, because dozens of them are notable individually--there will be substantial reviews for most of them; or perhaps not, because there are some that should be included but may not be, and, more important, I don't immediately want to write all the articles. DGG ( talk ) 16:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Scholar Indices and Impact

Could you perhaps have a look at this article and the remarks I made at this talk page and tell me what you think? Thanks! --Guillaume2303 (talk) 22:36, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

commented there. DGG ( talk ) 20:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Academy of Achievement

Hi there DGG, you were recently involved, briefly, on the discussion page about an organization called Academy of Achievement. Prior to November, it was much too promotional; at present, I think the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, as I've explained in a note on the article's discussion page—and as I see you warned in your previous note on the same page. I think I endorse your viewpoint that an EduCap article could be created to address its controversies, but the treatment it is given here represents a clear case of coatracking.

It's worth noting that I've been engaged by the Academy to help resolve the matter; in hopes of doing so efficiently, I've prepared a proposed replacement (in my user space here) that I hope presents an acceptable compromise, or a workable starting point. Hope you can join in discussion on that Talk page. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 18:33, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Primary sources

I'm finding more and more that newbies are misunderstanding about when primary sources are acceptable, or even if they are acceptable at all.

I started a look at some policy and guideline pages, but through typical over editing (such pages are typically edited/developed due to some current event or other), the primary sources explanations seem a bit watered down and too vague.

If you wouldn't mind, would you a.) help me find any and all pages relating to primary sources, and b.) would you be willing to help write a stand alone guideline concerning them, to better help editors understand usage and so forth? - jc37 02:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

There is no simple guideline. partly because there is no definition of "primary sources" that applies to all types of subjects, and party because the possible uses of them in Wikipedia are very various. Attempts to write one are what have generated the present state of confusion. Just a few example example: to a historian, a newspaper is a primary source, because it is used as the data about which histories are written. To us it is a secondary source, because it's an professionally written and edited responsible covering of the events. To a biologist, a journal reporting research is a primary journal, as distinct from a journal that published review articles, but the actual primary source is the lab notebook. A historian of science studies both it and the publications as primary sources for the history. The same source can be both primary and secondary: an appellate court decision is both: it's the primary source for the wording of the decision, but it's a secondary source, and a highly reliable one, for the facts of the case and the appropriate precedents. In literature, the primary source is the work being discussed; the secondary source is the discussion, but the discussion is a primary source for the thoughts of the scholar in an biography of the scholar. For a fictional work, the work itself is, though primary, the best source for the facts of the plot, because it is more detailed and accurate than anything that may be based on it; for interpretation of motives, if not obvious, a wecondary source discussing the work must be used--but there is not clear distinction about what is sufficiently obvious. The practical distinction for Wikipedia is that primary sources which cannot be used as such except as illustrations are those that require interpretation, because we do not do interpretation, which is original research. A textbook is often given as an example of a tertiary source, being based mostly on review articles; but advanced textbooks usually discuss the actual research article themselves to a considerable extent. And some textbooks, like Knuth's books on TeX and Metafont, are actually the primary sources, because the material presented there was never discussed previously and is of his own invention--unless one wishes to consider the program coe as the primary source.

In any given situation at Wikipedia , the guideline however written will always require interpretation, and the authoritative place for interpretation is WP:RSN--even though the individual interpretations may be contradict each other; just as the authoritative determination of notability is Deletion Reviews, even though different discussions may contradict each other. An encyclopedia is not a machine-written summary, but a work of creative human judgment about what to include, how to source it, and how to present it. The concept that we just repeat what the sources say in a proportionate way is overly simplistic: it helps teach beginners the principles, but does not actually decide any non-trivial cases. The examples which makes that clearest are the unfortunate widespread use of selective quotation and cherry-icking in controversial articles. I'll get things started by copying this into an essay. DGG ( talk ) 02:39, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks like a very good start.

Due to some of the issues you note, I think I'm going to ask a few others to also help. (User:Black Falcon in particular I have found is great when it comes to policy/guideline page creation/editing, as well.) - jc37 02:47, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I suspect there will not be complete agreement; but since RS is a guideline explaining the details of the fundamental policy WP:V, the practical course will be to indicate the accepted range of variation rather than try to find an actual single wording--attempts at that are usually either vague, or do not actually have the claimed consensus, because different people go on to interpret it their own way regardless of what gets written. (yes, I propose that as a general approach to writing guidelines) DGG ( talk ) 04:20, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Ever get around to copying this into an essay yet? : ) - jc37 14:53, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I have just seen your extremely helpful reply above and, as I was reading it, I thought it would be well worth making into an essay. I am glad you think so too! Coming from a scientific background I had no difficulty in understanding that WP "original research" was merely a term of wikispeak and that "verifiability" is such an odd word that it could have no obvious connotation. However, it took me a long time to realise that, when people were saying "primary", "secondary" or "tertiary", they were meaning something quite unlike anything I had understood. Thincat (talk) 19:35, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, I will try this weekend. But "verifiability" is a relatively straightforward concept: it means the material in the article must be able to be shown accurate by published sources. We have no way of judging what is really true , because we have no research capability, and few editors with the recognized professional standing to check submissions by academic standards. We therefore rely on outsiders to do that, in publications that have editorial supervision. Whether we "should have such editors and give them authority is a rather complicated question & I'm going to incorporate some material I wrote for Foundation-L about this problem. (My view, briefly, is that we should not do so, but rather go as far as we can the way we have been working. There is a need for an comprehensive freely available encyclopedia with proper scholarly editing, but I don't think our methods can produce one. If it is tried, it should be as a separate project, but the experience at Citizendium has been very discouraging. The most problematic questions are: who will pick the experts?, and , what if they disagree?. DGG ( talk ) 19:39, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

On newbies and deletion

Hey David. Just saw your comments on the Village Pump thread about AfD etc. and wanted to say:

1. Thank you for the thoughtful commentary
2. I agree with you about requiring more human communication. If you want to talk about actually making that happen, then let's talk. But in the meantime we're trying to slowly but surely improve those related notifications, and your feedback on the work so far would be welcome here (See "templates tested" for a look at the different messages).

We have some very clear recommendations for next tries at new notifications for both PROD and AFD, which we will be publishing in a more succinct list soon. (Notes are on Meta, if you're interested.)

Thanks again, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

yes, I'll get back there. But as you can see from the item just above,I do not have the luxury of being able to concentrate on any one thing here. sometimes everything appears equally important. And, as you can also see from the line it italics there, everything seems inter-related. We can't improve articles without more people. We can't get more people unless we fix our processes of working with articles. We can't stop to fix our processes when there are so many urgently needed specific actions such as the flood of promotionalism. So I try to work by turns everywhere. DGG ( talk ) 22:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, it's our unique chicken and egg problem. :) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

anyway.  Tonkie (talk) 20:55, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Remarks about an -imho- overactive NewPagePatroller

Hi DGG,
I saw that you were involved in a Speedy Deletion Nomination (SDN) on the article about Csongor István Nagy from User Lovehongkong. The SDN came from User:DreamFieldArts, and he had also nominated my article on the former CEO of ABN AMRO where he was the main driver for the sell-off of the bank to a consortium of banks: Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Fortis and Banco Santander. This sale was one of the additional reasons why both RBS as well as Fortis collapsed at the beginning of the Banking problems - leading to the current economic downturn in the US and Europe. Although DFA did remove the SDN when I started a discussion with him I do have problems with his attitude.

I really don't think he is the right person for NPPer. In my initial mail to him (or her - didn't check) I made the comment that Rijkman Groenink might not be known in the US and he directly reacts as stung by a wasp with: The fact that you believe everyone in America is a 13 year-old girl is depressing. None the less he is on the Netherlands Wikipedia because he has some importance to it, while on the English he has none. Even if he does, (I have been proven wrong) have some significance, it is not needed. Many people have done what he has, but aren't on Wikipedia

Another problem that I do have is that he deletes comments made on his Talk page (I had to search really good to find back the Deletion request Rijman Groenink version where he made above comment, and also came later with an explination why Kevin O'Leary is notable and Rijkman Groenink wouldn't be (Kevin O'Leary is also Shark in TV program Shark Tank (see THIS version of his Talk page) (also note the difference in the entire Talk page taking into account that there are only 2 hours between those two pages)).

According to himself he hardly ever uses the SDN process, but when you look at his contributions many SDN's can be seen. And his Talk page only consists of SDN comments (there aren't that many on his Talk page as he deleted older/completed discussion threads on his Talk page. (and worse: he removes text in current threads). There is also a formal Mediation request from User: Bill shannon in regards to DFA. (ah: you are in on that as well)

But what struck me the most was his 'its my job and it will never change' statement (not sure if it is still at his current talk page - but if not you can find it HERE (comment: That's my job, and it will never change. DreamFieldArts 13:39, 26 February 2012 (UTC))

After that point in time I also can be blamed for coming close to personal attack: although I do think that it must be clear that I'm exaggerating and being sarcastic; but I started to loose my patience and could hardly believe what I was reading.

I do refer to the 5 pillars of Wiki, and especially Assume Good Faith: and also with DFA I do assume that he is just doing his best but if he truly thinks that his role as NPPer is the same as a teacher who rips up a paper made by one of his students because it is crap I really don't think he is fit for the job. If my first article had been controlled by DFA I probably would have stopped contributing anything to Wiki ever again. He even tells that he has experienced the same thing, so he knows the feeling, and in the same sentence he says it his his job to 'rip up a paper' and say that it 'is crap'.

I do appreciate that NPP is not the nicest job in the world; but I do think that a NPPer should be very aware about 'new users' (I'm not in that catagory: but as he doesn't seem to do much research when he nominates a SD - other then on articles about persons to check if they had a TV show on top of their 'main' job....); so I can hardly imagine that he checks if the user who wrote the article he nominates for SD is a new user or not.

Could you as (far more) experienced Wikipedian give him some good guidelines and tips: as said, I do assume that DFA handles in good faith: but the way he is working now is really not healthy. Thanks a lot, Tonkie (talk) 20:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Ah: I see that you already contacted him and that he did extensively answered to your comments. Thanks :-)

While I was writing above letter to you I did see that you already contacted him on his role as NPPer but because above text was nearing completion I decided to post in

New page patrolling; DreamFieldArts

As per your discussion with me at 01:29, on 9 March 2012 (UTC), you said, "I am giving you a two week ban, running through March 23, from new page patrol, from page moves without clear prior consensus, and from tagging articles for deletion except in cases of clear vandalism or copyvio." I took this very seriously, as I knew I was doing something extremely wrong. Knowing the only thing I could do was to just stop new page patrolling, as that seemed to be where the problem was diverting from. As I have read from some of your discussions^{1, 2, 3}, you say that I am doing much "better at my job," and Tonkie agreed with this statement, and I felt very complacent about it. Since I am becoming better at what I am doing on here, on 00:01, 23 March 2012 (UTC) I will reclaim my position as a new page patroller. Even though I am very avid about being able to be a new page patroller again, I know I need to be careful about what I do. Now for the first few days, I will patrol lightly, until I feel that by success rate is 95% or higher. Being a new page patroller on Wikipedia is a very important job, and should be taken seriously. With out new page patrollers, there would be havoc on here. (spam, hoaxs, etc.) If you believe that I have done one thing wrong, please do not hesitate to tell me, and to handle the situation appropriately. DreamFieldArts^Talk 21:57, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I really appreciate that you let me know, and I'll keep in touch with what you do. Remember that part of the job is to not miss the really major problems. Many promotional articles are in fact copyvios, and that's always a sound reason for deletion. A page marked as patrolled without sufficient checking is worse than not patrolling it. DGG ( talk ) 22:12, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Stella Parton discography

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Strayer University

On Talk:Strayer University, you mentioned that you wanted to make some edits to the draft version created by Hamilton83 found at User:Hamilton83/my sandbox. Were you still planning to make those changes? Would you like some time to do that, or is it okay if I move over draft into mainspace? Qwyrxian (talk) 13:17, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll get there today. DGG ( talk ) 17:12, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Not yet ready--see my comments there. DGG ( talk ) 19:19, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Lists of self-publishing companies

Inan effort to improve sourcing in our articles, me and a couple other editors have created two lists of self-publishing companies:

• List of self-publishing companies in article space for notable self-publishing houses
• WP:List of self-publishing companies in Wikipedia space for notable and non-notable self-publishing houses

It's our hope that by maintaining such lists, it will be easier for editors to identify self-published books. In a discussion at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia reliability talk page, The Blade of the Northern Lights said that you and another editor know vanity publishers very well.[2] If you can provide any assistance with these two lists, it would be greatly appreciated. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:49, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

a very useful project--it makes sense to have both lists, & I will add to the WP list as I see them, I shall check them both; because these can be considered potentially derogatory listings, they must have good references. It may be necessary to qualify the statements in some cases. DGG ( talk ) 01:40, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Quest, that is an excellent idea; DGG, that is an excellent caveat. BTW, Cambridge Scholars Publishing wants to publish the proceedings of your last faculty meeting/conference/Jane Austen Book Club. You'll get a letter on really nice looking letterhead in the next week or two. Quest, this goes for you as well. And for everyone, really. Drmies (talk) 04:11, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Self-publishing

Hi, we are still hoping you would make some suggestions on Talk:List_of_self-publishing_companies#evidence. Your help will be appreciated. History2007 (talk) 02:32, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

haven't forgotten: I will get there tomorrow or this weekend. DGG ( talk ) 05:19, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Tropes in Agatha Christie's novels

Hi. Glad the article has been, for now, restored to its former glory. I was thinking about AFDing it as it was worthless as a stub. Unfortunately, while I read almost all her mysteries I don't have most of the actual paperbacks I bought or collected aeons ago. I do have a couple or so paperbacks and I'll do my best. Yours, Quis separabit? 16:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I finally found the old paperbacks; there were more than I thought. Is it ISBN#s and page numbers you're needing? Yours, Quis separabit? 20:07, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Stevens Institute of Technology page

Hi DGG, I saw that my original note on your talk page was archived, so I'm adding this to make sure it doesn't get lost from your radar as there is clearly a lot of incoming requests on your page! This is the link to the latest correspondence, ready for your review. Talk:Stevens Institute of Technology#Updating_page_along_guidelines_for_college_and_university_articles

Thank you! QueenCity11 (talk) 14:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

haven't forgotten: I will get there tomorrow or this weekend. DGG ( talk ) 05:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Great, thank you! QueenCity11 (talk) 21:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

"I haven't forgotten. I'll get there soon. DGG ( talk ) 19:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the update - very much appreciated! QueenCity11 (talk) 20:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I still haven't forgotten. Some discussions this last week were rather long to deal with, & I'm a little behind. DGG ( talk ) 03:48, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

No problem - I appreciate that you have been keeping me posted. Yesterday I spent some time updating dead reference links since Stevens switched over to a new website. Thank you again. QueenCity11 (talk) 13:15, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi DGG -- Just wanted to check if you have a sense of when you may be able to review. I am getting pressed for an update and want to report back with the latest. Thank you again! QueenCity11 (talk) 16:22, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I shall try to get to it this evening. DGG ( talk ) 16:25, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi - Just wanted to check if you think you'll be able to review soon. I appreciate all the help and guidance you have provided thus far. If you would prefer that I look for help from another editor at this point, that is fine - please just let me know. Thank you! QueenCity11 (talk) 11:55, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject NIH

Greetings DGG. I was looking at WikiProject NIH and it appears to be pretty inactive. Since you and one other are the only apparently active members I wanted to ask. Kumioko (talk) 01:58, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

the articles there certainly still need work: classic promotional institutional pages, in many cases, (much probably copied, and needs ref to the sources, though it US-PD) and overly brief summaries in others. Perhaps if its just the two of us we could simply divide them up. DGG ( talk ) 02:27, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I would certainly be glad to help out. I looked through some of them and your right theres definately some work to be done. I also noticed there seemed to be some that weren't tagged yet. I was also wondering if you think it would be ok if I did a couple things.

1. I would like to add the project to the Joint projects list of WPUS. The articles are already covered by both projects so it might help them a little and slightly increase the visibility of the NIH project.
2. I would like to expand the title on the template to spell out Institutes of Health. Of course I would leave the existing one as a redirect. I have had a couple folks ask me what it meant already (along with WikiProject SIA and AAA) so it might help a little.
3. There are several articles that aren't tagged yet that I would like to add to the project if you think that's ok. Kumioko (talk) 02:39, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

seems reasonable--just go ahead. I will look at some of the more extensive articles and do some trimming. (and some splitting--they include the bios of the Directors of the various institutes, but these people are sufficiently notable that they should be covered separately). I suggest you copy this discussion onto the talk p. of the project. I appreciate it very much that you're getting this re-started--I confess I had entirely forgotten that I meant to work on this. DGG ( talk ) 06:05, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I moved the template to {{WikiProject National Institutes of Health}} and updated the template example on the project page. I will add it to the WPUS Joint prokects list shortly. Kumioko (talk) 15:25, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Ambassadors

Could you show me where it says ambassadors are automatically notable because. Bgwhite (talk) 07:40, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)I'll be interested in that ... I PRODded someone recently who was ambassador to several countries but didn't seem to pass WP:DIPLOMAT,which seems to say that being an ambassador per se is not enough for notability. He was unPRODded after more content was added, don't know whether it's the person you're concerned with or not (current Thai ambassador to US I seem to remember). PamD 11:54, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah, found him, Chaiyong Satjipanon, and I see Bgwhite has been there recently too. PamD 12:04, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

All that is needed to remove a prod is a disagreement that it should be deleted without a community discussion. Prods are for deletions that nobody is expected to contest. The way I judge it, is that it's the highest level of the profession. If you want to go by GNG, I would not rule it out without looking for sources in the country the person is accredited to as well as that which he comes from. In the past we've made the distinction between ambassadors who are notable, and consuls, who are not usually. As always, the community will either agree with me, or not. DGG ( talk ) 16:12, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I deProded Chaiyong Satjipanon because being the ambassador to six nations, including the United States, would appear to be notable. I also found some Thai refs.

The one I did prod was an ambassador to Uganda and was a career civil servant. I highly respect DGG's opinions and have many written down as reference. However, deProdding with the edit summary saying "Ambassadors are notable" is misleading. Ambassadors are not automatically notable, especially where the majority of ambassadors for the U.S are political appointments who donated the most to a campaign. I have no problem with stating in the edit summary that you believe this person is notable, but don't say "Ambassadors are notable" as it sounds like Wikipedia policy. Bgwhite (talk) 00:15, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

What I say in an edit summary when I deprod is the reason i deprodded. it is not intended as a statement of policy. I consider ambassadors notable; I can't say consensus would support this 100% of the time, for consensus at AfD can depend on how carefully the matter is researched & argued—and on who happens to show up. I see no reason why an ambassador to the US should be more notable than an ambassador from the US -- or indeed any pair of countries. Checking, it seems about half the US ambassadors are career civil servants; the others are political or civic or business figures who are often even more notable for their outside careers. DGG ( talk ) 00:39, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Taxatio Ecclesiastica

Thought you might want to expand Taxatio Ecclesiastica.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:55, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you!

For cleaning up City University of Seattle! Your editing expertise is much appreciated and respected by this lowly Huggle jockey. Cheers! Jim1138 (talk) 00:12, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I have just begun. DGG ( talk ) 03:43, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the Stevens Institute of Technology

Was this ever completed? Silverseren^C 21:20, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

It will be this weekend. I know I've said it before two or three times, but I'm feeling embarrassed enough to actually do it, instead of trying to learn something I haven't done before (last week, the new version of the New Pages list, this week, AfC.) DGG ( talk ) 21:28, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Hey, i've been procrastinating plenty myself. How long has it been since I helped out at PAIDHELP? I spent yesterday working on Man With A Mission and trying to decipher horribly machine translated Japanese news sources. So, yeah. But i've pledged to work through the PAIDHELP page today and get everything done. Silverseren^C 21:43, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Your comment at WT:RFA

I've been piled up at work, and just now catching up on an excellent discussion at WT:RFA – far better than the usual "the sky is falling, what are we to do".

I did want to quibble with one observation you made; I'll do it here because no one seems to expand on your thought, so I don't see much need to insert it into the thread. Plus I'll use it as a point of departure to make another point, which I may add to the thread, after I've finished reading it.

You remarked, "I typically decline about 1/3 of the Speedy deletions I see, but some admins close essentially everything, Either I or they must be doing it wrong." I say, "not necessarily". To make an extreme example, suppose there are 1000 xSDs, with 100 of them badly tagged. If some new admins poke around, and delete 700 "easy" ones, that leaves 300 left of which 1/3 ought to be declined. So it is possible both can be right. Now, I'm not saying that 100% closers are always right, but we'd have to check some of the close lists to be sure. Which brings me to my pother point. When I was a new admin, I half expected someone would be assigned to follow me around for some time, just to make sure I was understanding the rules correctly. Either that didn't happen, or they were very, very quiet. (I'm even more surprised it isn't SOP at OTRS, but that’s a different issue.) I think we should have a more formal review system for new admins. I know there's the ability to check with someone else, but I'd like to see something more formal.

Having made my point, I'm not sure it belongs on the thread at this time, because my suggestion isn't going to help the problems that are being discussed at the moment, so maybe I'll think some more on it, and formalize a proposal later. Maybe after getting some thoughts from people like you.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:26, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

You are quite correct--I was oversimplifying. Sensible new admins do only the ones that are totally obvious while they are starting--it must be very discouraging to have people revert your first admin actions, and I've seen that happen. And it is true that I will make a point of checking speedy nominations others have thought it wise to pass by, and AfDs that people don't seem to want to close; I know some others do just the same, which is how we keep long lags from developing. But I had in mind also a few long term admins who actually do decide almost all equivocal cases as delete. To expand on what you have said , in a direction of my own,

I have occasionally checked a new admins deletions if I think from the RfA there is likely to be some problems, and I suppose others do similarly. But I do not know if any people systematically reviews the admin logs the way people do new pages--if anyone does, I've noticed no sign of it. The only thing I've seen checked systematically is the very long-standing page protections. It might be a good thing to do. The AfD closes are very visible, the prods have been checked by several people before they get to the top of the list, but speedies and blocks and unblocka and protections and unprotections don't get looked at, unless someone suspects a problem. I have sometimes thought of doing it, but I have always stopped, because, to be frank about it, I don't want to see the errors. I can't pass over a clear error I do see, and I am fully aware that some admins use the tools beyond the proper limits. Some of these are my friends, & I can mention it to them from time to time quietly. But for obvious reasons most of the ones I would disagree with are by people I often disagree with, with whom relations are often not all that friendly. I don't want to spend all my time quarreling and navigating sticky situations; though I may get the errors corrected, it is not likely to improve mutual relations. (I am also aware that I too make both errors and borderline interpretations, & I suppose I even sometimes interpret things the way I would like them to be, & if I have any enemies here, I do not really want to encourage them to audit me with the utmost possible rigidity. I expect I could be able to very well support my interpretations, but as Samuel Johnson put it, nobody however conscious of their innocence wants to every day have to defend themselves on a capital charge before a jury.

When I started here, I wondered how a system with a thousand equally powerful admins who could all revert each other could possibly exist. I soon learnt the subtleties of wheel warring--there were some major arb com cases on it during my first year here which pretty much defined the limits. But more important, I also learned that even the more quarrelsome spirits here understood the virtues of mutual forbearance--and that even the most self-sufficient people do not really want to look publicly foolish. Our balance is I think over-inclined to protecting the guilty if they are popular enough, but it is not as bad as it could be, or as it often is in human societies. DGG ( talk ) 03:25, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I smiled at your closing comment. I had the same, thought, although for the project as a whole, rather than just the admin function. I'm more recent to the project because, when I first heard about it, a few years before actually joining, I thought about the model and decided it couldn't possibly work. Oddly, I still feel that way, intellectually. If there were no such thing as Wikipedia, and I heard a proposal to create, my instinct is that it will fail miserably. I actually can't quite put my finger on why it hasn't failed.SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:52, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

User talk:Materialscientist#Impact factors and infoboxes

David, could you perhaps give your opinion on this issue? Thanks! --Guillaume2303 (talk) 09:58, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

• I moved this down, perhaps you didn't see it... :-) --Guillaume2303 (talk) 07:52, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I have now commented. DGG ( talk ) 16:59, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Thanks!! --Guillaume2303 (talk) 20:36, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

CityU of Seattle

Hi DGG, thank you for your message on my page. Sorry that I have corrected the article about CityU befor I've read your advice. I appreciate that you insist on beeing neutral in the tone of an article. But when the Swiss authorities have accused the headmaster of the CityU of fraud than I am not sure how you could say what happened without using the appropriate expressions, in this case "allegations" and "fraud". The article is (as I have written) not about a subsidiary. So for a reader it is of minor interest to read something about the Swiss branch, but if you want to inform you about the reputation of something or someone, than it's quite intersting to read about allegations of fraud. And I have of course read the Wikipedia policies about neutrality. They say that while neutral terms are generally preferable, this must be balanced against clarity. And ok, I don't think that the expression "allegations of fraud" is per se not neutral, but even if that should be the case and the term is not neutral, in my opinion it's the most clear description of what happened. This is, not just a university program that became unstable.Please tell me what you think about that, kind regards, saintcyr. PS: I think it doesn't matter whether someone has a personal involvement with the issue he's describing as long as his point of view is candid and based on facts. I think some of the best articles here are written by people with a personal involvement with the issue they are describing. But though you seem to think otherwise I can assure you I have no personal involvement in the CityU. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saintcyr1 (talk • contribs) 22:51, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

The matter must be included, but it can be done a little more subtly than you did it, as I shall demonstrate there. Among the techniques for doing this is use the word once in the article as a quotation; it need not be repeated. (And we'd need the quote not just in English translation, but in the original language used.) And it certainly must not be used in the section heading.: we do not make moral judgements, and through things are reported as there are, summaries must ber as absolutely neutral as possible. that goes for edit summaries also: loaded words should never be used there. And we consider the very word "allegations" to be non-neutral. And the entire section should be summarized, to avoid disproportionate weight. If negative information is reported disproportionately or loaded words used more than necessary, it gives the impression of holding a grudge, not of NPOV writing. It is my responsibility to prevent anyone from using Wikipedia for such a purpose, just as it is to prevent it being used to cover-up serious matters. DGG ( talk ) 23:09, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying your point of view, but I still disagree with you on that. So I have opened a discussion on the matter on the CityU talk page. Saintcyr1 (talk —Preceding undated comment added 04:46, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

DGG's a tenured and well-respected administrator with a reputation for even-handedness and an excellent grasp of our policies. You would save everyone's time if you just took his advice on how to present such a controversy without disputing it. Jclemens (talk) 05:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I've commenting further, on the article talk p., Talk:City University of Seattle. I've tried to explain the standard WP policy, and also my general approach to this particular type of problems. DGG ( talk ) 18:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

"What DGG says"

David, that was great. Thanks! Drmies (talk) 20:03, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Graduate Library School, University of Chicago, 1928-1989.

Hi David, this article could use some help from you. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 17:32, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

It will get it, but not immediately. DGG ( talk ) 01:19, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Deletion review response thank you / Tutoring newbies on how to do online research

I left a thank you for your response — and unrelated question(s) — here. Another thing that maybe we agree on is the importance of knowing how to do research. I really like Wikipedia's Search Engine usage guidelines and tutorial, and have tried to link to them from Wikipedia:Article titles — because I think it's important to research usage when deciding the best article title, best category title, or the most appropriate term to use — but my attempts to link to this have been repeatedly reverted by people who think they own anything related to the MoS. Likewise, for the same reason, I have been unable to add links from Wikipedia:Article titles to the regional MoS guides. The article on category naming conventions also does not explain how to search existing categories or link to the above article on how to use search engines to research the best category title, either. Maybe you have some advice or ideas on this? LittleBen (talk) 13:51, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I discovered in my first year here that there were some parts of Wikipedia where despite my interest in the subject, for one or another reason I was unlikely to be very effective. Prominent among these were the MOS and categorization. I am a little concerned with article titles, and in that field, fundamentally I disagree with you -- I think the best article title should be the clearest and fairest, and counting ghits or the equivalent is usually irrelevant. And to the extent I understand categorization debates the problem there is often finding a sufficiently clear wording to encompass the desired set of article. I think the MOS is a little more rational than it was 4 years ago; if I were doing it, I'd limit to to pure matters of style, which does not include choice between article titles, just such matters as whether to use singular or plurals. But in questions like this , your opinion is as valid as mine, and there is no point in arguing the issue here--neither of us is "right". DGG ( talk ) 23:56, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

My main question was aimed at getting your opinion on "Tutoring newbies on how to do online research". You don't seem to have answered this, but maybe this is something that Kudpung is more interested in than you are. My comment on article titles was related to this: there seem to be many people creating new articles without adequately researching if there is an existing article on the subject already. Part of the problem is that Wikipedia Search, by default, only shows if there is an article title that is an exact match to the search term; it does not show if there is a category that matches the search term. If it did, it would be far easier to find related material. It is difficult to work out how to search categories. Terminology (e.g. article titles and category titles) is often inconsistent for this reason. Just one example: There are Web browser engine and List of web browser engines articles, but there are nine Comparison of layout engines (XXX) articles, and the category is Category:Layout engines. I don't understand your reference to counting ghits, and don't understand how my viewpoint disagrees with yours. LittleBen (talk) 02:25, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, I got another response on the Deletion review thread that pointed me to a discussion here that may interest you. LittleBen (talk) 02:23, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I apologize for not covering everything. The WP search function is not the problem; if it does not find an article, it suggests searching for the term. Perhaps the page could be revised to suggest that first, rather than as an alternative to making an article. I think there has been some previous debate on whether it should initially search for the term rather than the article. I also have seen it said that by the standards of other search engines, it could use some sophistication. About 1/3 of people come here from Google etc., and though those search engines rank article titles at the top, they also include articles with the term anywhere. But the Google search engine is, deliberately, getting dumber and dumber; it is no longer possible to use the "+" character as an intersection, and Google Scholar has removed the limit to subject field possibility in advanced search.

Many apparently duplicate articles are created deliberately as a POV fork, others in the mistaken belief that WP includes essays on very specific term-paper type topics. Many are simply naive, as when someone submits a two sentence article on something where we have extensive coverage.

I think teaching people to search properly is a part of research, but the main result of its failure is not the duplicate articles, but the unreferenced articles. Way back when Google was new and exciting, we librarians used to impress the students by showing we could use it more effectively than they could. (The secret is partially cleverness and experience in selecting search terms, but mainly just persistence--something like 90% of users stop at the first page of results--I will if necessary scan through even a few thousand. I have found that people learn by experience better than didactic instruction, provided they are alert enough to pay attention to what experience shows them. Certainly we should do a better job teaching beginners, but the way I think works best is to show them one at a time how to do better. A person learns best when one individual person shows them how to fix their errors and misconceptions, and this is not done by templates. Besides Kudpung & myself, very few NPPatrollers or even admins take the trouble and patience. It's too much for a few people--we need everyone who is able to do it. We progress not by discussing how to work, but by working. DGG ( talk ) 03:38, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree that we progress not by discussing how to work, but by working. You seem to be better at that (more productive) than I am ;-) But sometimes it's more scalable if we offer others the opportunity of learning how to do the work (not specifically thinking of Tom Sawyer ;-). Thanks and best regards. LittleBen (talk) 04:23, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

FYI - user warnings

[3] As suggested. :) I think our next step is making sure that the code is correct, and then we can start implementing. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 17:48, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. It was suggested by several people at Wikimania that we quickly make similar changes in level 4 and 4im, and then consider whether to combine levels--that part would need an rfc. The easiest way to go now would probably be to go to three levels, by combining 2/3 , to avoid having to rewrite the level 1 warnings. DGG ( talk ) 21:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

City University of Seattle

This article has come up at OTRS and I'm trying to get a handle on its current state. I see that some sourced negative statements were removed (diff) and then some unsourced positive statements too. (diff). I trust that this article has gotten the attention it needed and is under watchful eyes, but could you help me to understand why it was appropriate to remove all of the negative content as well? I briefly looked at the [German] sources and 3 of them looked initially ok while 3 clearly did not. Just looking for a little guidance if you get a minute. Cheers! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 23:05, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I've neglected following up this one. I'll email you about it in a few minutes, as some of it is indeed on OTRS, and I need to give an opinion about individual motives. DGG ( talk ) 23:28, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

tomorrow, actually--it's a little complicated. DGG ( talk ) 09:17, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Page Curation update

Hey all :). We've just deployed another set of features for Page Curation. They include flyouts from the icons in Special:NewPagesFeed, showing who reviewed an article and when, a listing of this in the "info" flyout, and a general re-jigging of the info flyout - we've also fixed the weird bug with page_titles_having_underscores_instead_of_spaces in messages sent to talkpages, and introduced CSD logging! As always, these features will need some work - but any feedback would be most welcome.==

the early CSD logging was interesting, because of the high proportion of errors, a much higher proportion that I normally spot at NPP. This may be just my impression, because it put all of them in one place. If so, it will be very useful in following up the errors to teach the patrollers. The key need is not necessarily to make patrol easier, but to make finding errors at patrol easier, because new patrollers generally need educating. Do you think it would be possibleto get a list of those who patrol for the first time? DGG ( talk ) 23:14, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

We did this a couple of years ago (and repeatedly monitored it ever since) and at that time it clearly demonstrated that a vast amount of new page patrolling is being carried out by very young and/or very new, inexperienced users. Although this appears to still be very much the case, the Foundation appears to have ruled this out as a possible cause for low quality patrolling. Special:NewPagesFeed is an excellent piece of software but it's not going to be a silver bullet. That said, this tool may help. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:07, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

remind me, where did the WMF publish the analysis of NPP you refer to? Perhaps they mean that a great deal of bad patrolling is done by more experienced people also--which is certainly true. But i've found it easier to teach the new people, who are usually very glad to learn. DGG ( talk ) 19:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for the late reply. I can't remember where the report was published. The survey was launched as a community project but Foundation adopted it and published the report. If I remember rightly (maybe wrongly), it appeared that the majority of patrollers were in their 40s, had PhDs, and had been on Wiki for at least 6 years - or something vaguely to that effect. Oliver can give you a link to the report because I believe he wrote it himself. Perhaps the responses were inaccurate, because those of us who had done over a year of research found that like all other maintenance areas, NPP was a magnet to new and/or younger users. It seems to have improved lately, but I'm only working from the prototype and not from the old yellow highlighted page. I assume those who are working from the beta are more clued up with page patrolling. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:48, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Library portal

I just accepted the AfC submission for the Library portal article now in mainspace. Since I noticed in the past that you're a librarian, posting this article here for your perusal, if you have the time or interest in checking it out, improving it, making any corrections, etc. Regards, Northamerica1000^(talk) 05:17, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for referring this to me. As you realised, this required subject knowledge. It's a valid topic, but even after your cleanup, still needed extensive further editing for conciseness and removal or original research; there were obvious indications of the origin of this as an essay or term paper. I did one round; I will do another later. DGG ( talk ) 07:25, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for checking it out, and for the improvements. Northamerica1000^(talk) 08:32, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Essay about Wikipedia

Hi DGG. I checked out your user page mini-essays - very interesting. Would you be available to talk about Wikipedia some time? I am writing about the philosophy and sociology of Wikipedia. 109.145.120.77 (talk) 07:22, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

certainly. Please make an account, activate yoiur email from preferences, and email me from the email user link in the toolbox on the right. DGG ( talk ) 15:00, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks - I created the account and set up email. I will mail shortly. Hestiaea (talk) 15:14, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Iwill get back to you, probably next week. things are a little busy. DGG ( talk ) 19:31, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Bibliography of Encyclopedias

You are invited to join in a discussion at User talk:Dr. Blofeld#Bibliography of encyclopedias over my plans to develop a comprehensive set of bibliographies of encyclopedias and dictionaries by topic. I hope you see the potential of such a project and understand that while highly ambitious it will be drawn up gradually over time.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:58, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

PC

FYI. And FWIW, on a slightly different note regarding NPP, although I am not entirely in favour of creating a right for NPP, I fear that the question may become inevitable when the NewPagesFeed is finally released for general use and has been monitored for a while. The reviewer right (whatever that will be) could be a possible guideline, and might incorporate both if need arises. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:32, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

As I expect and hope & will try to get such an interpretation of PC that the reviewer right will be almost unused because almost nothing will be subject to PC, one could argue that it might as well serve some potentially useful purpose. I agree that if it is based on mainspace edits it might serve for both. But I think the priority is to get AfC and moves from user or other space into a single queue along with New pages. At the moment I'm working mainly on the afc part because the majority of advice being given people is inadequate, when not plain wrong. I think that proportionately more errors are made there than at NPP. DGG ( talk ) 13:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

That's possible. I don't work at AfC but the articles I come across through other lonks demonstrate that a lot are not being accurately closed and/or with inadequate advice to the creators. I dn't know what kind of a percentage this represents. AfC seems to me to be a necessary process but unnecessarily complicated; I could well envisage a single queue where unpublished IP creations could pass through the same interface as the New Page Feed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:29, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Google scholar anomality

Hi DGG. In a past deletion debate one year ago which I found mightily suspicious (the submitter and the very last voter turned out to be single purpose-accounts in hindsight) you argued from your professional experience that worldcat holdings of about 100 and 2-3 reviews two years after publication would be normal. I took a look again and Duchesne's 2011 book "The uniqueness of Western civilization" has risen since from 60 to 160 university holdings and, according to his homepage, received 10 reviews by now (leaving out his reply to Elvin and amazon). I noticed Brill has published a paperback version this year, so they seem to consider the book a sales success. However, on Google Scholar the book still is listed as cited by none, even though many of the reviews can be retrieved via its database. Frankly, I cannot make sense of this. Do you have any idea and do you think his WP bio has reached the threshold of notability by now? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:26, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

GS citations are erratic, and their standards change, and nobody knows what they are. In the humanities, citations of a book are slow to develop as compared to journals. First, the book will only be cited by those at libraries who have the book, while a few of his articles are in widely held journals. Second, there is the time factor: a 2011 book will show up in a library about 2 - 12 months after publication, a journal shows up immediately after publication. And in the humanities, if someone reading a work decides to use it in an article, they would typically write the article in the next 2 - 12 months , and it would take in the humanities somewhere from 9 to 24 months before it was published. If the citation was to be in a book, of course it would take at least double that time at each stage and sometimes much longer.

Additionally, his writings are from a definite pov, not widely popular at present in the academic world. A very few people will write using his work to support theirs; more will use it as something to refute. But the key qy. is whether he is well known enough that anyone would want to specifically write to refute him, or whether they will just include him among the other theorists they are refuting the next time they write on the general subject. .

As for actual notability , you will have noticed that at the AfD I made no keep or delete comment. I limited myself to critiquing the bad arguments,particularly those from BG. I consider it borderline by my own standard for notability as an academic: whether a person is a full professor at a research university or of equivalent quality. The usual requirement for getting there in the humanities is at least two books from major scholarly presses. Brill is in most fields a minor press, except for near eastern studies, religion, and related subjects; and UNB is a good but not superlative university. Of his journal articles, some of them are in important journals--but most are in a few journals of a rather specialized nature. The publications list should have included only peer reviewed journal articles, not book chapters. What also influenced me is that the article was written in the typical way to make slightly important subjects look more so: material on the importance of his student work, on the importance of his advisors, of those he has debated with, of those who replied to him, What influences me now much more is that too much of the article is a close paraphrase of his web page, which I carelessly did not think to look at during the discussion. if I had, I would said delete.

If you want to try it again, rewrite it from scratch. But I do not think there is enough new information; even if BG stays away from WP the result might be the same, and another delete decision will make it much harder in the future. What is needed is another book--it would be much safer. DGG ( talk ) 18:29, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion. Best Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:02, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge

Could you have a look at the discussion here and tell me what you think the proper title should be? I was pretty much convinced that I was right, until this editor brought up the Microsoft argument. So now I don't know any more... Although, if it's a stone rule that we should put the company name in front of the product name, would that also mean that Nature would have to become Nature Publishing Group Nature? :-) Seriously, your informed opinion is welcome. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 17:44, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Academic Journals are sui generis . I think WP naming conventions tend to lack rationality. I rarely engage in these debates because I disagree with some of the fundamental rules, like never disambiguating names until there is a conflict. DGG ( talk ) 01:37, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Huon's talk page.
Message added 02:09, 12 October 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

The Wikipedia Library

I assume you already know about The Wikipedia Library effort, but given your interest in getting editors access to these resources, I wanted to make sure you've seen this. Brianwc (talk) 21:29, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Unrelated

By the way, there's complex issue of COI and COATRACK at Retail loss prevention (see history and talk page.) Maybe you care to take a look at that too. Tijfo098 (talk) 22:16, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

yes indeed; a classic conflict of an industry white-washer and a consumer pov pusher. The whole thing needs to be redone; a small amount of the text in the various versions will be helpful. DGG ( talk ) 03:29, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Just so you know...

Regarding this, when the tag was applied the page was pretty much a straight copy from the source, with a few phrases changed out, and had been pretty much for its entire history. User:Rjensen deserves a Barnstar (which I will give him presently) for completely rewriting the article, which is of course an even better solution than deletion. Since your edit comment implied that the tag was improperly placed, I just wanted to assure you that it wasn't at the time I placed it, its just that intervening work made it so. Again, you did the right thing in declining the deletion request at the time you did, and Rjensen did some awesome work here, I just wanted to make sure you didn't think that I was tagging articles for deletion without carefully checking them. I had, it is just that the state of the article changed drastically from when I tagged it. The ideal result, altogether, if you ask me. --Jayron32 13:03, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

thanks for letting me know. My apologies. I've run into this before, and I should be more careful checking the history. But when the article is improved, the tag should really have been removed also. I think some people do not realize that anyone can remove a speedy except the guy who first submitted the article)--some people think it takes an admin. Quite the opposite--since anyone can do it, it makes excellent practice for people who wqnt to become admins to build up a record of good decisions. DGG ( talk ) 17:54, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Hey, this entire sequence got me thinking about some stuff, and I started a thread at WP:VPP that you may find interesting or have some insight on. Penny for your thoughts... --Jayron32 18:59, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Robert Peernock

Ten months ago you declined a prod on this article. I am not disagreeing with your prod however I, stumbling upon the article, found it to have been since its origins based not on the BLP itself but as an article of undue weight that subscribes the man involved as a whistle blower and victim of conspiracy. These are the claims of Peernock himself from his own website, http://www.freerobertpeernock.com, when the reality is that he is a man who was convicted of murdering his wife and attempting to murder his daughters that has claimed they were framed. No one would, neutrally, rate him as a whistleblower or activist. The only whistle he has blown is that there is a conspiracy involving the prosecution, the judge, the jury, his own attorney, his daughter and a "judge's accomplice" who he claims murdered his wife for the judges benefit.

I am rather rusty with procedure, having been absent from wikipedia for a while due to real life situations, but I was hoping you could give some guidance on what to do in this article. It is tilted from its very beginning and I'm not too sure the notability of the book outweighs the individual himself. Many many convicted murderers claim of a far reaching conspiracy, wikipedia should not be a part of their whitewashing. –– Lid^(Talk) 04:56, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Looking more carefully than I did at first, I agree with you that the article should be deleted. What convinced me is checking the book about him, which was what I based my keep on: it is in only 41 libraries. Checking the author, he's a moderately notable minor crime writer with 5 books, his best known ones are in 600 & 400 libraries, so there will surely be reviews to show his notability. This offers a quick solution without the need for afd; I can easily do it tomorrow: writing a short article about the author, anthony Flacco, and list his books. This article can then be redirected there, which will at least give some identifying information here if anyone looks him up. OK? DGG ( talk ) 05:10, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure a redirect would be appropriate, Peernock's life and biography is in no way tied to the life of Anthony Flacco. A redirect would not make much sense as those searching for Peernock, if there are any, are unlikely to be searching for the life of an author who subsequently wrote about the case. Also here's a link I forgot to include previously http://articles.latimes.com/1991-10-24/local/me-242_1_man-convicted-of-killing-wife –– Lid^(Talk) 06:16, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

To follow up will you be doing what you have suggested as an option? –– Lid^(Talk) 07:05, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Journal of Population Economics and Les Halpin

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Mephistophelian's talk page.
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Rumi's Kimia

Hello DGG, I removed your prod from the above article as it has previously been listed at articles for deletion. Thank you. Rotten regard Softnow 19:56,

This is not a newsletter

This is just a tribute.

Anyway. You're getting this note because you've participated in discussion and/or asked for updates to either the Article Feedback Tool or Page Curation. This isn't about either of those things, I'm afraid ;p. We've recently started working on yet another project: Echo, a notifications system to augment the watchlist. There's not much information at the moment, because we're still working out the scope and the concepts, but if you're interested in further updates you can sign up here.

In addition, we'll be holding an office hours session at 21:00 UTC on Wednesday, 14 November in #wikimedia-office - hope to see you all there :). I appreciate it's an annoying time for non-Europeans: if you're interested in chatting about the project but can't make it, give me a shout and I can set up another session if there's enough interest in one particular timezone or a skype call if there isn't. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:54, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Jacob School of Biotechnology and Bioengineering and possible merge

I notied that you had placed a redirect on this article which had been reverted. To encourage resolution via Talk, I've added a Merge suggestion and opened it as a topic on the previous redirect target. AllyD (talk) 17:23, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Talk:British Studies Seminar, University of Texas at Austin

Could you provide a subject template (we have the place template) for this article? --DThomsen8 (talk) 21:11, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Tomorrow's Company→User:Sladen/Tomorrow's Company

Hello DGG, could you undelete Tomorrow's Company to my userspace so that I can have a look over it. I just spent a couple of months working with a photographer to release File:Richard-Brown-Eurostar-and-Mark-Goyder-Tomorrows-Company.jpg under a suitable licence; the left-hand half of which I've used as File:Richard-Brown-Eurostar.jpg for the Richard Brown (transport) article; I had a mental note to also add the right-hand half to the Tomorrow's Company article (now deleted in the interim). —Sladen (talk) 10:03, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

moved. Check also earlier versions--I undeleted the entire history. I'll mention that a key problem with the article is the unsourced claims of being exceptionally important. The sources in the article, as said at the AfD are either self published or the speeches of their founder or mere mentions. Their web page calls them a "global think tank"; such sources as I can find call them a consultancy. I suspect they might perhaps be best characterized as an advocacy organization. Their claimed connection with the RSA seems to be that they were originally inspired by a talk there by a distinguished person. The section of "membership" is link spam. See also the article on Corporate Responsibility Group which I am thinking of sending to AfD. DGG ( talk ) 16:46, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

• nod*. Concur; I'll have a dig around at a future point, and if I can't fix it I'll probably come back you to unmove and redelete it. Ta! Sladen (talk) 20:13, 8 December 2012 (UTC)—

UMI Dissertations Abstract

Hi DGG!

Would you help me with a UMI Dissertations Abstract query, please?

Thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:11, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Ask, here or by email, but it may be a day or two until I can respond to it. DGG ( talk ) 15:41, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Re: Center for Economic and Policy Research (PRODded, now AFD)

The name happens to denote the most respected think tank in the UK and a research institute at Stanford University. The first hit I saw at Google Scholar or Books noted the reader's being puzzled at a CERP working paper being written by a political economist from the only Marxist department in the UK, before he realized that it was a US CERP. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:58, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

My copyright violation on an article talk page

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Talk:Rainbow Family.
Message added -- Trevj (talk) 11:24, 29 November 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Reply

Hi DGG, thanks and respect for all the good work you do. I replied to your comment on Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Another_loophole_on_the_misuse_of_db-G6_theme. Absolutely not in any way intended as criticism, problem with the system not with good admins. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:30, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Rising above the mediocre

What you said here was very interesting. "I do not think a community editing project where anyone can edit will ever rise above mediocre quality. Our goal should be to not come below it--above is unreachable. The greater the degree of summarization, the more skilled the writing must be. Even among the scholarly societies, many more are capable of specialized writing than of general introductions."

I would agree personally with that. Summarising a comprehensive subject is difficult, as it involves both a comprehensive knowledge of the subject itself (rare), and good communication skills (less rare, but not frequent). But it surprised me you say that because you seem to be one of the main defenders of the Wikipedia 'ideology', i.e. the idea of 'epistemic egalitarianism', the idea that a 17 year old has as much to contribute as a professor etc. Do you see any conflict between the view you expressed above, and your belief or faith in Wikipedia? Interesting Hestiaea (talk) 08:26, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it by such monumental terms as "faith and belief"; my hope and expectation for Wikipedia is that it will be a good and useful general encyclopedia. Some aspects of it are already very good, and can be excellent: comprehensive scope, up-to-date coverage. Some will be very good, and are quite good already: accuracy, referencing and cross-linking. Some will I hope become good, though they have problems at present: freedom from advertising and bias. Some will never rise above mediocre: the quality of the writing, including their detailed style. Some of all this is characteristic of a large scale community project: comprehensiveness, timeliness, lack or bias, linking. Some are special features of the people gathered here and they way they work: objectivity , accuracy, referencing.

The intention was for WP to be at the level of the average college student. Many 17 year olds are at that level, some considerably younger in fields with no special academic pre-requisites. Certainly the high school and junior high school Wpedians I have known in Wp circles have been working at a mature level. I learned this freedom from agist bias from my parents, who treated their children as rational beings who would learn more if given the opportunity. Here, we give them that chance. Children should be treated as adults as soon as they're ready, when it does not risk their safety. This is a very safe place, compared to others on the web. And it does not affect our own safety, because when there are errors, there are thousands of people to fix them.

As I said elsewhere, there still remains the need for an encyclopedia of higher academic quality. Most high school students would not be able to participate significantly, but neither would most adults. And a great many of those with advanced subject degrees I have known in my career would not have the necessary skill at comprehensive comprehensible writing. Scholars too need to be edited, and complicated works do best with skilled organization. It can be more efficient to have questions settled by editorial ukase. But not always: as you know, I joined WP and Citizendium at the same time, resolved to go with the one that made more progress. DGG ( talk ) 16:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! BTW I wasn't aware of your involvement with Citizendium.

I don't altogether agree with your comment about academic quality. I don't think articles in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy would be suitable for WP. What is needed is well-summarised and well-explained articles on difficult or general subjects that would be accessible to anyone of high school age (15-18) and above. The Wikipedia article on Being and the corresponding SEP article [4] are both unreadable but for different reasons. The WP article, as you will appreciate, is a rambling dog's breakfast of uncited original research (plus some glaring factual errors). The SEP article looks pretty accurate to me but just goes off into the clouds ("Anti-Meinongian First-Order View") once it gets going. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is better for a general audience but is incomplete. Hestiaea (talk) 09:15, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Expert attention requested

At User talk:Dr. Blofeld#archive.org I mentioned that I am in the process of beginning the work to upload some of the old, now public domain, articles from the Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics to WikiSource, at least partially because I think, in at least a lot of cases, the content of some of the articles in wikipedia we would have on older subjects about whom the scholarly opinion may not have changed much in the intervening time might well benefit from having such a good, reliable, academic source on their subjects very easily available. In fact, I was thinking of maybe proposing to Blofeld that one way to help get some content together on some of the major topics we don't have articles on yet is for, maybe, me to upload old articles to WikiSource, and then he, with his astonishing productivity, maybe check some of the more recent reference and other works on the subject (I think he has both the free Highbeam Research and Questia accounts given out earlier), and, between the older and newer sources, we could get together at least fairly solid "starter" articles on a lot of those topics. One thing that might be useful there, though, would be to know which if any of these older PD reference sources would be most useful in such an effort. I think you are probably the best person we might have to answer that question, if you see fit probably Dr. Blofeld's talk page. John Carter (talk) 17:18, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

• There is no subject whatsoever, about which there may not have been very significant additional information in 70 years, or about which scholarly opinion will not have substantially changed in 70 years. I would very strongly oppose moving any content on major topics here unless (1). The specific portion moved was indicated in the article so we could tell the old material from later additions. and (2) A competent search had been made to see what revisions were warranted. (Unlike some other encyclopedia, there is no current edition to make for an easy check.) This is not going to be easy if done properly. It would make more work to do this than to write from scratch--it could more appropriately be a list of article that need writing. If Dr. B wants to take this on, I am sure he will do it well, but if I were doing it I would rewrite, not merely supplement.

I regard our earlier use of the old EB and Catholic E. ,to have been reckless. We have spent 10 years cleaning those articles up, and it's not yet finished. Yes it's better to have some information than no information, but that's only the case if "some" means incomplete, not if it means wrong or misleading. On the other hand, I must admit that our use of the old DNB has been fairly successful. It clearly separated facts from opinion, and, especially in the articles about the earlier historical figures, relies very usefully upon direct quotation of the sources. Even for this source, naïve use of it simply copies, and does not remove what nowadays we would consider fluff.

More generally, there are, as you say, a great many such works. There may possibly be some fields where matters are stationary enough, but I cannot immediately think of any. In art and music even basic attributions change. In descriptive biology, even frequently used scientific names change. There are similar works to the DNB for other countries, but I have never analyzed them. Having all these encyclopedias available is and will be a wonderful resource--but in general they require interpretation and knowledge of context. DGG ( talk ) 22:57, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I actually don't myself disagree with you about searching for updates in general. I guess I should say that the few I thought might not have received a lot of large changes would be things like (because I deal with religion a lot) the thinking of Thomas Aquinas or Augustine of Hippo, which have been analyzed to the point of absurdity for centuries, and about which there haven't been much in the way of recent discoveries. And I might not have stressed hard enough that I although think that Blofeld, or myself, would also consult the databanks like Highbeam and Questia which will generally have some of the more recent reference sources, like the Eliade/Jones Encyclopedia of Religion to review the Hastings against. I think both he and I have both of them. Regarding the qualifications you cited, I think that if either he or I did anything like this, we could probably arrange the citations in the article to address your point 1, and the search of databanks for more recent material would probably address point 2. I know, for instance, the Hastings article on Ægean religion (I am truly beginning to hate that "*Sheehy, Eugene P., ed. (1986). Guide to Reference Books (Tenth ed.). Chicago and London: American Library Association. ISBN 0-8389-0390-8. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |trans_title= and |month= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)

" character BTW) says that their main goddess could be thought of as being Rhea, when more recent research would probably indicate that Leto would be the more likely candidate, and probably doesn't even make that jump to any sort of conclusion at all.

I myself am probably going to try to "fill out" the existing missing articles in the Eliade/Jones EoR more or less on the basis of a mining of the Hastings and itself, emphasizing the latter over the former. But, yeah, in general, I think you are probably right. I probably should have thought it through a bit more. John Carter (talk) 23:45, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Analogously, the material in the old DNB could certainly be used to supplement articles, by someone who could do it with some confidence that the part being used is uncontroversial. Additionally, substantial parts beyond the accepted fair use limits here could be quoted. (I think almost anything short of a full article would be legal fair use, & if I were making the rules, I would permit using anything legal, but the consensus wants to be more restrictive. Using out-of-copyright sources removes that problem.)

I've realized another reason why using the old encyclopedia article by themselves --even by an expert who is sure that the interpretation is still correct--is misleading. Doing this does not make clear to the reader that the earlier interpretations are still considered correct--only a current source can do this. DGG ( talk ) 01:33, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Good points, although I suppose if we were to eventually develop some of the articles on reference sources, and I'm thinking many of them meet our content guidelines, we might have articles on them which say that their content is still very highly regarded and accurate for some specific topics. I am in the process of getting together some sources for content on Aegean religion and some of the "Ages of the world" subjects, because those are the ones which have separate articles in both the Jones EoR and the old Hastings. If I do create them or develop them, it would almost certainly be based on at least both of those sources, and probably any other major current reference sources I can find on the databanks. John Carter (talk) 01:56, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, certainly, but only an expert (not necessarily a professional academic--many amateurs are equally skillful) in the subject will know enough to do it right, and I certainly do not mean to discourage you. In summarizing current sources, a lower degree of subject knowledge is needed, because the sources can be more consistently relied on. I regard old sources very highly, so highly that I own a *print* 1911 EB & 1907 Catholic encyclopedia, But that an encyclopedia is generally reliable doesn't say anything about a specific article. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia is very reliable within its limits.

BTW, you mentioned Sheehy (1986). I have it & most of the older editions also, & they show nicely the changes over time. What was reliable in 1986 may not be reliable in 2013, and the online Guide to Reference is the reliable source for current views of quality. DGG ( talk ) 02:58, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Good points. And thanks for the hint to the online Guide to Reference. I am actually right now only really using the Sheehy book because it is one I have available to me, and it does seem to have come out right around the time of what seems to have been a marked proliferation in the production of specialist encyclopedias and similar reference sources, the mid 1980s. The various databanks I have access to have a frankly huge number of reviews in various academic and professional publications about such works, and the material there is probably sufficient to indicate which sources published since then are out there, and possibly provide a better indicator of where they are most and least reliable. I actually have already downloaded a mess of them to my e-mail, and as my limited time allows, I hope to create articles on the more important of them. But I chose the admittedly outdated book because it can possibly be used to help establish notability of some of those older sources, and allow for us to have some ideas regarding what is still considered good in them. A few of the articles on Buddhism in the old Hastings ERE were said in reviews of the more recent Eliade EoR to have been the best articles ever written on their individual subjects, including those in the Eliade EoR, and my hope is that when and if I get the time to read and write them all the articles on those works include mention of similar highly regarded articles in those earlier works. Personally, I think that at this point maybe one of the more important things we might be able to do is make it easier for editors to know which articles we do and don't have, and where sources for them can be found, and reference books, even the old ones, are probably among the best things available to help do that. John Carter (talk) 16:55, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

No need to apologize. I'm the one who should apologize, because I've been meaning for several years to add everything from GtoR. I do not have it routinely available from home either, and the main library I work at these days, NYPL, unbelievably does not have it. But i can still go down to NYU or Princeton and use it--they have both the online and the printed multi-vol version, and ideally both should be added. I agree the older vols. are usable, and that was notable then is notable now. But if you use them, you'll also need to check about newer eds of the print, and especially about online availability, which is of course much greater at present than it was earlier . However, I'm not clear about "what articles we do and don't have"--surely finding that is easy enough--I think you mean, what sources we have not yet exploited, and I'd be glad to find a way for this. The best I can devise is to use a template for adding the references to a particular source, which will automatically make a category--which can then be given on the article on that source. I think i'll do a batch. I can figure out how get them usable for the various ref formats, but as I prefer plain footnotes, I'll do that; others can add options if they care to. Project for February. DGG ( talk ) 02:59, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Help clean Cal Poly Pomona

Hi, DGG

I noticed that you are involved in cleaning Cal Poly. I think these pages need to be deleted or merged. I need your input.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronco_Pep_Band (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cal_Poly_Pomona_presidents (merge with List of Cal Poly Pomona people) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Poly_Universities_Rose_Float (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronco_Student_Center (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_California_Marine_Institute (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poly_Post (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Poly_Pomona_Broncos (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Poly_Pomona_Broncos_men%27s_basketball (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Poly_Pomona_University_Library (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLA_Building (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._K._Kellogg_Arabian_Horse_Center (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Poly_Universities_Rose_Float (delete) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Polytechnic_University,_Pomona_academics#Agriculture_.288.29 (delete/merge)

Thanks, --Fredthecleaner (talk) 20:29, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

the way this sort of situation should be handled is to start at the bottom, with the least notable . I've nominated the one of the Rose Float for deletion; the list of presidents should be merged to the main article--it's appropriate content there, and all the successive presidents are notable & should have articles. At the opposite end, the article for their athletic teams is a perfectly justifiable split, similar to what is done routinely for such universities. Whether articles on individual teams should be merged into depends on their significance. Since the basketball team won a NCAA championship in 2010 there's a case for it--I'd need to see how other such teams are handled. The various centers need looking at, but we'd ordinarily mention these in the main article, and redirect/merge, not delete. The CLA building might be notable. The student center building should be merged to the student association, but I'm not sure the combination is notable: there is little content. I cannot see why on earth you included the agriculture section of their academics article--it's already properly merged. The question is whether that entire article should be merged into the main article as a section. Articles on bands and libraries and newspapers are acceptable when they are indpedently significant; that is probably not the case here, but they should be merged/redirected, not deleted. According to :[WP:Deletion policy]], deletion is the last resort. Wanting to delete rather than merge seems quite inappropriate. (Sometimes there is a problem of not getting consensus to merge, and the practical solution can be an AfD, though that's not formally what it should be for.) DGG ( talk ) 23:48, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Not that it affects the note, but that is sockpuppet I blocked. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:53, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

so I noticed after I wrote it when I went to his talk p to warn him that the strange mix of including articles that should surely be deleted, and those that should not, indicated a possible negative conflict of interest. As I've said at I think it was an/i, during many of the discussions involving this college and NYU-Poly, despite the article proliferation and recriminations on both sides, some of the material is usable, and some is not. If I can get a day clear from immediate fire-fighting, I'm going to do all the necessary merges. DGG ( talk ) 01:58, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

On a completely unrelated note: since getting the bit I've been working hard on my content creation,improving on what was noted as a weaknesses at RfA. I've 20+ new articles, which is more than the last 6 years combined. 1950s' American automobile culture is my latest and best so far. Of course I had a tremendous amount of help, but thought you might like to know I've not forgotten why we are here. I expect to aim for GA and FA with this article in time, my first for both. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 02:09, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Just to let you know

You have been mentioned at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Avaya Application Server 5300 Ottawahitech (talk) 14:49, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

And mentioned very rightly. These are examples of the series of deletions trying to remove all coverage of the products of the Ayaya corporation, a $5 billion annual revenue telecom firm split from Lucent. If they were done being brought by experienced editors here, I would have though it hostility towards this company, a type of vandalism that has been rather frequently seen, and is now being engaged in mutually by sockpuppets from two universities on opposite coasts of the US. Rather, I think it an obviously good faith attempt to alter the content policies of Wikipedia, which of course anyone has the right to try. Bringing AfDs is an accepted method for trying to see what the degree of support is likely to be. (Personally, I would have brought fewer at a slower pace, but this is not so blatantly unreasonable as some deletion sprees.)

The apparent goal would seem to remove WP coverage of all major physical products and product lines by major companies, or , that failing, reduce not just products but lines of business to single lines on a list, leaving but one article for the entire company and everything it does. Alternately, the goal might be to remove all information ultimately deriving from a company, which amounts to almost the same thing. conceivably its rigid adherence to the misunderstood letter-of-the law about the GNG, as if it were a fundamental invariable policy like Not Censored, rather than its actual state as a very general guideline with many exceptions; and ignoring the purpose of notability guidelines, which is to rationally sort out what is worth an encyclopedia article.

I do not normally support individual product articles except for very notable products; most should be merged into combination articles on the product line- but merged in a way to preserve, not destroy, the information. The article about every commercial and noncommercial organization, or every creative person, or every political and religious concept, serves in some extent to promote it by providing accurate information about it. We have enough problem with the true advertising and promotionalism for all of these, promotionalism which magnifies importance, while providing a minimum of actual information. All relevant WP policy and guidelines are designed to permit and indeed encourage neutral description.

I look forward to WP not just to reversing all previous deletions and over-merges of these products, but the much harder & longer job of writing them for the hundreds of thousands of products in all fields of commerce and technology for which we need articles . Our model is Diderot and D'alemberts Encyclopedie, famous in the eighteenth century and still in ours for the detailed description and illustrations of technology of the period--and the long continued detailed coverage of technology in succeeding encyclopedias.

I am here hours a day trying to remove promotionalism from the encyclopedia, and instruct writers with possible COI how to do it properly. There's an enormous amount of it. Mistaken interpretations like this do not help--they use time and effort that would is critically needed for removing the real junk, and in writing good articles. I'm no inclusionist about spam--I've deleted about 5,000 spam articles about products and organizations. DGG ( talk ) 20:13, 11 December 2012 (UTC

• @DGG, you are doing a great service to Wikipedia, thank you!

It is not easy to determine what this drive to eliminate what is mostly Nortel articles is motivated by. But, to me at least, it is becoming rather clear that it is not all in good faith. How else do you explain the fact that even though I have brought up, time and again, that Nortel is a defunct company, the same people who magically appear in all these deletion discussions keep voting Delete because of spam, do not seem to understand that a defunct company by definition is not in the promotionalism category? Ottawahitech (talk) 20:10, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

True, it does sound absurd, but promotionalism is a very broad concept--the company has successors, who manufacture similar products. And there is probably even a market for used ones. Hobbyists could still write an article on, say, the Apple I in a promotional manner, because they so much like it. The reason these articles are not spam is because they are informative not promotional--the true question, which is open to good-faith argument, is how much detail belongs in the encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 20:19, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David A. Schauer

Good arguments. Bearian (talk) 17:53, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Re: Advice

Not sure if I should post this here or on my talk page (so I added it to both) - Thank you for the offer to help. I compiled the information from several sources which are listed in the references, I think the main info came from here: The faculty profile: http://www.design.upenn.edu/people/malkawi_ali-m The board profile: http://www.gord.qa/index.php?page=board-of-directors I added quotes over sections that would have been exact copy/paste – such as the mission/goals statements/descriptions, etc. (such as www.design.upenn.edu/facilities/resources-school).

Both the center and QSAS articles had previously been published (not by me) and on Wikipedia for a few years before I created the Ali Malkawi article. I updated the other pages with current information such as links to articles that were current since there were postings about lack of sources/link rot (since I found them while I was creating the Malkawi page). Would I be able to add additional links to sources for any of these articles in the future? I would like to understand how to post in a way that does not create a conflict/appears promotional.

Regarding the center page, it had been up for a while, published by another user. The merge had been discussed on the talk page. I think it should have it’s own page. From what I understand, it functions as a separate entity – with different goals, objectives, mission, members, projects, offices, events, than the school of architecture. I did find a lot of independent sources listed under “T.C. Chan Centre” that could be added. Just trying to understand why it would be difficult to defend--in the past I have read Wikipedia articles about other departments or centers within large universities that have their own pages. I think that this center has coverage and has work that is notable for Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is new to me—still learning. Thanks. Energy22 (talk) 15:01, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is the place to ask, because busy people are more likely to see it on their own talk p.

The two questions are separate: should an article be deleted, and will an article be deleted. WP is not known for consistency, is erratic about following precedent, and will sometimes make exceptions to most rules if people really want to. I have to give you realistic and safe advice, based upon my experience about what will probably happen. (I have my own views, but though I can tell you what they are, I would be misleading you if i told you to rely on them. I do not get to make the decisions; no one person does.) So, on the basis of my experience here, I think that in practice almost all articles on research institutes or centers within a single department have been deleted or at best merged; they usually get kept when they are particularly notable free standing centers within a university. (Ones you may see around otherwise are sometimes there because there is some special justification, but sometimes because there was an erratic or biased conclusion to an argument, or even that they've escaped notice)

The technical guideline is WP:N, and more particularly WP:ORG; the key question according to the guidelines is usually whether there is substantial enough coverage and whether it is independent & not based on press releases. The decision for keeping or deleting is usually based primarily of the nature and quality of the sources, with only subsidiary consideration of the actual merits of the subject. (I think it should be the other way around, but I know I am in the minority--and if I am in a situation where I am the one to judge, I judge according to the general consensus.) Apart from the sources, there is a general tendency to not make articles for subordinate structures within a larger administrative unit: It took quite a while to establish that such entities as medical or law schools in a university should have separate articles; we have also been able to justify most well known separate journalism and architecture schools; we have not done nearly so well with most colleges of education or business. (This undoubtedly reflects the biases of the average editor here, but such is the state of things.)

I work a lot on these subjects,and I for years have tried to persuade the community to include as full a coverage of higher education as possible. I personally think it best to confine my efforts to the college level, and only the most famous departments, trying to be sure that at least these ones are covered. For research centers such as TCChan, I will support only the strongest. I consider this one borderline. There's no point arguing it here; when I bring it to AfD, and I will do so if I do not get agreement to merge it. The community will discuss it there, and some one else will decide what is the consensus. On the other hand, I think I will be able to say that the QSAS program is independently notable because of its wide adoption, & has good sources to show it.

To give you some idea of the arguments you will have to meet, for the center I will argue that almost all the coverage is internal to the university, or based on student papers, which cover all university events indiscriminately, or is based upon Press releases; and that the importance is based upon sponsoring one meeting of a symposium, publishing one journal, and having engaged in one important international project which should get its own article--and that everything else is local. I urge you to try to find enough good sources to meet these objections, and if you do, the article will be kept.

I should also have mentioned the page PennPraxis, added by a different editor a long time ago "the clinical arm of the School of Design" is in my opinion the least defensible of all: The descriptive half of it should go in the main article, but it is already mentioned there in one sentence, which is probably the appropriate length--its an integral part of the program. The casino material might go in the articles on SugarHouse Casino and Foxwoods Casino Philadelphia, if it is even significant there. Those who have written the current versions of the articles didn't seem to think so. This one I shall certainly redirect to the school unless you can find more material , preferably up to date material, The procedure if you disagree would be to revert my move, and then it can be discussed. DGG ( talk ) 20:37, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

You have mail!

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

Regarding a t-shirt nomination :) Jalexander--WMF 22:01, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Coursera

Hi DGG--I hope this finds you well, with none of your toes frozen off. I was wondering if you could have a look at Coursera, just to go over it and see what minor or major improvements you could make or suggest. As the late Whitney Houston put it so succinctly in "How Will I Know", "I'm asking you cause you know about these things." Also--do you think this business model stands a chance? It seems so unlikely to me, yet everywhere I look I see stuff like this, even at my own school. Thanks in advance, Drmies (talk) 15:55, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd suggest converting the business model section into prose, & I'll look for additional references. As for success: the financial question is whether people will actually pay for this, but the examples of payTV etc show they will, if the quality is high enough. What costs most is the supplementation by group discussion & tutoring if they include that, and students will pay for that also, if they can thereby get credit at their college for less than the college would charge ordinarily, & if widely adopted, it is possible that this may be enough to pay for a free service as well. The educational question is whether this will degenerate into lecture-only, and thus dilute the quality of college instruction. But what is the actual quality of much conventional college instruction? DGG ( talk ) 20:03, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

List of big-firm partners at Tulane Law School

Looking at some page histories, I see that back in 2009 you spearheaded a discussion of whether the Tulane University Law School article should keep its long list of lawyers who were partners at Vault 100 law firms. You argued (correctly, in my opinion) that such a list was not the sort we maintain on Wikipedia. It looks like this discussion went from Talk:Tulane University Law School#Partners at Vault's Top-100-Most-Prestigious Law Firms to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities/Archive 6#Notable alumni, where it appears to me the consensus was that the list was not appropriate: one editor strongly argued to keep the list but the others more or less all agreed with you. Nevertheless, it seems that since then, each time someone has tried to delete this section they have been reverted with an edit summary stating that consensus had agreed to keep the list.[5][6]. Was such a consensus actually established somewhere? Would such a list be allowed at another law school's article? Thanks very much for your input. (I'll watch for your answer here.) --Best regards, Arxiloxos (talk) 20:28, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I removed this obvious spam, though if it is restored I cannot take the actual admin action that may be thought necessary, because I both edited and commented; some other admin will have to do that. DGG ( talk ) 20:55, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree with the deletion, and I added a link to the old Wikiproject discussion for anyone who may be interested. Best, --Arxiloxos (talk) 21:49, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

NYC panel

Hi there, DGG. I sent you an email about details for the upcoming panel discussion last week, and wanted to try you here since I hadn't heard back. I hope you can still make it, and if you have any other questions, just let me know. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 03:45, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador

Just saying hi... I see you are the Brooklyn College campus ambassador, no? Am working on a Wikipedia project for Amy Hughes Theatre History Class.

--Eparness (talk) 19:58, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Hey DGG. I've just noticed that you've joined the Brooklyn College Theater History course as Campus Ambassador. Just wanted to say hello myself (I'm OA-ing the course), and add that I'm glad it's you - we've never crossed paths much that I can recollect, but I've seen you around at ANI and so forth, and you've always struck me as a pretty stand-up and level-headed guy. I look forward to working alongside on this project. Cheers, Yunshui 雲‍水 22:21, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

help find sources project

Hello DGG, last time I came here was for your comments on the description on the template primarysources. This time I seek for your comments on my drafted IEG grant proposal here m:Grants:IEG/find_sources_2.0. The basic idea is to enhance source-finding and thus citing practices for contributors old and new by providing lists of online and offline resources and some basic general description on the nature of the sources in these resources (per general research/librarian perspective and per WP policies WP:PSTS WP:V WP:RS.

Since you are the expert who are familiar with both perspectives, I hope that you will can provide comments to improve the grant proposal. Thanks. --_{(comparingChinese Wikipedia vs Baidu Baike by hanteng)} 00:26, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I'll get to this tonight. Thanks. DGG ( talk ) 15:48, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Local interest topics

Hi DGG, I noticed on some AfD's that you believe local interest topics are not suitable for inlcusion in Wikipedia, and I'm wondering why. When you find the time, I'd love to hear your reasoning. I think they are, on the same account that - for example - articles on insect subspecies should be included. They may be of interest to just a small group of people, but they are of interest. I quite often fidn your reasonings comelling though, so I look forward to hearing how I am wrong on this one! Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 12:01, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

this will take till tomorrow, for I want to give a full explanation; it's been a while since I last wrote it out, & I want it to represent my current view. But as a starting point, using your example, I think you probably meant insect species, not sub-species. I would not support articles on most insect sub-species--we will have enough work to do with the actual 900,000 known full species. (and the estimated 10 times that number that have yet to be identified). The subspecies should be handled the way anything but the most highly specialist books handle them: as part of the article for the species. There will of course be exceptions, when the particular subspecies has been much studied. DGG ( talk ) 21:08, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

No problem, take your time - good is more important than fast. The reason why I think we should include it, by the way, is point one of the five pillars: "It incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers" (emphasis mine). Now I realise that 'it incorporates elements of' doesn't mean 'it should include everything in', though if it is verifiable I don't yet see any objection to including it, and including it does seem to further our mission. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 14:24, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

from my holiday address (greetings from Koh Pha Ngan. You may be jealous now) a polite ping. 180.183.220.31 (talk) 09:01, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't mean to rush you, but have the feeling you may have missed this. So a quick second ping. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 16:17, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Medical College of Georgia Wikipedia page

Hello DGG!

Just saw you redirected the Medical College of Georgia page to the Georgia Regents University page, History section. I'd like to request that you undo this action, with the caveat that I know this can be confusing.

GRU used to be MCG - the Medical College of Georgia was a standalone university back in the day. However, the university grew to become Georgia Health Sciences University, and the Medical College of Georgia became ONE of the university's colleges.

On the Georgia Regents University web site (http://gru.edu/colleges/medicine/index.php), the Medical College of Georgia is listed as one of the nine colleges in the university. I believe the page you've redirected is the page for the college, so it's a sub-set page - not a historical university page.

I'd love to talk about it with you - please get in touch with me? Thank you!

Email: crule@gru.edu, or of course on my talk page, or here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GRUcrule (talk • contribs) 14:52, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

You are correct that it is customary from medical schools at a university to have a separate page; therefore, I intend to rewrite the page, and I think I said so on one of the talk pages, probably the one for the university as a whole . The reason I deleted the prior page is because it was almost entirely a copyvio from the university site;it had previously been deleted as a copyvio also, in several versions. I'll give a further explanation on your talk page tonight; there are acceptable ways to go forward, but also unacceptable ways. DGG ( talk ) 15:43, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good - I'm our Social Media Coordinator, but this is a recent position, so I haven't been involved in editing any Wikipedia pages prior to late January. I look forward to learning from your work. Thanks for the speedy reply! GRUcrule ( talk ) —Preceding undated comment added 16:24, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

IOP_Publishing

Ever since I accidentally got involved in an article being worked on by a WWBTOO employee (I did not realize the editor worked for him) I've been trying to avoid the Request Edit queue, but since nobody else is manning it, I'm going through it.

I came across this one that I thought might be up your alley on getting a second opinion on my merge suggestions: Talk:IOP_Publishing#Books_Publishing_section

I don't know enough about academic periodicals to know the best course of action. CorporateM (Talk) 17:12, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I responded. DGG ( talk ) 20:16, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Muchos grassius. I would prefer not to handle the Request Edit queue, but since nobody else is, I cleared up a good 15 requests that were mostly fairly obvious.

BTW - if you care to, I haven't gotten any feedback yet on Talk:YouSendIt#Draft_for_consideration. I'm pretty happy that they included content from an analyst report, because this is something volunteers will never have access to otherwise, but I feel we could use feedback on the BLP issues and any anti-promo tips. CorporateM (Talk) 21:29, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Ryan said he would take a look after his Wikibreak, so I'll wait for him! CorporateM (Talk) 16:21, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Schools

See my comment here. User unsuccessfully nominated a batch of around 100 schools for AfD a year ago and is well aware of AfD outcomes.--Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:51, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Nova Publishers

Hi, if you have a moment could you please have a look at this edit of mine and the discussion on the article's talk page. I'd like to hear your opinion especially about this SENSE reference. Thanks! --Randykitty (talk) 09:36, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Milking the bull

In working upon this topic, I observed that you had a particular interest in list of proverbial phrases. When I get a moment, I plan to make some bold edits there as it seems to have gone quiet. Just letting you know in advance... Warden (talk) 14:12, 23 February 2013 (UTC)~~

we perhaps should talk first. The main thing I think it needs is citations. I could put in a few dozen/hundred quickly. then of course it needs articles on all or most of them--that part I do not want to do. DGG ( talk ) 15:51, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

School districts

I know you endorse creation of articles about schools, but see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hartselle City School District.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 09:45, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

#smwwiki panel

		The Real Life Barnstar
		Thanks again for appearing on the discussion panel at Social Media Week NYC; it was a great conversation and I'm glad you were part of it! WWB Too (Talk · COI) 13:00, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Some falafel for you!

Thanks for your Guide lines for Islamic Azad University Khorasgan Branch. I will try again. Please check it soon Mehrnazar (talk) 08:15, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

CRL

It has been suggested you might be interested in the discussion at User_talk:Phoebe#CRL. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:12, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for unblanking that article about Paul

It was about Paul the Afc BLP (I forgot his last name), not the other Paul, Fisher of Men. I didn't realize that declining an Afc, for not complying with BLP standards, would result in automatic blanking, not until after the fact. There was nothing libelous or copyvio-ish there, merely insufficient, as in "needs more work". I didn't know what to do, if I could reverse it without causing yet more problems. I appreciate that you caught that and unblanked.

I have a few other items, while I am here. I can help you with certain aspects of your work here, not as sycophant-as-a-service, merely because I have a similar skill set as yours, in one tiny area of your field of expertise. On second thought, I think I'll just leave this on my own talk page, for your perusal, should you have time and inclination, rather than littering here. Again, thank you for your help yesterday. --FeralOink (talk) 05:38, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, DGG. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 19:46, 26 March 2013 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Cindy(need help?) 19:46, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Douglas W. Owsley bibliography

Hi, could you have a look at this article? I'm not really sure what to think of it. Thanks! --Randykitty (talk) 11:56, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm working on it. DGG ( talk ) 17:50, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Status and Advice on my new article

Hi, David. I have just put up my rewritten article about E.A.S. (Emanuel Scheek). I've tried to make sure that it is not excessively commercial anymore and I would like to know if there are still points I can improve on. Thank you in advance! Nemaja (talk) 22:03, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Interesting AFD

I am sure you'd see it soon by yourself, but just in case: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Copyright policies of academic publishers. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:55, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi DGG: in your reply to that AfD, is "The purpose of an ./e is to provide information." a typo you could fix, or jargon I don't recognise? Either way it doesn't convey any meaning to me, and I may not be alone! PamD 14:42, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I've fixed it. It's my TextExpander keyboard macro for "encyclopedia" It must have not expanded this time. A very useful program normally, DGG ( talk ) 16:33, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

There's another AFD I would appreciate your thought on (feel free to just comment on my talk page rather than posting there if you think there may be any canvassing involved): Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Advice Polack. There's also a serious discussion on article's talk at Talk:Advice Polack about reliability of sources. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:39, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Library of Congress subject headings

Commenting on Talk:Fouta Djallon#Suggested move, I came across Library of Congress subject headings. Library of Congress. 1996. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) I have seen this before. I would have no problem if this were used as an authority for article headings, at least where UK English is not the standard. Thoughts? Aymatth2 (talk) 13:11, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

LC subject headings are only one step up in terms of systematic consistency as our categories. They are not based on what information science now calls an "ontology"--meaning that they are not derived from any logical or scientific analysis of the sphere of knowledge represented. Rather, they are added to and updated in an ad-hoc manner as new books arrive.

Anyway, this is not 1996, but 17 years later. The up-to-date practice is most easily seen by looking at the subject headings used for new books on a subject in WorldCat, keeping in mind that the headings for new books are assigned by individual catalogers, who are not supposed to actually read the book, so even books on the identical subject may have different subject headings.

LC headings are useful; once you have found a book, it tells you how some similar books are likely to have been cataloged, so you can search under that term. Providing a practical thesaurus to assist this is the entire intent and purpose of the LCSH book.

As an example of its inconsistency, LCSH uses Futa Jalion for the name of the place, but Fouta Djallon Range for the nearby mountains. And checking worldcat, LC practice must have changed, for I see only the form Fouta Djallon. DGG ( talk ) 05:20, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• I was hoping LC was a bit more scientific and authoritative, and did not realize Worldcat had a similar list of topics. Maybe the Wikipedia approach of evolving to an accepted name for each topic through discussion is as scientific as any. Redirects are a great help. Thanks, Aymatth2 (talk) 11:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Library theft

Hello DGG: Library theft is a new article that you may find of interest to check out, improve, etc. Cheers, Northamerica1000^(talk) 22:20, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

== Might have found some new refs for [[Inter

AfC source tagging

Hi DGG per our last chat I've stated on implementing some (non game based) ideas for improving communication at AfC. I hope that these will be usefull in more rapidly establishing better reviewer norms at AfC. To wit I've developed two new inline warning tags templates tags and will add a few more tomorrow. The point being that these would supplement the existing rejection tags by providing more focused issue detection and better troubleshooting links.

I think the most common issues are

1. sources that are not independent - which we should tag with Template:!IN
2. sources that are user generated (blogs, wikis) - which we should tag with Template:!Blog
3. sources that come from Wikipedia - which we should tag with Template:!Wiki

So far I've tagged used these here BO | Talk 17:31, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Journal statistics

Hi, this discussion has stalled a bit and could use your input. Thanks! --Randykitty (talk) 16:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

A beer for you!

You made a very appropriate edit on 23:49, 5 November 2011‎ on the Mankind Project article--you removed a lenthy addition that was, as you noted, quite promotional in nature. I've been a member of MKP for 12+ years and credit the organization with helping me transform my life in many positive ways. However, puffery has no place for an organization that emphasizes Integrity and Authenticity. Cheers! Mark P.S. If you don't imbibe in alcoholic beverages, a fine tea or exotic coffee will be offered. :0) Mark D Worthen PsyD 09:08, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Precious

keep articles
Thank you for your efforts to keep articles, such as this piece of culture, for your love of libraries, for sharing resources, and for your thoughts on elucidating, - repeating: you are an awesome Wikipedian (25 April 2009, 25 June 2009)!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:54, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Selective Law Databases

Hello, what are some selective databases for law that would be the equivalent of MEDLINE? To avoid article deletion, inclusion in which law databases would signify that a journal is notable? 206.174.67.237 (talk) 10:13, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I will inquire. But since any legal journal is likely to be used for citation in a judgment, including a judgement of a supreme court, and since WP considers essentially every modern supreme court case notable , a case could be made for inclusion of articles on all of them. Most of the important law journals in the US are published by law schools as projects run by the students--obtaining a place on its editorial board is considered the highest honor the school can give, and all of these will be notable. But many schools now publish a variety of additional journals, University of X Law School Journal of International Law, ... of Constitutional, ,,, etc. , which have, I think a much lesser reputation--we have deleted a number of these at AfD. There are then the journals of the StateBar Associations, which could be merged with an article on each of the Bar Associations. Otherwise, I need to consider and ask advice. DGG ( talk ) 05:15, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Quick question: Outlines

In my work on public relations I came across this article Outline of public relations, which seems like a massively extended See also section of the PR article. Should I AfD it as a fork? CorporateM (Talk) 15:33, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

It's intended as such, essentially as a table of contents, like Outline of physical science, and many others: see WikiProject Outlines and Portal:Contents/Outlines. They are more systematically arranged than th text format of a general article, which requires reading, not scanning, to find specific topics. They are more article oriented than Portals -- see Portal:Philosophy, but more general than Indexes & Lists such as Index of standards articles or Glossaries, such as Glossary of US mortgage terminology . There's also a combination page type: Portal:Contents/History and events-- click "see in all page types".

It's a good question whether we need all of these systems of organization. We've tried others: a systematic organization based on List of Dewey Decimal classes or Library of Congress Classification or Wikipedia:Outline of Roget's Thesaurus, and yet others have been proposed. I think the overlap more than they ought to, but we'll never et agreement on which to concentrate on. Personally, I very much like the Outline of... structure, and would support it over the others. I believe that's the current tendency, also. Ideally everything would be indexed according to the two library systems also, because they're familiar--not that they're any good--especially LC, which was designed to match the structure of a US university curriculum in the first decade of he 20th century. There is no viable one dimensional way to organize knowledge--the alternative is some sort of Faceted classification, whose construction and use can get really complicated. There's even a totally different approach--to have no classification or indexing of any sort, but rely on free text implemented as we implement the see alsos, and the hyperlinks, as anything anyone thinks related, with no systematic organization. Or the extreme of having everything be a free text search.

Perhaps however you are asking whether every item on that particular outline you mentioned belongs--that's for discussion on it's talk page, or whether other things should be added, in which case boldly add them. Or whether the whole outline is biased in some way, in which case, discuss it. Only if it is irretrievably biased or confusing should it be deleted.

Categories are a necessary complement--they are self-populating, but eliminate the possibility of saying anything about the individual items. I use them very heavily for what I do, which is, upon finding a problem article, finding others that are likely to have a similar problem. They should also do very well for finding term paper topics. They will be more effective as subject guides when we implement category intersection in a simply and obvious manner. (And there's the related Series Boxes, those colored boxes at the bottom. I dislike them--they're visually awful, and are used frequently to express or dispute a POV. But they do serve nicely to indicate missing articles.

Quick question, long answer. See chapter 17 of Wikipedia the missing manual for a longer one, oriented towards categories. DGG ( talk ) 18:29, 16 April 2013 (UTC) .

Wikipedia Ambassador Barnstar

		Wikipedia Ambassador Barnstar
		For your extensive efforts both as an Ambassador and in other capacities on Wikipedia, I award you this barnstar. You and I do not always agree on specific matters, but your qualities of humility and devotion are admirable and I am thankful for your contributions. Neelix (talk) 14:39, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Cultural intelligence

Hi DGG--I ran into this, which has great potential (according to JSTOR), but it's hardly my field: I can't write such articles on such topics. Perhaps you can have a go? Thanks, Drmies (talk) 19:00, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Kansas-Armenia National Guard Partnership

In reference to your issues with the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_-_Armenia_National_Guard_Partnership I am the main contributor to the 22 National Guard State Partnership pages, but I am not the one deciding what goes up on each page. I was tasked by EUCOM with coordinating the efforts of each SPP director (there is one for each State) and each BAO (there is one in each overseas embassy) and taking what they give me. Obviously, they do not want to duplicate there own work and rewrite what they already wrote on their State National Guard website so they are copy/pasting select content and asking me to upload. This is what EUCOM wanted to do in order to avoid requiring each SPP director and each BAO to learn the enormous Wikipedia guidelines and to prevent a drastic variation in style and quality.

Tell you what you suggest. The content is not plagiarized. Would a comment on the State National Guard websites indicating Wikipedia is authorized to use the content be the fix? Incidentally, we are nearing completion of our own SPP page here http://www.eucom.mil/key-activities/partnership-programs/state-partnership-program and if you click on any of the 22 links halfway down, you will see it takes you to a pdf (currently in draft form) that shows the exact same content that is appearing on the Wikipedia pages. These pages are going to be part of a printed posture statement. Again, this is to avoid having to create yet another version of the same material.

As for the pictures not being relevant to the partnership, I'm at a loss for words. These were very carefully selected from a large pool of pictures and they each show something meaningful about the program. The soldiers lined up on the airfield getting off a plane is an example of a monumental form of cooperation among two countries that just a few years ago were bitter enemies. The fact that they appear together at all in a picture like this should speak volumes. If you don't get that then I suppose nothing I say will matter.

I am open to your suggestions. Briansmith451 (talk) 11:24, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

There are a few principles involved.

1. Copyright. WP requires that all material be either in the public domain or licensed under a free license, by which we mean a CC-BY-SA license, which irrevocably gives everyone in the world the right to copy, reuse, and modify the material. Permission for WP to use it is not sufficient--WP is a free encyclopedia, which intends its content to be used freely for any purpose, even commercial, as long as attribution is given and the material remains freely licensed. Any use of material not under such a license is limited to brief quotations. We do not permit any compromise with this.
   1. We additionally do not permit Close paraphrase of unfree material; not just the words must be changed, but the arrangement into sentences and the sequence of ideas.
   2. As I mentioned, material published by the uS Government is in the public domain, and so is material published by a certain few individual US states, such as California. (This does not apply to photographs or other material they reprint from elsewhere, which may already be under copyright). Material from most states requires a license--see WP:COPYRIGHT.I note that almost all material from other country's governments (and the UN) is not in the public domain--the US is almost unique in this generous provision for free use.
2. Plagiarism, which applies to all material, free or unfree, copied or paraphrased. Anything taken from an outside source must be attributed to the source explicitly. This goes beyond copyright--it's a basic convention of responsible writing.
3. conflict of Interest You are apparently editing on behalf of a group of outside organizations, as part of your job. This creates a conflict of interest. For our rules on this, see WP:COI. We do not absolutely prohibit it, but we do examine such edits very closely for objectivity. As a general rule, a suitable page will be best written by someone without COI; it's not impossible to do it properly with a conflict of interest or as a paid press agent, but it's relatively more difficult: you are automatically thinking in terms of what the subject wishes to communicate to the public, but an uninvolved person will think in terms of what the public might wish to know.
4. Ownership. Nobody owns a WP page, and anything you write is subject to editing by anyone--as an official editor you are no more entitled to determine the content than anyone else.
5. Notability A Wikipedia article needs to show notability with references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases. All or almost all the sources in the articles are from the relevant government units, and do not show importance. There should however be newspaper articles available for all of these, but they must b independent, not essentially copies of press releases. Additionally, such sources can show undisputed facts, but they can not be used for conclusions, such as the success of the programs, which must be shown by outside sources.
6. Promotionalism Include only material that would be of interest to a general reader coming across the mention of the subject and wanting the sort of information that would be found in an encyclopedia. Do not include material that would be of interest only to those associated with the subject, or to prospective supporters, or intended to produce a favorable public impression of the program --that sort of content is considered promotional. WP is an encyclopedia, not a vehicle for promotion of even the most worthwhile things.
7. Illustrations. Actually, I noticed that photograph to which you might be referring, in the California-Ukraine article . I noticed it as a very good photograph, though there is nothing to indicate the field as being in the Ukraine But there is no need for the duplicative photographs of soldiers practicing treating casualties in the Illinois-Poland article--onei s sufficient; and I do not think purely ceremonial photographs such as [[7]] or [[8]] or [[9]] are appropriate--dignitaries meeting each other are PR, as are group photos of the participants. They may make good PR, and good content for the organizational websites, but they add nothing that cannot be said in words as far as the encyclopedic purpose is concerned. Yes, it's important to show the soldiers from the two countries working together I agree with you on that--it adds a demonstrative element beyond what words can do, but perhaps once per article is sufficient, and also those few that show actual military joint activities, rather than just training. Excessive use of what would be a good thing if used in small quantities is a sign of promotionalism--saying the same point over and over again. But, as I mentioned, since nobody owns an article, neither you nor I need decide this.

There are several courses I could take, as an experienced editor: I could nominate these articles at AfD for deletion as promotional and lacking 3rd party sources ; I could list them for a requested merge into the main article; I could list the problem on a suitable noticeboard and ask for opinions; I could persuade you to fix them; I could fix them myself. I do not want to delete content if there is any alternative; a merge would greatly decrease the usefulness as indicating the foreign relations of each of the countries involved; I will list them on the COI board (WP:COIN) if we cannot reach agreement, but perhaps that will not be necessary.

But there is one thing I must do as an administrator. I must remove copyright violations from the articles, by either rewriting or blanking the sections, or listing at the copyright problems notice board. If you do not immediately remove the ones from state pages which are not public domain, I will do one or the other, or remove what I can quickly find, and then list them all--action there usually takes a few weeks. DGG ( talk ) 18:46, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you

It is good to know that my efforts have been noticed... particularly by a user who, when I see his user names on edits and efforts, I have come to simply assume that something necessary was being done properly. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:43, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Islamic Azad University Khorasgan Branch (Isfahan)

Dear DGG, hello thank you for your advice. I made some changes to the passage eliminating promotional words and somewhere rewriting the subject. I tried the text to be informative. I Used deferent references (both English & Persian). Please check if its ok I would appreciate confirming it.Thanks for your kind attention. Regards Mehrnazar (talk) 10:04, 28 April 2013 (UTC)Mehrnazar

It needs more radical changes than that. A Wikipedia article needs to be written like an encyclopedia article, not a press release or a web page -- Even though the material has now been licensed according to WP:DCM the tone is not suitable, and the English does not read clearly. That's why I usually advise that there is no purpose in giving permission; it is almost always better to rewrite.The various comments already made at the page will guide you.

My first suggestion would be to remove all adjectives, and just give the information. Moonriddengirl gave you some good advice about that on your talk page.

My second is that it would help having fewer photographs--one or at most two is better--pick the best of them. I would suggest one showing the campus or the most impressive building, not the routine photos of the interiors of what after all are rather standard classrooms and laboratories. I'd would pick the first and third in the first group of photos.

third, the section on the The Institute of Advanced Robotic and Intelligent Systems and the other special units are all of them too detailed. Remove what is relatively routine; keep in what is exceptional. DGG ( talk ) 01:47, 30 April 2013 (UTC) .

Blackboard Inc.

Hello there, DGG. It was excellent meeting you in person recently, and I hope you've been well! I have a question about a page we've both had involvement with, albeit not at the same time: Blackboard Inc.

A few years back, in fall 2011, I researched, wrote, and eventually posted a new draft of this article. This was the pre-"bright line" era; while I sought feedback from uninvolved editors, I was the one who moved it from my userspace into the mainspace after getting thumbs up from an editor at WikiProject Education. A little over a year later, in fall 2012, you made some changes, among them adding a template which still sits atop the page, stating that the article "reads like a news release". I certainly didn't intend to do that, but upon re-reading it, I can see things I might have done differently. I am again working with Blackboard, and we'd like to see what needs to be done before the warning could be removed. Would you be willing to share, here or there, what you think should be changed?

I know you've largely decided against reviewing drafts with company representatives, so if you'd prefer, do you have another suggestion for how I should proceed? And whatever the case, when it comes time to make updates, you can bet I'll find someone else to implement them. Thanks, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 23:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll always give suggestions about articles or drafts. What I do not want to do is be responsible for the article. If I wanted to be responsible for a major revision, I'd write it myself. I'm looking at both this article and Blackboard Learning System, an article inexplicably not even linked from the one on the company--an article which I think would almost qualify for G11 when I saw it just now. (I removed the worst of the promotionalism added in recent months & left warnings. I hope the company hired you because they wanted to stop such improper editing.) There are too many specific problems with both to list; I'd advise starting over on both of them. The first question is whether there should be two articles. I think there is such an enormous amount of discussion of the BLS in the educational literature, that there is probably enough to support two articles. Some key points:

1. too much of the company article is obsolete. The key market share data point is from 2006; the legal matters discussion ends in 2010, as does the discussion of the technology.
2. For software as major as this, we usually discuss the development of the different versions in brief outline.
3. The article is confusing. The article at present does not really make clear the major thing the company actually does, which is produce BLS. This would be the reason to have one article. The reason to have two, would be to separate the (related) legal questions about both the patents and what is seen as a de facto monopoly. In that connection, can the statement about WP i really be justified by ref 65? It's almost an accusation of bad faith, and if used, should be quoted.
4. Too many of the sources in both are company press releases.

 DGG ( talk ) 23:54, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks DGG, I appreciate the fast but thorough reply. Interesting point about Blackboard Learning System; I don't actually recall seeing it before, but I agree the two should be reconciled somehow, whether it's one article or two. I'll look at your other points, especially about the inclusion of sources. I'll very likely be in touch, but I won't ask you to be responsible for the update. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 01:46, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Photo

You posted on "Dr. Galen Starr Ross" that the photo may have been copied from another site. This photo was in a private collection and I compared it to the photos in the links I created in the article and they did not match. The photo was supposed to have been copied from an old brochure. How can I confirm it is not copied from the site you mentioned? Rachida10z (talk) 04:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

see your talk p. DGG ( talk ) 05:13, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I will work on this. Rachida10z (talk) 06:44, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I rewrote the article. I think this is much better.Rachida10z (talk) 08:07, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Library resources box

DGG, I and I expect others would appreciate your continued attention at the talk around user:JohnMarkOckerbloom's Template:Library resources box. There is a deletion discussion about this at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2013_April_30#Template:Library_resources_box. There was an article about this template in The Signpost in March, and some external press in other places.

This seems like a big issue which could set a precedent for how the Wikipedia community interacts with libraries. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:24, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

GrowLab

"Raising funds for notable organizations is not the same thing as notability ." And yet, raising funds for non-notable organizations is notable, as evidenced by Kickstarter and others. GrowLab is essentially a venture capital firm, an "accelerator" for small or proposed businesses. I added the entry for reference sake, since it was referred to by other pages: one of its founders is notable and has a page, a crowdfunding service that partnered with it is notable and has a page, and it's referenced in the page for the Economy of Vancouver. With so many references to the organization, should there not be an entry that explains what the organization is?

BTW, since I'd contested the speedy deletion, should there have been a discusson on AfD? Morfusmax (talk) 05:40, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

since you're the author of the article it only means I'm obliged to take account of your objection, and reply to your questions about it. If you protest, and I think it reasonable, I take it to AfD. But the entire content of the article was "GrowLab is a startup accelerator located in Vancouver, Canada. Founded in 2011[ref to Techcrunch], GrowLab works with prospective and existing businesses, connecting them with funding, mentorship and office facilities. GrowLab's compensation for this is 5 to 9 percent of the client business' common shares." If I took this to AfD, it would be surely deleted. As I said on your talk page, the thing for you to do now is to write a more extensive article with multiple reliable sources, an article explaining the importance. DGG ( talk ) 15:08, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

category intersects

Since you've mentioned wikidata many time, I thought you'd be interested in this: Wikipedia_talk:Category_intersection#A_working_category_intersection_today. We could use it as a band-aid while waiting for wikidata to spin up. Also w.r.t your votes - I think that whether we use the proposal i made above, or wikidata, simplifying the categories *beforehand* will actually make things easier. None of the categories i've proposed deleting could not be recreated through an intersect - but for now they serve to ghettoize and are against the guidance for ethnic cats.

Anyway, regardless of what you decide on the CFD votes, I'd really appreciate your input and help on the cat intersect proposal. cheers --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:25, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I have almost always supported ethnic subcategories. People look for articles in these fields, often to find subjects for school papers. I in general agree with maintaining the categories in the meanwhile, but I'm not sure its worth arguing about them for the present, considering the degree of opposition. As I said there is that intersection will remove the entire need for the discussions.What we need most to keep are the categories from which the intersections will be constructed. (Defining and organizing the root data is a harder problem--I find some of the current Wikidata proposals a little too casual. Adding data fields as one thinks of them is not as good as a systematic ontology.) DGG ( talk ) 15:02, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Notifications box replacement prototypes released

Hey DGG; Kaldari has finished scripting a set of potential replacements available to test and give feedback on. Please go to this thread for more detail on how to enable them. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Following up on your Predatory Journals discussion

I wonder if there's a definite list of ones to watch out for, as there seem to be a few creeping up at AfC. Instead of doing a thorough search, it would be practical to have a reliable list so we can notify the submitter, don't you think? Regards, (please TB me) FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I may have already said this, but I do not want to compose a list. Who are we to judge?

In fact, I do not like to use the term "predatory" at all, , just like I want to avoid "controversy" sections in articles. To the extent I can tell, some journals commonly considered as such may be fraudulent or hopeless, but I know that some are sincere efforts at alternative publishing. not all of the sincere efforts will prove to be useful, of course, but that's not a reason to condemn them. Publishing is a profession for optimists. I do not want to rely on Beall's list. I greatly respect him and the work he is doing, but there are objections about a few of the entries on Beall's list from reliable npov people in various listserv discussions, and i rather agree with some of the objections--I think he should possibly be removing from the list the very few that develop into respectability.

As for WP, the basic rule is simple, if they get into any of the ordinary indexes, they might be notable & there is no way to find out without a discussion. I know AfC is supposed to accept only articles which are good enough that not only will they pass AfD, but that no good faith AfD is likely; however, I think this is unrealistic in areas of unsettled notability, & this is one of them. If they're in a index more selective than DOAJ etc, and ifthey've published more than a handful of articles, I'd accept them, but I would first warn the editor that it will be challenged and that if they do not want what may be a very unsatisfactory discussion from their POV, to withdraw the submission until they have a better case. If you let me know what they are, I'll comment (or accept or decline, depending), but I think we have to go one by one. (If an article is about a publisher, I think it is just common sense that we want it to have at least one notable journal.) DGG ( talk ) 00:32, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, you've answered my question. My main dilemma was if we should simply go for GNG or should journals be held against stricter rules for those reasons. But you've clarified the issue pretty well. I agree in principle, although a list could be useful for bogus, unscientific claims, not for AfC's purposes. Thanks again! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 01:22, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

As for bogus claims, the problem is not that these journals are used for publishing important but weird work, but that the work they publish --if they actually publish anything -- is almost always thoroly mediocre, because people knowing enough to do good work know enough to publish in better journals. People wanting to spread crank ideas try to publish them conspicuously, and most of the really fraudulent work that makes headlines as such has been published in journals that should know better. DGG ( talk ) 02:43, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Notability of Japanese ambassadors

In the context established by Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Susumu Shibata, may I ask you to to take a look at two related articles. I wonder how to measure consensus opinion about Tsukasa Kawada‎ and List of Ambassadors from Japan to Algeria‎? --Ansei (talk) 17:33, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I would avoid making additional ones while the issue is unresolved, for the work may be wasted. For the ones already here, you might want to add more information if possible to get them stronger. Something I see missing is the dates for their ambassadorship, and this at least should be available. DGG ( talk ) 20:36, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

category intersection

You mentioned this in a few CFDs. Mind swinging by and giving your thoughts here, on a possible band-aid while awaiting wiki-data? Wikipedia_talk:Category_intersection#A_working_category_intersection_today? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:52, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Success Academy Charter Schools

Hello. You had commented a couple of months ago at Success Academy Charter Schools (Talk), and I was hoping you might weigh in again, or at least offer some additional advice on to how to proceed. Thanks! Grayfell (talk) 19:26, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I'll get there today . DGG ( talk ) 20:46, 11 May 2013 (UTC)>Insert non-formatted text here</nowiki></nowiki>

David Pickering

Have you been able to find reviews then? I haven't, but then perhaps my WP:BEFORE skills are inferior. I thought I'd better check with you before taking it to AfD. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 21:57, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

yes, but probably not in open sources. It will take me a week or two. I would appreciate the time to do it. Otherwise I shall need to use the less reliable arguments of library holdings, and that he would not have been asked to write so many similar titles for the publisher, had they not been successful. DGG ( talk ) 20:54, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Any update on this? I'd forgotten all about it but looking now I still can't find any evidence of notability. Thought I'd ask you before taking it to AfD though. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 17:35, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

This might be in your line

It might take me a few days before I get to it. Any help regarding Talk:Lois Herr would be appreciated. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:24, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

• I did a small edit, & will look again. DGG ( talk ) 00:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Article Errol Sawyer

Hi David. Can you help me to review the article of Errol Sawyer and get it in Wiki? It is in my sandbox. Thank you for your time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fred Bokker (talk • contribs) 22:45, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

tonight or tomorrow. DGG ( talk ) 17:48, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Anne Delong's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

—Anne Delong (talk) 12:06, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Monstrous

I hate to criticise an admin but the size of this page is just a very bad joke. OK, disk space is ridiculously cheap these days but it still offends me to have to gobble up nearly half a megabyte on a short message like this. Also please spare a thought for people with slow connections or mobile devices. It is impossible to edit this as an whole page on my tablet PC. Having been brought up with 16 bit machines, my personal limit is that I archive when my talk page gets to 64K bytes. Please cut this one down in size radically. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 13:24, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

you're right.1/3 done already. another 1/3 this weekend. DGG ( talk ) 04:33, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Anne Delong's talk page.
Message added 15:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

_nonsense ferret 15:56, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

AfC stuff

moved to May 19

Input needed re Peter Hersh

Hi DGG. If you have the time, your input at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Peter Hersh would be much appreciated, given your expertise with academic bios. The article is about a physician and clinical professor. Bizarrely, someone at AfC passed it yesterday when the references consisted virtually entirely of primary sources, and today proceeded to nominate it for deletion (!). I've cleaned up the article after it was moved into article space as the original version was promotional, repetitious, and actually misleading in places. Voceditenore (talk) 10:29, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I consider it very reasonable to accept, and then get a community opinion. How else can it be done? An MfD is the alternative, butit serves only to delete the afc, not debate moving it into mainspace. And for WP:PROF, the publications are the secondary sources. It depends on their impact. DGG ( talk ) 14:21, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but the deletion rationale was that it was an autobiography, not notability. By the way, several chunks of the article when it was moved into article space were pasted from the subject's website. I've fixed that now. Nevermind, thanks for your input there. I may well change to keep.:) What tool do you use for the citation numbers? It would come in handy for future AfDs. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 15:05, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Google Scholar, usually. Advanced Search, using publications written by, and they come out in numerical order. Someone else did it in Wos, and get slightly lower results. but even where I can get Web ofScience or Scopus, which I wan't this morning, , GS does similarly though with usually higher results for it covers a wider range of publications.Several people, including one of my former students, have published results showing that the 3 are equally valid, tho they each have their own artifacts.

I had not noticed the deletion reason--I assumed it was notability because it was a little borderline--these figures are good for the bio med sciences, but not truly exceptional, and there were no major prizes or really major positions. And the article was a straight CV, and a little promotional -- too many adjectives, & " one of the first" . & "one of 7" And all the papers,major and minor. It has the weaknesses of an autobio/COI job, which is what I think the nominator mush have meant. DGG ( talk ) 17:36, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Quick Second Opinion?

Hi DGG. I guess one of the issues with my COI work is that I often have access to a lot of Original Research. I was wondering if you would provide a second opinion at: Talk:MarkMonitor#Research_section regarding the inclusion of information about the company's board members. The organization has since been acquired and no longer has a board, but naturally there will be no sources to explicitly state that the board was dissolved. CorporateM (Talk) 20:52, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Again regarding this source?

Kiethbob believes the source constitutes an op-ed, because it clearly represents the opinion of the author rather than professional reporting. I originally thought of it as a regular article, but I believe Kiethbob is correct. However, if it is an op-ed, I believe we should remove it entirely, rather than: "A 2011 opinion piece in Tech Dirt criticized MarkMonitor's research methodology.[25]"

As discussed here, I feel uncomfortable debating the finer points of something like that. I think it is more sensible for disinterested editors to work it out, rather than debate with a PR person regarding contentious materials. CorporateM (Talk) 17:34, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Blackboard, in progress

Hey there, DGG. Following our last discussion, I did some new research and today I made a series of edits updating the article according to your advice late last month. If you're interested in seeing what I've done, here are a few links:

• Diff comparing live article of 5-3 to my latest userspace version
• Contribution list for Blackboard draft in my userspace, with edit summaries
• My latest userspace version of Blackboard Inc.

I'm just interested to hear if you think this looks better or, alternatively, if you have any further suggestions. I'm working on some further changes as well, and when I'm ready, then I'll look for someone else to consider moving it back. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 21:42, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

this will take a day or two, but I will get there. DGG ( talk ) 23:02, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of Sex effects of water pollution for deletion

DGG, You mentioned a strong dislike of "quack" anything on your talk page, a view which I share :) The fact that the page sources holistic medicine journals, the Daily Mail, and is written in an alarmist style, combined with plenty of existing data on the pages Water pollution, Template:Pollution, and Template:Marine_pollution led to me requesting the peer review. The only suggestion I heard back from science article volunteers was a suggested deletion. What do you suggest? respectfully, —Hobart (talk) 00:26, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I do not think the topic quackery. Chemicals do affect animals in this fashion. The sourcea you mentionare not the only ones present. I see what you mean about the style, so fix it. DGG ( talk ) 00:50, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

potential common ground

Where I think we may agree: The article consensus is changing or shortly will, as more editors join in editing the article and posting to its talk, resuming the traditional process so the earlier consensus will no longer produce the effect complained of. What I had invited at the talk page will probably now happen because the AfD brought in more people willing to work. (It is interesting to me what complaints were not made about the article.) Your original COI complaint, although mistaken, was made in good faith. Where we differed was in apparently requiring me to proceed in ways that would violate policies and guidelines, not for everything but for much, and, as you know, I had an obligation to refuse. I don't think this needed an AfD since the article's talk page was open, but, with the AfD, now presumably all of us can resume the normal course. Let me know if you think this will be a problem and I'll try to work with you on your remaining concerns. Nick Levinson (talk) 19:02, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

We have only this common ground, that we both want an article about the schools. I don't really think I need to defend what I said and did-- everyone who commented agrees your editing has been indistinguishable from someone who is a paid PR agent. As to who was violating the policy and guidelines, the community apparently has a firm opinion. As to what the article should be like, the community seems to agree with me also. The only one editing further -- an excellent and trustworthy editor--suggested a 90% cut in the material. As I said earlier, the matter is closed here. Comment at the AfD, if you feel you must say further, but please do not post here again. DGG ( talk ) 19:35, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

DGG: your talk page stalker, posting from the lovely Florida Gulf Coast. Holy Moly! 90% seems about right. I'd do it, but there's dinner to cook here. But sheesh, yes. Nick, if I may, here's a good opportunity for what some call a learning moment: DGG is right. Drmies (talk) 23:28, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Ralph Patt

FYI

"My grateful acknowledgement to ... Ralph Patt for his valuable assistance in the preparation of the manuscript", wrote Russell (1959).
Russell, George (1959). "Acknowledgements". The Lydian chromatic concept of tonal organization for improvisation. 40 Shephard Street; Cambridge, MA 02138: Concept Publishing Company. p. vi (unpaginated). {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: location (link)

Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:22, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

brilliantly done article, but what would you like me to do about it? DGG ( talk ) 23:40, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words.

You thought that you might be able to find the Russell book, which is rare, in the Fall, and so I thought I'd tell you that an interlibrary loan in Sweden was sufficient to find the acknowledgement (which was previously established by a few indirect citations). Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:03, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Mackdonald Language Academy

I have declined your speedy deletion nomination of Mackdonald Language Academy. You nominated it under the A7 criterion, but there it actually specifically states that educational institutions are exempt from that criterion. Since A7 is not an appropriate venue for deleting this article, I would suggest using WP:PROD or WP:AFD to proceed for notability reasons.--Slon02 (talk) 02:44, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

this has come up a few times. It is normally considered that degree-granting educational establishments, not language schools (or tutoring academies). But it doesn't matter, for it will undoubtedly soon enough be deleted one way or another. DGG ( talk ) 04:01, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

AFC query

What's the usual way of dealing with AFC submissions like [Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/The_most_beautiful_girl_in_the_world this one?] Decline and speedy? Or just speedy straight away? Valenciano (talk) 06:43, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I nominated it as a test page, G2. (I prefer not to do single-handed speedies of afcs at this point until we've clarified the rules). It's just playing around with WP. I see no point in declining first--the contributor knows perfectly well that it won't be acceptable,& it obviously can't be fixed. (I prefer to use test page rather than A7 for entries like this in mainspace also, seems unfair to say something negative about the unfortunate subject by calling them non-Notable DGG ( talk ) 16:56, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

AfC stuff

this response is still under construction. I will finish it in another 24 hours, but I want to check I've got everything & didn't get anything really stupidly wrong. . If there are any obvious errors, please fix them' (moved from earlier)

Hi DGG, in reference to your comment here: Firstly, I'd like to clarify that I feel your position to delete the submissions in question is entirely appropriate -- nothing notable or worth saving about them, why waste time!? Moveover, I feel that the current G11 criteria are fine as they are, perfectly valid in the AfC space, and the judgement about what should or should not be deleted left rightly to admins. Secondly, I picked up on your comment about the reviewing instructions. I have twice re-drafted the instructions (latest version quite recently) and was wondering if you have any advice to make them more decipherable? When the instructions were first created they were designed as a rough technical guide about which templates to use etc. I'm aware they have evolved beyond that now and would like to do what I can to make them more useful to people. Pol430 talk to me 20:12, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I would be very glad to work with you on improving AfC, though you will find my opinions of what is needed somewhat far-reaching. The instructions themselves are actually pretty good, though of course they can be refined further. The main difficulty is that they do not emphasise the importance of first considering whether the article is likely to ever be acceptable, and to concentrate of major problems first. The real problems with AfC are much more fundamental. See my list, above, in my discussion with Dennis Brown--which cover only a small part of what I see as the problems. This is going to be a long list.

One: I disagree with some of the criteria and practices in use, which do not follow any reasonable guideline:

A. At the extreme,some people are still using what amount to GA as the necessary standard. They reject articles for relatively trivial reasons, such as spelling.

B. The usual current standard is essentially at "not being likely to be challenged at AfD," but this is too high. It should be "likely to pass AfD " No one individual should decide on the acceptability of a borderline notable subject. That's what AfD is for, and the frequently disputed AfDs show the need for community opinion. (I agree that a standard that they need only pass speedy is too low--it ought to be better than that, because there is no point in passing an article that is probably going to be quickly rejected.)

C. The reviewers often reject articles for not having inline citations, not being aware that any form of citation is acceptable, as long as specifics are adequately referenced and identified. Specific facts need to be identified for controversial or challenged material, or especially for BLPs, but general references to sources are fine for most of the routine material.

D. they frequently insist on third party sources for articles that do not need them, such as places, or the other things that are intrinsically notable. There are special standards for sports, and academics, and other things, some specified in WP:N, some only in COMMON, and these all need to be taken into account.

E. They do not regard the two purposes: one is to get decent articles, the other is to get and keep decent editors. A potentially good editor should get ever encouragement, and articles from such people need follow up to make sure they are not abandoned. On the other hand, a COI editor who will be incapable of writing something acceptable needs pretty firm guidance to stay away, and not keep resubmitting the same material.

F. They do not distinguish between problems that could be easily fixed & give us passible articles that could be improved even further later, and those that need major work before acceptance. If it's minor, but the ed. never returns, we lose the article.

G. They do not check adequately for copyvio. I know this is being worked on, but it remains a problem. And when they do reject something for copyvio & it gets deleted, the contributor still gets a notice to see the AfC for the reason, --altho it is not longer there-- and thus gets no assistance.)

Two But it's not just people being careless or not following reasonable guidelines. Part of the problem is the procedures themselves, some of which are unduly difficult.

A. The set reasons are poorly chosen. Some of them are very rare, some common.

B. The commonly used ones are unspecific, and give no directed help

C. They do not permit giving multiple reasons from the list, which would at least make them more specific

D. They do not permit editing before posting them, as do the reasons in other commenting systems, like Huggle. They can be modified afterwards in a separate step, but this is much harder,

E. They are placed only on the article, not also in the user talk page. This would be trivial to fix, and would make certain the ed. saw the actual reason. As is, if they see "declined' the extra step to see why is one that many never seem to take. It should be facilitated, not hindered.

F. Multiple declines leave the "declined because of..." category for both the current and earlier reasons, which mean double or triple listing many of them.

G. There seems no easy way for someone other than the original ed. to relist something without the messages now coming to the relister, not the actual ed. who wrote the material.

Three But it is not just the details of procedures; more basic problems are the overall workflow and design:

A. the rationales in the dropdown list do not make a crucial distinction between articles that just need improvement and those that are hopeless,

B. there seems to be no easy way to take an article and turn it into a redirect

C. The check for duplication comes when the article is being reviewed. It should come as soon as it is entered.

D. there seems to be no immediate way of removing AfCs when the article has been created outside of AfC

E. There is no immediately obvious way of reviewing what has been accepted or declined for any given day. This makes it impossible to audit the procedure, trying to find accepted articles that need major improvement or even deletion, rejected articles that ned encouragement or rescue, and most of all, reviewers people whose work needs assistance.

F. There is no sorting at any point by approximate subject, even as roughly as AfD does it. I consider this the worst of all failings, because most of us to some extent do specialize to some extent. To illustrate, I could very easily clear up all the scientific journal articles--if only I could find them! I can't work effectively on most fields of entertainment, and if I can skip over them, I can go much faster.

G. moving all material from user space to AfC is not always the best course of action. Much that is moved, should better be deleted-- or left alone.

H,, I., J., and so on, forthcoming, but I want to get down to the essentials

Four And all of this has three fundamental and over-riding mistakes in conception

A. All submitted article should feed into a single workflow so they can be spotted and reviewed after submission

B. The procedure is at the mercy of whoever does the reviewing, much of which is by raw beginners

C. It is almost impossible to audit--whereas NPP is designed so the more experienced reviewers can see what the others are doing.

D. Doing this in WP Talk space was a poor idea, the sort of temporary measure which should have been changed long ago--it makes finding everything much harder.

Five It's not that there are problems. It's that the system will not be fixed. I've asked for many of the simple fixes months ago. I've received repeatedly one of three responses:

A. The change would be made. But they never were, not even sending people notices to look at AfCs that were no longer visible.,

B. It wasn't a problem Whoever has been deciding that doesn't realize that every handicap in the way of new users is a problem--matters like this need community decision.

C. It couldn't be done. I really doubt that--this just means it will be difficult. But keeping new articles & new eds. is the most important thing we have to do here. It's the critical requirement for sustaining WP, because no editor will remain here permanently--most of us get tired, or bored, or move into different interests or obligations--and the few who don't will eventually die.

Sixth and last My conclusion is that the AfC procedure is not worth the trouble of fixing. The existing articles should be cleared out, and a new and rational system started, modeled after the NPP system, Article Curation, and the Article Wizard

A. The simplest way to do this will be to start a MfD on the pages, This remains the control of the community over bad process.

B. Obviously, in practice this will be a long and disputed RfA, but I think enough people are unhappy.

C. But we can't leave a gap, so I'd rather do it after someone has done at least preliminary design on a replacement system.

D. I'd be glad to help anyone who is prepared to prove me wrong by making sufficiently radical changes. DGG ( talk ) 03:11, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)This is worth having in one place. Would you consider copying it to a user sub-page and possibly slapping a "user essay" tag on it? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:37, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

So I will, but I want to figure out how to format replies, etc. Perhaps by copying the question part as sections on the essay's talk page? DGG ( talk ) 03:46, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed response DGG, I endorse more-or-less everything you have said. I particularly understand your frustrations with trying to suggest changes that never get implemented. AfC has, for a long time, suffered from severe shortsightedness. I would like nothing better than to see the current system replaced with something more integral to MediaWiki (like page curation) accompanied by a centralized landing area for both declined and accepted submissions. I agree that this is unlikely to happen. I have for a long time consigned myself to the position 'one little bit at a time' where AfC is concerned. I think a lot of what you have mentioned is achievable, but at the end of it, will we still have a sprawling and complex project that only a handful of die-hard participants truly understand or can navigate? I think the answer is yes, but I doubt I'll stop trying to improve bits and pieces. I'll have a proper look through your suggestions over the next few days and see if I can get a feasible to-do list up for people to work on. Incidentally, I started some work on further refining the reviewer instructions. Primarily, I would like to split the instructions into 'using the script' and 'doing it manually'. My initial efforts can be found at User:Pol430/Sandbox/AFCR Script for the script specific instructions. Feedback welcomed. Pol430 talk to me 23:20, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I expect to adda few more things tomorrow, primarily from some qys I asked at WT:AFC. Normally, I'd agree with your strategy--I have always looked for a way to adapt existing WP process, rather than develop new ones. In this case I am not at all sure the process is not under the effective control of those who will not change it. Yes, WP people generally something get over-complicated & try to cover everything. But we have kept the deletion processes from complication, and Page Curation works well. I think the key is to think of everything as a preliminary step feeding into NP. I agree with your suggestion about the instructions: I would use it to even more strongly deprecate doing it manually. The current gadget is the one to build one for now. DGG ( talk ) 01:03, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

We have a persistent related issue at the Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard, of users creating an article on AfD and then cut and pasting to mainspace. See Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard#Another_class.3F. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:13, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

non-ed program users do it to; I do not think there is a way of preventing it--they could after all have written it offline entirely and pasted it into mainspace. The problem is that it leaves behind a duplicate article at AfC, and that can be easily handled by G6'ing the left-over AfC with an explanation such as "preliminary version" . But the actual problem is that they should not be using AfC in the first place We have enough problems with guiding the ed program users without exposing them the the vagaries of uniformed AfC commentators. The only time I ever tell someone to use an AfC -related process is when it's a promotional editor, and I tell them to use the Article Creation Wizard, in the hope that the strictures there will make it clear why they should not be writing an article. DGG ( talk ) 01:21, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Misread what I said?

Hi, I think you misread what I said at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Motionless_electromagnetic_generator. I never said the sources were unreliable, IRWolfie- (talk) 13:25, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

i did misinterpret, and commented there

Section rename

I renamed Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation#Questions to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation#Questions (May 20) because I was tired of the "save" button taking me to the wrong place. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 20:42, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

right. There will always be many questions. I should have thought of that. I appreciate your help in figuring out the details -- I don't want to be too critical about something until I fully understand it, or give up on fixing what can be actually fixed. OK if I incorporate your answers there into my discussion above , or should I rewrite ? DGG ( talk ) 21:14, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Copyright Question?

May 22 - Thank you for your feedback. I would like to try again based on your recommendations. Is there a way to access the page you deleted, so I can further edit?

Hi DGG, you deleted this page Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/SpiderCloud Wireless (G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement). I'm unclear on what caused you to mark and delete the article. I am eager to remedy the problem and have tried to follow all rules to the best of my knowledge, perhaps I missed something? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cbranin (talk • contribs) 21:25, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

replied on your talk p. DGG ( talk ) 05:35, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Quick question

I noticed you (and other admins) often tag pages for speedy deletion, even though you can delete them yourselves. Is this out of personal preference for wanting review by another admin or is there some guideline or unspoken rule that calls for review by at least two different people? Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 00:36, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Most of us think it better that two people see the article. I am capable of mistakes, and I know I occasionally make them, because people are not at all reluctant to tell me--sometimes I will have missed something, or not understood, or just gone too quickly. Even for the utterly obvious, there's the possibility of carelessness or sleepiness, or just frustration at having been seeing so many totally unsatisfactory articles. I doubt anything requiring human judgment can be done at less than 1% error. I've deleted over 12,000 articles over the 7 years I've been doing this. and that would have been 120 wrong deletions, and potentially 120 good editors lost to WP. But with someone else checking, that makes it only 1 or 2 in the whole time.

In fact, I've argued that this should be absolutely required, but there are cases where one must act immediately, and it's been difficult to specify exactly the exceptions. DGG ( talk ) 00:48, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh ok, thanks. I agree with you. I was just curious. Ramaksoud2000 ^{(Talk to me)} 01:47, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I appreciate that there are times when you must act immediately, such as WP:ATTACK and WP:OUTING and possibly other situations. Do the admins have a tool that makes it easy for admins to "delete (or WP:REVDELETE) now, and list the page for review by another administrator ASAP" and if they do, to most admins who make "unilateral deletions" use this tool? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:04, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) There is no rule that admins can't delete anything on sight, but tagging and leaving for a second admin to delete is a good, unwritten practice that most seem to observe. Most of us will of course delete blatant COPYVIO, attack, and vandal pages immediately and some other cases of obvious nonsense. However, admins don't actually make many mistakes with their deletions, so 'delete and review later' by another admin would be redundant. I've deleted around 3,000 pages and only restored 20, and those were userfications. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:15, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

I define 1% as "many" if one thinks of the cumulative effect over the years. If everyone who had a reasonable case stayed and complained, yes it would work, but most don't. There's also the definition of "error"-- does it mean an article that would pass AfD, or an article that with enough work might possibly pass AfD, an article to which the speedy criteria did not apply, but would end up deleted anyway The 1% is for the first two classes; for the third, it's more like 5%. In any case the error rate will depend on the type of speedys. I tend to look at the ones that have been passed over for a few hours. I only really know about my own errors, and of course my rate may be unusually high because I may be unusually incompetent. Some years ago I did intend to audit speedies--the reactions I received from admins involved in the ones I challenged persuaded me it was not the route to effectiveness here, and tolerating injustice in this was the way to be more useful overall. (There was 1, & only 1, admin who did change their practice in response to my comments.) I think I will decide the same about the G13 AfCs. DGG ( talk ) 20:57, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

AFC Helper Script fubared the move

this edit in which you used the AFC Helper Script to move Barnard & Westwood to mainspace didn't remove the AFC submissions. Please let the script maintainer know what version of the script you are using. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:12, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I use the gadget. What it does, I don't know. I think almost everyone uses the gadget, except people who started before it was there and never switched. But I've seen a number of similarly messed up moves, & cleaned up after them. What seems to happen often is that if there are comments at the top of the page, it does not remove them. It may have something to do with whether previous steps were done rightI do not yet see a pattern. . I think it's probably necessary to check every time that the p. comes out right.

What I've been trying to figure out a way to audit the recently accepted ones quickly. Using the dated category doesn't work well, because there is no way to tell what the article will be about, unlike when it's still an AfC (or when something is an article) and you can see by hovering. I'm trying to scan now use Special:Log/move. I found a really messy example Databet. I'm not cleaning it immediately, so you can see it. BTW, who is maintaining the script? Confirms my opinion, that there is no point in trying to fix this process. The more I look, the worse I find it. DGG ( talk ) 04:47, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)I have been told that the error is as follows: If the user types in "{{afc comment|1="coment". ~~~~}} it will not get cleaned up when the AfC is accepted. They must use "{{subst:afc comment|1="coment". ~~~~}} I made this error on an AfC and the reviewer told me this was how to correct it. CorporateM (Talk) 13:17, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)(different stalker) Hmm, I frequently use 1= if I'm including an "=" in the comment. I'll have to start using subst: as a work-around. In any case, the script needs to fix this. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:27, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Uhm, I'm the script maintainer. Interestingly nobody informed me about this issue, neither at WT:AFC nor at WP:AFC/DEV...

I will check if I can found any problems and fix them...

@CorporateM: No, the other way round: if the template is substituted, the script has no chance to recognize what was part of the original comment/template. mabdul 15:39, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Question: does usingthe gadget for enteringthe comment at least put in the comment correctly? DGG ( talk ) 15:42, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Uhm, yes. It should... I never heard of any problems about comments except that I saw some that were manually added and using subst (and thus were not removed). mabdul 15:59, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

As I mentioned a few minutes ago at WT:AFC:
"Related to the "stuck and lost in edit" bug: I change a bit and requesting every time a token. Hopefully this fixes that particular problem, although this adds more API calls (means more requests to the server)."

mabdul 21:51, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I chose not to contact you directly as I didn't have key information (namely, gadget or production script) that you would need to get started. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:07, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

"""thanks, it will be very good to have at least this fixed, so we can work on the more pervasive long-standing problems. DGG ( talk ) 22:39, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Of course I try to fix bugs and add new features which help the reviewers to do reviews easier. mabdul 06:10, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

My participation in AFC

You've asked me questions as if I was a font of deep knowledge about AFC at least once on WT:WPAFC recently. While I do have some deep knowledge it has some gaping holes in it due to a long absence from the project:

I was heavily involved in AFC for a few months in mid-2007 but sometime in 2007 or 2008 I pretty much stepped away from it until very late last year or early this year. During this absence there was a wholesale reorganization of the project, with much-improved tools and procedures and an IMHO (opinions may vary) much-improved submission and archiving procedure. That's not to say it can't be improved again, it's just that my historical knowledge has a multi-year gaping hole in it. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:33, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

If I may boast, I even picked up a couple of now-dusty awards for my work in the July-August 2007 AFC backlog drive. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:36, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Double voting

Hi DGG,

It looks like both User:DGG (NYPL) and User:DGG voted in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Farhad Mohit. LFaraone 01:23, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

to my total amazement, you have brilliantly detected my subtle attempt at sockpuppetry. :) DGG ( talk ) 01:45, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

List of principal conductors by orchestra

Hi. Would you like to comment here? Thanks. --Kleinzach 01:37, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

J.O. Patterson, Sr., Nazis, syphilis, etc ...

Thanks for your very interesting message. I have read it all with interest, and replied to the part that is of most immediate relevance. JamesBWatson (talk) 07:50, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Banqsoft

Hi DGG.

I've tried to improve my Banqsoft-article with some references. If this is not good enouugh, could you try to explain what else I can improve?

Best regards, Marius.Willy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marius.willy (talk • contribs) 09:24, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Partisan Repulic of Rasony

DGG, thanks for your help with the deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Partisan Republic of Rasony. I wanted to note that it was a multi-article deletion, with Operation Heinrich also ominated. If you wouldn't mind speedy deleting that for consistency, that would wrap things up. Cdtew (talk) 01:23, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

done DGG ( talk ) 04:22, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Confused. Perhaps I did something wrong.

Hi David. Thanks for all your many years of generous service volunteering here at Wikipedia. As you are somebody whose opinion I greatly respect, I wanted to ask about some comments that have confused me. This comment of yours seems to sort of conflict with this comment. As the author of the RfC in question, I think I may not have provided enough background or maybe not described the situation properly. Perhaps I didn't make a clear enough connection between the template and the service. Could you possibly let me know if I could improve the situation? Thanks very much. 64.40.54.118 (talk) 04:07, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't see the conflict. I think it's a wonderful service, and should be implemented very widely. It doesn't quite do everything, and considering I equally use two different public libraries and two university libraries, a link to a single library will not be of as much use to me as most people. Do I misunderstand, or is it that I did not explain myself clearly in the 2nd comment? DGG ( talk ) 04:14, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps I was misinterpreting your comments. One seemed enthusiatstic while the other seemed subdued, but I was probably reading that in to it. I was more concerned that I may not have presented the RfC details well enough for the community to fully understand it (i.e. what the service is and its benefits). I guess I was looking more for suggested improvements to the RfC. Thanks for the help. 64.40.54.118 (talk) 04:45, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

You are right, I was not clear enough, so I added some unmistakable emphasis. I think there are lots of possible improvements, but the most important thing is to get the basic interface adopted. I'll have some suggestions. DGG ( talk ) 05:24, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you I'll look through the RfC tomorrow and see if I can rewrite it to be a bit more informative. Thanks kindly. 64.40.54.118 (talk) 06:41, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

AFC and sockpuppetry

I'm sure you've noticed a lot of new editors jumping in to start approving articles, or even declining them. Please feel free to ping me any time you find a user who is new enough that it is obviously out of place. Email is also very effective and reduces any drama concerns. We are seeing much of this at WP:SPI and can often connect the dots. You don't have to build the case or file the paperwork, I will gladly do that myself. Dennis Brown - 2¢ - © - @ - Join WER 12:24, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

perhaps you could email me (or tell me here, if its already been dealt with) to let me know me some examples you've noticed that aroused your suspicions. Unfortunately, one of the many faults of AfC is that we have no easy way of sorting out accepted submission by date. Almost the onlyway to see them at all is to go through Category:AfC submissions by date and look for the ones that link to article talk pages, but hovering doesn't work== you can't see what they are till you open them. There's another way--even slower, using Special:Log/move, but there is no way to separate them from the great majority of moves that are for other reasons. DGG ( talk ) 18:29, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

For example, if you see a new face that is reviewing AFCs and they have 100 edits here, I would like to know. I have seen editor A setup sock B, and sock B starts reviewing AFCs, starting with other articles. Realistically, a new editor shouldn't be reviewing AFCs anyway. Most new users wouldn't even know about AFC. Same with a new user that is submitting multiple articles that are borderline G11. I work so many of these cases at SPI, I'm often able to guess a sockmaster based on their contribs or style simply by memory, then I can compare deleted material, build a case, and request a CU. Reducing the spam from AFC by making it harder for socking there has to help. And email is best because if there is no connection, no one's feelings get hurt. You don't need to know or think they are a sock, only that they fit that unusual criteria of being where a normal user with their experience wouldn't be. I've been known to tracks socks for weeks when needed, then G5'ing once a connection can be made. Reducing the incentive. Since you are on the front line there, you might notice them faster than others will. Dennis Brown - 2¢ - © - @ - Join WER 02:26, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I'm trying more to clear up the back end, than the front line, so much of what I see will be very old. But when I see someone doing poor reviewing, I tend to look at everything they reviewed, back as far as it goes, so I might find someone that way. But what I've also been seeing in new editors is they do know about AfC because they've submitted an article, and on the basis of the acceptance of that one article, they start reviewing others. DGG ( talk ) 02:31, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Much of that is innocent enough, but not all of it. Often it takes digging through deleted contribs and using tools to find intersects with other known socks to make a connection, something you wouldn't normally do but an SPI clerk does regularly. It is an easy avenue to abuse, just like marking obvious spam from friends/socks as "patrolled" at NPP. I don't want to assume bad faith (or venture into WP:BEANS), but it is an easy and obvious target for abuse, and it is already happening. Searching for "AFC" at WP:SPI gives an indication [10] and I'm sure we are missing more than we are catching. Anecdotally speaking, I'm seeing more cause for concern than a year ago. The recent issues[11] with Jaylen Bledsoe and the three AFC filed, and other article created to bypass salting[12] is only one example of COI socking connected to AFC. Dennis Brown - 2¢ - © - @ - Join WER 14:42, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Quickly finding old AFC declines for G13, and old accepts for whatever reason

It's not hard to find old AFC declines, at least not for the time period after the current "way of doing things" took effect. If you go to Category:AfC submissions by date/2012 and drill down to an arbitrary date and look at the names of the pages. If they start off with "Talk:" it is almost certainly an accepted submission. If they start off "Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation" or something similar, you will almost certainly find an old decline. You will want to check the page history before G13'ing it though, just in case the submitter or someone else has modified it making it too new to be G13'd.

For verification, I checked all items through letter "K" in Category:AfC submissions by date/01 January 2012 and if the title was Wikipedia talk: it was a stale decline or draft. If the title was Talk: it was an accepted article, usually with a redirect left behind. Note that SOME of these pages had been edited or in at one case re-submitted and subsequently re-declined a couple of months later. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 20:51, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

You can indeed find them, but it's hard to audit them. To audit articles from NP or any other list, such as CSD or PROD or a log, I rely on the popup gadget, which shows the first few lines of text. About 3/4 of the time, this is informative enough to tell be whether I want to deal with it, or whether it's a subject about which I am ignorant. which are best left for others. It will also be often enough to disclose some standard problems, like the worst forms of promotionalism and autobiography. Here, it shows nothing. I have to open the talk p., and then switch to the article. Since typically I will look at 100 popups and then look further and maybe 10 or 20 articles, this greatly increases the time. I am nonetheless doing it, but the work is so great I cannot promise to do it systematically. The hope is that I will find the most frequent reviewers in need of some assistance. (for the unaccepted articles, it works fine, because then it shows the article on the popup, & I can can tell.) I am currently going systematically thru the oldest end of the declined articles in the new system before G13 gets to them, trying to rescue the most essential 1%, and find the 2 or 3% which are OK as is and should never have been declined. There's maybe 10 or 20 % that could be rescued, but I cannot personally revise that much of the encyclopedia. A few more of us, and we could.

The point is not that it is impossible to use afc; rather, it's needlessly difficult. DGG ( talk ) 22:03, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #59

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

• Events/Press
  • Linked Data in Business
  • currently: Hackathon in Amsterdam
• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • It is now possible to access data from Wikidata on the Wikipedias by using the property's label.
  • The time datatype can now be tested on the demosystem and should become available on Wikidata next week.
• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: catalog code (P528), runway (P529), diplomatic relation (P530), diplomatic mission sent (P531), diplomatic mission sent (P531), port of registry (P532), target (P533), streak color (P534), Find a Grave (P535), ATP id (P536), twinning (P537), fracturing (P538), Museofile (P539)
  • Newest task forces: Ship task force
  • d:Template:Constraint:Item allows to check if items using a given property also have other properties. To find items to fix, it links to one of Magnus' tools and to a daily report. Sample: items with property mother should also have main type (GND) with value person.
• Development
  • A lot of discussions and hacking at the MediaWiki hackathon on Amsterdam
  • Worked on content negotiation for the RDF export
  • Bugfixing for editing of time datatype
  • Added validation in the api for claim guids. This also resolves bug 48473, an exception being thrown in production, whenever a bot or api user requested a claim with an invalid claim guid
  • Improved error message popup bubbles to show HTML and parse the links correctly
  • Fixed bug 48679, to hide the view source tab for item and property pages
  • Testing on Diff extension and SQLstore
• Open Tasks for You
  • Add statements to Wikidata: either manually, through "array properties", through a bot request, with Wikidata useful, or by operating your own bot
  • Help fix formatting and value issues for a property
  • Respond to a "Request for Comment"
  • Hack on one of these

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 21:26, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Qualpro

Hi DGG. You recently added an Advert tag to an article I wrote on Qualpro. Any suggestions on what I need to do to make it less promotional?

Also, just as a heads up, I pinged you a few days ago about MarkMonitor (again) to see if you had an opinion on this:"A 2011 opinion piece in Tech Dirt criticized MarkMonitor's research methodology.[13]" I don't mean to pester (and by all means I can ask someone else) just thought it might have gotten lost as your Talk page fills up quickly. CorporateM (Talk) 23:59, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Briefly, for Qualpro try using the name a little less, making links to journal articles link to the journal, with an added convenience link to the firm's copy if the one on the journal site isn't freely available, use less detail in the reports of their findings in specific cases, avoid repeating wording between different sections, and look for at least one academic article discussing their methods--ss is, it's hard to tell the degreeto which they are unique, or whether their methods are routine. For MarkMonitor, I remain unclear on exactly what it does besides monitor cybersquatting. I'd like very much to have a better source for criticism, and I wonder if there are any skeptical comments in the newspaper reporting. I'm reluctant to remove it , as it gives some balance to the article. Again, words & phrases are repeated a little too much,and the company name used too much. DGG ( talk ) 00:43, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done. I adjusted a substantial number of references to "QualPro" (didn't realize I had said it so many times) and trimmed some detail under the Experiments section. The bulk of their media coverage was related to specific projects, so this was hard to trim, but I carved out a bit of it. I found a few direct links, many of which require registration or are of poor quality and removed the URLs completely where I couldn't find a non-QualPro URL. These were used only because they are the most accessible and best-quality copy of the source material, but I don't want anyone to think I am just trying to generate links, so I would rather just remove them.

The MarkMonitor article is mostly written by Kiethbob, who just used my draft for sources and a starting point, so I would prefer not to edit his work. CorporateM (Talk) 01:35, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

I can understand that, but that's no reason to inhibit me. It's normal for successive reviewers to see additional little problems.  :) Similarly, I will take responsibility for adding back the convenience links. As you say, it's better for it to be someone other than you. DGG ( talk ) 01:50, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

I welcome other editors to come and refine or improve the work I've done at MarkMonitor (or any other article I've worked on for that matter) Happy to have DGG and others in the collaborative process :-) -- — Keithbob • Talk • 05:24, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

May 2013

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RfA

Hi DGG. I've posted a reply to your question - I'm not sure if it answers it as well as you'd like, so if I can help by clarifying something just let me know. Issues around our policies are, I suspect, something most of us could write a thesis on, so I tried to stick to only the two areas. :) - Bilby (talk) 09:49, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

F.Godmom

Hi DGG. I have one question, is this article F.Godmom notable enough? Sorry for asking this, but I know that GVnayR likes to create pages totally at "random", and has caused (actually still causing) many trouble in the past because of copyright infringements among other "childish" things. When you have some time, please review that article. Regards. --46.50.120.95 (talk) 13:58, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

this isn't a field where my opinion would be of much value--the way to find out is AfD . To be sure, you need to register an account in order to do that, but you can also ask at WT:AFD that someone open one for you. DGG ( talk ) 16:58, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

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Deletion of entry for Moravia IT

Dear DGG,

I see you proposed for deletion the page of Moravia IT at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravia_IT, which was then deleted. I believe this is because of the alleged infringement of copyright of the logo, which I uploaded. The company (which I work for) has undergone a rebranding in 2012 and uses a new logo now. It may be my mistake in incorrectly marking the property of this logo when updating the page, which I wanted to stay current. Can you please restore the page and I will upload the current logo again (it is normally available at www.moravia.com). I think it is a pity if a valid page should be deleted simply because the entity's current logo is not properly tagged.

Thank you! Vikivik (talk) 15:08, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

When just the logo is a problem, we merely delete the logo. The actual problem was much more serious --so serious that I have had to delete the article: it was copied almost entirely from various parts of your web site, either literally or as Close paraphrase with only a few words changed. Specifically, the history section was copied from "Our story" & other parts were patched together from elsewhere on the site.

It might be possible to give permission according to DCM, but remember that this gives permission to the whole world to use and modify it, even for commercial purposes. In my experience, it is almost always easier to rewrite.

I think a sustainable article could be written. It would be best to do so through the WP:AfC process, using the [WP:Article Wizard]].

To avoid a promotional tone, it's better to avoid all possible adjectives, certainly ones implying quality. I also see that there are no references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases. Everything there is a press release. or a listing, or a dead link. Every statement that you have been given an award must be sourced to a reliable source. You might want to remove regional awards, which are minor, and "largest" 20 means less than specifying the rank. And avoid bold face, except in the first sentence. If you want to say "5 out of the 8 Fortune 1000 computer software companies or 4 out of the 7 Fortune 1000 computer hardware manufacturers" you need a 3rd party source, which is tricky, because we also do not allow lists of customers.

I hope this helps. DGG ( talk ) 16:07, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

What's in a name ?

An editor is interested in the correct title and information pertaining to the article entitled "CSA (database company)". Of course, I am also interested in accuracy. The introduction use to say that the company name is "CSA Illumina" [14] under the ProQuest banner.

However, someone tagged the article, and removed the "Illumina" from "CSA Illumina" in the intro [15]. The editor did leave a query on the talk page. Today I have responded and assembled some links. Although the other editor has not responded (not a lot of time has passed), it seems to me that "CSA Illumina" is not incorrect [16], but it may also be called CSA Illustra [17].

In any case, now that I have wet your whistle with the above external links, maybe you could review the talk page discussion, and links, and maybe you can come up with something (I hope). Thanks in advance. --- Steve Quinn (talk) 15:51, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I'll check the sources later today. I have some familiarity with the company DGG ( talk ) 15:52, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I just added some refs to the Science Citation Index article. It looks some interesting reading, if you have the time and interest. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 17:39, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Happy Memorial Day!

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Comment cut off?

Your reply to me at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2013_May_21 seems to begin in the middle of a sentence. Did the start get cut off somehow? Dricherby (talk) 21:09, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I clarified. But I think in practice we would almost always agree, and that we may also agree on the underly ing basis of notability , so any disagreement between us is primarily a just our different way of wording things. My apologies for letting that discussion go so far off the actual topic. of what to do with the article. DGG ( talk ) 21:21, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

OK – I was also coming to the conclusion that we seem agree on the actual concepts but not on how to express them. Dricherby (talk) 22:45, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

List of pundits

Hello. As a contributor to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of pundits back in 2009, you may be interested to know I have renominated this article for deletion. Your comments are welcome at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of pundits (2nd nomination). Robofish (talk) 21:33, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Rejection Of Ayesha Thapar Page

Hi David,

I had created a page on Ayesha Thapar - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Ayesha_Thapar. This article was rejected by - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sharafat99. I have complied with the WP guidelines and proved the subject's notability with valid references. I have provided authoritative news sites as references among others. Request you to review the article and make it live as a stub, as you would also agree that this is not good enough to be a featured article. I have been working on it since quite some time now and I feel it will not improve until it is worked upon at a collaborative level.

Thanks, Tushar Taliyan (talk) 09:58, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Here's the problem: though the references are technically adequate for notability , the actual position she holds is not, as it's a quite minor part of the group her grandfather started. . The interest in her seems to be as a social figure, In a situation like this, an article is technically justified, but if the figure is minor, we do not necessarily decide to actually make it. If it were accepted into mainspace as an article, you are probably right that the community would decide in the subsequent group discussion at AfD that we should not make it at this time. I offer you the safest solution, which is that I will accept it, but replace the content with a redirect to Thapar Group , where she is already mentioned. The existing content will be preserved in the history, and it can be expanded into an article if her business career further develops. Let me know DGG ( talk ) 14:46, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Order of the Beak ‎

Hi!

Id appreciate any help, but I dont think my article will be published. Thank you.

Ianlee73 (talk) 13:47, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sir Cecil Bisshopp, 10th Baronet

I don't think I'm especially dense (maybe you disagree) but I just don't grok Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sir Cecil Bisshopp, 10th Baronet. He's no different from any other clergyman born of the gentry who died under 30. I certainly can't find any basis for expansion; even what we have is unsourced. What am I missing? Thanks, as always, Mackensen (talk) 23:26, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I consider the GM reference sufficient by itself. Not all gentlemen born of the clergy have such referencing, just as most of them were not Baronets, nor did they get to Jerusalem. Personally, I think the decision that Baronets were not intrinsically notable was due to the unreasonable attempts to try to stretch our tolerance by the person creating many of the articles--similar attempts elsewhere in WP have had similar results. WP relies on mutual tolerance, and taking advantage of it causes over-reaction.

There is no abstract level of notability--we could put it at many different places, and still have an encyclopedia. It is not one of the things that matters most: what matters most is remaining free of copyvio & promotionalism and bias, and inconsistency in inclusion. Those are what destroys the usefulness of an encyclopedia. My position from the start has been to go for the broadest interpretation of notability that the community will accept, in counter to those who go in the opposite direction, The only change has been my increasing awareness of the need to avoid the sort of inclusion that gives temptation to promotionalism (which is why I am not inclusionist on local organizations). DGG ( talk ) 00:52, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I accept all that you have said, but I still think today's outcome deeply unfortunate. The creator of that article has created several other articles about Bisshopps; like Arbuthnot he's probably a member of the family. They're all this horrible puffed genealogy and even the notable ones (MPs and peers) will need considerable cleanup to be useful. I never thought all baronets were notable myself; I wouldn't have considered most peers notable save they were members of a national legislature (even that was bit weaselly; plenty of peers never went to Parliament or went once and never again). I don't even remember how I encountered the article in the first place, and I suppose I ought to walk away. Thanks for your thoughts. Best, Mackensen (talk) 01:01, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

We may disagree less than you think. Consider my third sentence, the one beginning "Personally..." I would not have created this article. I would not have bothered looking for refs to defend it. Someone else having found the GR, I commented that the sources were adequate. But in general I like rules about including all X's above a certain level, because it gives consistency and reduces the need for argumentation. I am thus perfectly willing to accept the general rule that Bts are below the line, and peers above--or for that matter almost any rational rule. DGG ( talk ) 01:27, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Kriyananda talk page

Please consider adding your voice to the new discussion on this page [18] - the Requested Move section. Red Rose 13 (talk) 01:45, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the most helpful thing for me to do is to stay out of it. DGG ( talk ) 04:58, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Your ANI comment

"the problem will settle itself": that's the kind of thing my father used to say. I don't know how often he was right about that, but given that today is the third anniversary of his death I find those words extra striking. So often your comments are like oil on turbulent water, DGG: keep it up, in good health. Drmies (talk) 05:42, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Deflationary theory of truth

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Pubudu Chathuranga

Given it's a BLP, I suggest at least userifying the article until references are mustered. A quick google search didn't find any substantial coverage, so the user's input is required. It won't survive mainspace. The user clearly circumvented AfC after his submission got delayed in the queue. Keen to hear your input. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 02:39, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Check again, and you'll see it. First few hits in GNews verified some points of the career. Rewriting the illiteracies and removing the irrelevancies was pretty quick also. If I hadn't found them, the appropriate next step would have been BLP PROD, specifically invented for this sort of problem. If no one documents further, I'll do it next week at NYPL-PA, but I'd guess the awards can be verified even with Google News. Articles like this fall into two classes: the 90% easily verifiable, the 9% probably true but where there are no available sources, and the 1% pure inventions. DGG ( talk ) 04:20, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Second eye wanted

I wanted to get a more experienced meat(sock?)puppet-spotter to look at this before I took any other action. I checked and the four "ninety-nines" appear to be in the vicinity of the same large American city. I will say this, sock or not at least their surviving articles appear to be well distant from G11. Your thoughts? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 06:22, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

• (I was watching this page because of a conversation above and happened across this.) Whois says that the range 99.0.0.0–99.191.255.255 is an AT&T dynamic IP pool and the four IP addresses you quote haven't edited within two hours of each other [19]. From that, the IPs could just be the normal result of one person editing at different times. (I've not looked at the edits themselves; just the timing and the IP addreses.) Dricherby (talk) 10:25, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

The two named editors in those links are undoubtedly working for the same PR firm, tho I cannot tell if they are the same person. The scattered ip edits don't seem significant ; the COI is already being addressed by others. DGG ( talk ) 16:16, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Todd Hauptman

Hi DGG,

Thank you for contacting me about the Todd Hauptman article. I believe him to be notable for more than one event; his resignation from working as Mary Polak's campaign manager was one well-documented event, but he is also notable for his anti-human trafficking work and his co-founding of the Fraser Valley Transplant Network. Should I add further sources to demonstrate Hauptman's notability?

Neelix (talk) 16:48, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

responded on your user talk. DGG ( talk ) 17:31, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Recently dead, possibly notable?

DGG, can you give me your opinion on the following scientists who recently passed away:

• Is Arnold Honig notable enough for an article?

probably, given the mentions in these books; physics indexes need checking, tho.

• What about Arnold Wolf? Bearian (talk) 19:54, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

JBL was a leading company in its field, but I'd want another source also. DGG ( talk ) 20:11, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Cozzi

I've seen your good cleanup on Gaetano Cozzi: for me too is ok, now. Btw, I'll just watch if some POV sentences, still removed time ago and added again, will be replaced. Regards. --Dэя-Бøяg 20:22, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Re: Proposed deletion of Barbara and Jack Davis Hall

Hello,

Thank you for your message. Last night I was so tired to add the proper information to the article. I will add them to the article today to help make the article useful and important. Will this solve the issue? Arsi Warrior (talk) 06:35, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

the notability will probably depend on whether the building is important architecturally. This is best shown by awards given it. If thee are none now, there may be later. Please remember that the references supporting notability must by references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases. If you can add this material, do so and removethe prod, which you are entitled to do; if I or anyone doesn't think it sufficient, we will take it for a group discussion at WP:AFD. DGG ( talk ) 14:34, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: Florinel Enache

Hello DGG. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Florinel Enache, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: The awarding of a medal by the President is enough importance for A7, plus the references. May well not pass through AfD, so you should take it there if you still want it deleted. Thank you. GedUK  11:29, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

you're right, it's an interesting special case: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Florinel Enache DGG ( talk ) 14:14, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Notability opinion

I stumbled across some articles today all written by the same author that are all related and all have seemingly the same issues. The main one being notability. I noticed that you put a PROD tag on one the articles a bit over a week ago and it was subsequently removed by the author. I'm thinking about nominiating some (or all) of the articles for deletion, but I just wanted to get a second opinion first as I haven't been involved in AFD for awhile. Articles in question are: Mark Flood (animator), Jack Morrison (actor), Imraan Ali, Amy Gregson, Two Women, One Heart, and The Freak Next Door. Thanks. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 13:17, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Just found another: MediCinema. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 13:26, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

My preference is to go in sequence. I'd suggest doing a joint nomination for the films, after checking for reviews; If they turn out to have reviews, they might be notable & what to do then depends on the nature of the review, --the writing of the articles is shows so little understanding of our standards that even if there are reviews, the (presumably) PR person who wrote these might not have bothered including them. The notability of the animators will depend on the notability of the films, & the importance of their work in relation to them , . The charity needs to be rewritten with a noncopyvio description of the charity (see earlier versions in the history and) the removal of the notability-by-association list of names & checked for sources. The Flood article will have to be rewritten in any case, but if the charity or the films are notable, he might be also. The alternative is to do a joint nom for the films, and at the same time adjacent ones for the others. Some people would lump them all together, but I think that's bad practice. DGG ( talk ) 14:29, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't know when I'll get around to it, but I'll probably do as you suggested. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 21:50, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Publishers Clearing House

Hi DGG. I know you prefer not to proxy edit or approve PR-generated content, but I thought you might be interested in this. I could definitely see you being interested in the requested deletion if nothing else.

Also, let me know if Qualpro needs anything else before removing the Advert tag. CorporateM (Talk) 16:29, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #60

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

• Events/Press
  • Deutschlandfunk interview about Wikipedia, Wikidata and more
  • Hackathon in Amsterdam
  • Linked Data in Business
  • Upcoming: Arts, Humanities and Complex Networks
  • Upcoming: SemTechBiz
• Other Noteworthy Stuff
  • The time datatype is now available allowing you to enter dates in Wikidata (this also includes a short rundown of what the developers are going to work on next)
  • 5 students are working on projects related to Wikidata as part of Google Summer of Code 2013
  • prototype of a multilingual map using Wikidata
  • Many Wikimedia wikis got a new account creation and login page - among them Wikidata
• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: venue (P540), office contested (P541), officially opened by (P542), oath made by (P543), torch lit by (P545), docking port (P546), commemorates (P547), version type (P548), MGP ID (P549), chivalric order (P550), residence (P551), handedness (P552), social media account on (P553), social media address (P554), doubles record (P555), crystal system (P556), DiseasesDB (P557), unit symbol (P558), terminus (P559), direction (P560), NATO reporting name (P561), central bank/issuer (P562), ICD-O (P563), singles record (P564), crystal habit (P565)
  • Newest task forces: Tennis task force, Taxonomy task force, Iranian Persian task force, Medicine task force
• Development
  • Made good progress on moving the sitelinks on Wikidata too when a page on Wikipedia is moved (bugzilla:36729 - currently the bug with most votes)
  • Fixed some bugs in the time value user interface
  • Worked on coordinate value support
  • Worked together with Wikimedia Foundation ops staff on Apache configuration changes to enable “pretty urls” for item pages. (e.g. https://en.wikidata.org/wiki/New_York_City goes to https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60 in the future)
  • Added MediaWiki setting wgLogAutopatrol to allow wikis the option to disable logging of autopatrol actions
  • Improved EntityPerPage rebuild script, which is needed to fix the situation where some Wikipedia articles can't access data from Wikidata (bugzilla:48506)
  • Fixed bug in SetQualifiers API module; Moved both SetQualifiers and RemoveQualifiers out of experimental mode
• Open Tasks for You
  • Help fix formatting and value issues for a property
  • Respond to a "Request for Comment"
  • Hack on one of these

Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 20:11, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Borked move - Crowdfunding

FYI - hahnchen 21:41, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

fixed. Somehow I sent the delete command twice. Maybe my mouse needs cleaning. DGG ( talk ) 22:02, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Library count

I was wondering how one finds out how many libraries stock a particular author or book. I notice that you reference that in a couple of AfD nominations. Thanks, Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 15:06, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

the way is with [www.worldcat.org WordCat]. Search for the book, isbn is simplest if you know it . Click on the book entry and look down. Best way to find all books by an author is to go midway down to the "Find more information about" selection box:. " Caution: Coverage is almost entirely US & Canadian public and academic libraries, some major university libraries elsewhere, with most academic and some public libraries in the UK, & some public libraries in Australia and New Zealand. There is no single convenient technique for elsewhere, best gateway is, VZBl, then see Special:Booksources. Caution2: Some types of material, like popular sex manuals, esoterica, and devotional literature are not well represented in library catalogs. DGG ( talk ) 15:45, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 15:55, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Copyeditor's Barnstar
	For your great work on Jack Ernest Vincent!. :) – →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 05:34, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

AFC G13's

Any reason you're not deleting them yourself and only tagging them? Just curious since they're all being tagged correctly and you have the ability to do so yourself. Mkdw^talk 08:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

• Sometimes even admins like another set of eyes on something before it goes. Having the bit isn't a magic talisman against being wrong. Spartaz ^Humbug! 13:54, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, I do not think that administrators should delete articles singlehanded. We haven't actually prohibited it, in part because it is always possible to think of exceptions, and it's hard to put them into exact language. I am in fact making many exceptions to my own practice, because of the great number of these submissions: if you look at my deletion log, when there is an additional obvious reason , such as G11, or the potential for an article is absolutely hopeless, or it is a test page from a young person, then I do delete them single handed. I regret the need to do so--it is not what I usually do, but it does speed things up. Some admins think themselves incapable of error; I know perfectly well I am not among them. DGG ( talk ) 13:58, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I was not asking about the general practice of seeking a second opinion. I do this commonly for A7 and G11 examples myself. I specifically said G13 since they were all procedural in nature not unlike a G8 tag. It was not my intention to imply that adminship was an immunity to making mistakes. Mkdw^talk 00:07, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I was not criticizing you, but making a general statement. I do not regard G13 as purely technical. Some declined G13s are in fact acceptable articles as they stand , or with very minor fixes. I examine every one, and the ones that are acceptable, I accept, making whatever fixes are necessary--there are not many, about 1 to 5% , depending on what part of the backlog one is working on, but with the tens of thousands of articles, it's significant. (If I'm uncertain about acceptability, I do not delete it, though I may not move it to mainspace.) Sometimes, the submission will make a needed redirect. But some of the less welcome possibilities are more important: I check to see if the article by any chance does exist in mainspace, and ,if so, whether it is acceptable. I find about 5% do exist, and about half of them are not at all acceptable, some of them being speedy for copyvio or promotionalism. I also see if there are really inappropriate reviews--such as missing obvious copyvio--, and, if so, if the reviewer is still active, & still making similar mistakes, so I can explain to them how to do it--this is perhaps the most important step of all. The more I work on these, the more problems I find, some quite unanticipated. The review of them all, however tedious, is an opportunity to figure out how we can do this better. DGG ( talk ) 01:45, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks so much for that explanation. I hadn't considered it that way before and generally apply a housekeeping and somewhat liberal outlook when it appears the AFC is abandoned opposed to potentially reviewing a second time. This is probably largely a result that I have never tagged an article as G13, but simply come across G13's as having already been tagged by others. Cheers, Mkdw^talk 03:41, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

IMPACT (International Multicultural Platform for Alternative Contemporary Theatre)

Good Morning

I noticed that you speedily deleted the article International Multicultural Platform for Alternative Contemporary Theatre. May I request that you also delete IMPACT (International Multicultural Platform for Alternative Contemporary Theatre) as it is simply a redirect to the deleted article. (I could not find a way to delete it)

I have rolled back the corresponding entry in List of theatre festivals‎

ed

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Canadian Hand Painted Porcelain From The 1880’S Onwards

Hi, DGG. I won't be re-tagging this page; however, its copyright status, on closer inspection, seems rather suspect – both the text and the images appear to have been copied directly from this entry on Google Sites, which does not seem to a simple Wikipedia mirror. SuperMarioMan 16:27, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I had the feeling too, and planned to check. I was hoping to rescue the pictures; It seems this is part of a collection donated to the Canadian Museum of Civilization in 2010, the images, taken with an amateur camera, were taken in 2000 and are labelled "own work." they were donated in 2011, but are probably the collectors and not the museum's. I think their copyright status is probably valid. I'm going to save the links to the pictures before I delete the article. The article tho, will have to be deleted. The copyright on Google Sites is 2008, so I suspect that is from the collector also. 'DGG (at NYPL) (talk) 17:15, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

If you have time ...

... could you look at Daquan Marshburn ... I only had time for a very VERY quick search, and I have some reservations about it and the author, but I don't have time to really research it. — Ched :  ?  02:22, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

it may be real; check the article on the league. Not my field, though DGG ( talk ) 04:24, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

How to merge a history together for a page?

Hi DGG! I have a question: how do I merge histories together for an AfD? Someone tried to nominate a page for AfD but messed up and put in two AfDs for Bernice Madigan. I was just going to delete the second entry but then thought that it might be better to merge the two histories together instead. I've actually never done that and I can't quite figure out how to do it. It looks like you're on, so I thought I'd drop you a note and ask. The two AfD links are : Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bernice Madigan and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bernice Madigan (2 nomination). Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 03:48, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

• Looks like it might be irrelevant now, as it's looking like the nomination was someone's sockpuppet account (they'd nominated several similar people for AfD as some sort of vandalism-type thing) and the other AfD was tagged as a speedy. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 03:59, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

• Everything involving supercentenarians at WP is exceptional. There's a long history of conflict, with people disagreeing about the criteria to use, and some unwilling to accept consensus solutions. I have learned to avoid anything connected with it. DGG ( talk ) 04:18, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
• I think that might be a good rule for me to follow as well if I can help it, from what I can see from just all of the stuff just now. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 07:28, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

CSD for Gangadhar

This is a common name in India and the content in the article could be a hoax. Thats why I tagged it for CSD. There is no source and only claims. - Vivvt (Talk) 18:35, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

unless it is so obviously a hoax that I can tell at a glance, it has to be deleted via either prod or AfD DGG ( talk ) 18:38, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

OK. Tagged for PROD. - Vivvt (Talk) 18:45, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Yosef Babad (1905–1997)

As you suggested at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Yosef Babad, I have moved this article to mainspace. Yosef Babad was an existing redirect to an ancestor of his, so I have put him at the title above; you may be able to think of a better disambiguating title. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 19:39, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

June 2013

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Opinion requested

Hi DGG,

I wondered if you wouldn't mind giving an opinion on something? You may have no opinion or experience with this - either way is fine. I found an article in the "delete" list last week about a giant, global protest called March Against Monsanto. There is much turmoil surrounding the article since it's beginning. I've been building the article by expanding on what the protesters have said, as well as using (the few available) choice articles written about the subject. However, I'm bumping into opposition by editors saying these are fringe theories and any mention of the protesters' beliefs must be accompanied by a discussion of the "mainstream view" (which, to these editors, seems to be that there is nothing to question regarding Monsanto or genetically engineered food: the subjects of the protest). I guess the simplest question would be: does an article about a protest necessitate a scientific debate about the protesters views? Per WP:FRINGE, if I understand correctly, only when these views are explored in depth would they need the disclaimer. Another part to the question would be, is there a way to determine the parameters so that editors can work on the article without being hounded - in other words, I thought I knew my boundaries and have little problem working on most articles in peace, but with this one I am facing a small team of editors who are making the work much more difficult rather than helping. Are you aware of any resources I have (like RfC's) that would deal with this? I am not satisfied that I know enough to ask the proper question - may be you can figure out my question or even direct me to a better spot. Any help would be much appreciated, anyway. Thank you, petrarchan47tc 21:48, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to say that it is good, but it nonetheless must be faced, that WP is not an environment where people can work with controversial issues in peace. If peace is what you need, there are many good topics needing development both in the field of agriculture and in corporate history. You're doing the first step in WP:Dispute resolution, asking for a third opinion. I'll comment on the page about the issue, but I need to warn you that WP:DR rarely gives results that anyone thinks satisfactory. DGG ( talk ) 22:02, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for this, it does help. I should probably just retire if I want peace (and I do). petrarchan47tc 22:44, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi DGG, would you consider renaming the section on the MaM talk page, to make it clear that it's not related to the WP:3O board? Thanks, a13ean (talk) 23:24, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Done. DGG ( talk ) 00:21, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! a13ean (talk) 00:46, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Puzzled

I'm puzzled by your note here. You wrote "I think this indicates at least some importance since its in the Fr WP."

But I wonder whether you read what is on the French WP.

It is simply a mirror of the English WP.

Its only reference is ... to the article on the English WP.

I can't imagine that you think that an article becomes notable solely because a mirror of it has been created on a foreign language WP. That seems non-sensical.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:00, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

no, but I think it means we should use AfD, not speedy. DGG ( talk ) 02:47, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Epeefleche, first you remove the claims of importance, then you tag it for deletion for having no claims of importance...? And you're puzzled by DGG's behaviour...? Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:50, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

DGG -- I don't see why the mere creation of a mirror on a foreign WP, especially as here where the foreign article indicates it is simply a mirror of the English WP, should lead to that conclusion. And it had zero refs (let alone RS refs) other than its ref to the English WP article -- it entirely failed wp:v -- I don't see any basis for adding the tag, as you did, that it be augmented with information from an article that has zero refs other than to the the article you are suggesting it be used to expand. Can you explain? To me, it adds zero.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:07, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I checked for what I needed to, that the frWP article had not already been challenged there. There's no point arguing about a speedy tag here--there's a better place to do so, at AfD . Assuming nobody finds good sources the article will be easily enough deleted, which I think is what you are trying to accomplish. DGG ( talk ) 01:52, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Noormohammed satya socks

Over a year ago, I noticed that an account was systematically creating very poor articles for Indian television and movie awards: they all consisted of nothing more than "The [name of award] is selected by the audience" (or some similarly vague text), followed by a short table of award recipients. It was impossible to tell what the award was for, who granted it, how (if at all) it was notable, etc. I left some advice for the account [20]. There was no response and no change in the behaviour of the user.

A few weeks ago you noticed exactly the same behaviour from another account, and (presumably not even aware of my advice), issued almost identical advice to him [21]. Again, there's been no response and no change in the behaviour of the user.

I believe what's happened is that we had independently discovered socks of the same banned user, User:Noormohammed satya. The account I advised was blocked long ago, and most of its contributions (as well as those of its sister socks) have been deleted for being copyright violations, being non-notable, lacking sufficient context, and/or being contributions of a banned user posted in violation of the ban. However, the account you advised is continuing to run amok due to a backlog at SPI. The clerk has asked for diffs, but as I'm not an administrator I have no access to the deleted articles which would serve to establish a connection between the accounts. If you're interested in taking a look you can find the report at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Noormohammed satya. —Psychonaut (talk) 10:09, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I added 2 links that might be helpful. DGG ( talk ) 04:57, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

FYI

Hello. It occurred to me that you might be intererested in this discussion. Rivertorch (talk) 19:25, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Bruce Lee

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Wilt Idema deletion

The page for Sinologist and Harvard Professor Wilt L. Idema has been nominated for deletion. You might wish to comment. ch (talk) 20:57, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

amazing lack of comprehension. DGG ( talk ) 03:43, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Tinywords

Could you take this page to AfD? The 182.249.241.0/24 editor might have a point regarding the topic's notability, but they seem to want to avoid the proper channels for deleting a page. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 23:17, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

They are persistently edit warring over it [22]. A range block might be needed. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 01:09, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

No one is trying to delete the page. I'm trying to preserve it as a redirect, dince the only two users who have actually argued that the article is notable are a COI user and a user with a grudge against Hijiri88 who has been going around attempting to undo the lattet's edits. The status quo is as a redirect, but I have had to deal with a bunch of silly insinuations otherwise. 182.249.241.31 (talk) 01:14, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

The page makes a credible claim of notability: "tinywords is the largest-circulation journal of haiku in English". Your redirect/deletion has already been disputed on the talk page. It was also speedily deleted and then restored some years ago. The proper venue to hash it out is WP:AFD. Your redirect lasted a couple of months, but the article has been around for almost eight years. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 01:19, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Also note that despite their claim to martyrdom, the same 182.249.241.0/24 IP range has been vandalizing user pages of editors involved in both sides of the dispute on that article: [23] [24]. He might be a troll or joe job. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 01:35, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Maybe I'm a dynamic IP shared by numerous people on the same network. For evidence see the history of Iwate Prefecture, particularly on May 31 and August 6. 182.249.241.4 (talk) 02:16, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Hard to tell [25]. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 02:30, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Also, DGG, could you examine the related Bottle Rockets (magazine) for notability? Thanks. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 01:57, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

(1) There are editors here much more competent than I about sockpuppettry. Some of them look at this page from time to time, and if nobody has helped out by tomorrow, I will remind them. (2) I do not think we have any rules for notability that are suitable for small magazines in very out-of-the-way genres. DGG ( talk ) 04:14, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, WP:GNG might be enough. Do you have access to College & Research Libraries News? They seem to have covered Tinywords [26] in vol 64, 2003, p. 251. Another short review appeared in doi:10.1080/08893670410001698550. I was asking you to look at these because the editors who have been duking it out over the redirect don't seem to have access or care much for a substantive discussion. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 04:48, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

the Voice Business

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Zahir Ak's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hi DGG, This is about The Voice Business article that was speedily deleted. I wanted to inform you that I have made citation improvements and also watered down the 'promotional' tone my writing has. So is it all right if I directly recreate the page or is there another course of action you would like to suggest in my case. Sincerely Zahir Ak (talk) 14:05, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I removed it again. It remained promotional, and two other very experienced WPedians agreed with me about that, the one who nominated it for deletion the first time, and the one who nominated it the second time. Rather than describing the business, it was a advertisement for it, saying how valuable its services were and giving an extensive list of clients with links to their Wikipedia articles. We remove articles like that regardless of the importance of the company. The question is whether you should try again: there is no point unless the company will meet the notability standard. There were zero sources that met the WP:GNG general notability guideline. They must be references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases. 5 of the 12 were your own website. The others were either essentially press releases or directory entries. I tried what I could find myself, but the term is too generic for a proper Google News search. DGG ( talk ) 18:39, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Photon Infotech

Can I borrow your opinion of this article?

Photon Interactive (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Photon Infotech (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

User talk:Ericjcarrmiddletownde (edit | user page | history | links | watch | logs)

I was giving this editor some advice on an AfC draft for a topic that I later discovered was salted in 2008. I was hoping to get him to find a few more good sources, watch the puffery, and get you or another admin who has good sense about handling commercial articles to lift the protection. Somehow he interpreted that as, "Have a sockpuppet evade the protection by recreating it at a wrong title," which is not at all what I intended! As a non-admin, I don't like using G4 unless I personally saw the earlier deleted version, which I didn't. I know it can't stay as it is. Is it worth moving to its correct title? If not, what is right way to get rid of it? Kilopi (talk) 07:06, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

First of all, it's not a situation for G4. G4 is limited to use when the previous article was deleted at afd; the previous versions here were deleted only at speedy.

Second, the present article is much fuller than any of the deleted versions, which were minimal. The earlier A7 speedies and the salting were rightfully done--no admin would have done otherwise.

Third, I do not think there are sufficiently good sources to show that the company is notable. But enough is asserted to pass a7, and the article is not quite promotional enough for G11. I doubt that further work will show it notable--my guess is there are no additional reliable sources, though I may always be proven wrong about that. The best course, as usual, will be to get a community decision. The simplest way will be for me to move it to the previous title, which does in fact seem to be the correct title, and nominate it for AfD. I think you used good judgment in dealing with this, and the key step of moving it over protection does take an admin. The AfD is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Photon Infotech. I have notified the other editor. DGG ( talk ) 07:30, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll make an appearance at the AfD later. I remember seeing a source better than some of the current ones, but not necessarily enough to save it. Kilopi (talk) 08:04, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Hanbali merge suggestion

Hey man, I replied over here. I hope we can find a way to generate some more discussion. MezzoMezzo (talk) 12:03, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I know you're super-busy and I did write...well, a lot. But I just thought I'd remind you that I replied in case the talk page isn't on your watchlist. No pressure as it can obviously wait as we see how this turns out; it's just a friendly notice. MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:09, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I've replied. I'm very willing to continue discussing, the general issue I raised in my reply, but there's a limit to how much attention I want to pay this individual article. DGG ( talk ) 00:51, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Endophin Power Company

Dear DGG, I got notice yesterday of a deletion of an entry I was worked on in the past but let get behind me. I have responded to the notice as best as I can with an attempt to save it. I really do not know exactly where I should be directing this to. I saw your name as a possible guide so I am contacting you as well:

As I delve further into this, I seems I did get some notice awhile bacK (after a month of inactivity as noted below: “… Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! – GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:20, 23 December 2011 (UTC)…”

Anyway, any help you can give in resurrecting the work already done would be appreciated. Thanks

Reuben

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Endorphin Power company[edit]

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Endorphin Power company • ( logs | links | watch ) • [revisions]

I, Kangareu2001, request the undeletion of this Articles for creation submission deleted under CSD G13. Please userfy or restore as appropriate. Kangareu2001 (talk) 18:57, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

==[edit]

[[:]] • ( talk | logs | links | watch | afd | mfd ) • [revisions]

(This user used the preload form for AFC undeletion, but did not specify the name of the AFC draft they would like undeleted. Consider checking their deleted contributions.) Kangareu2001 (talk) 19:03, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Endorphin Power company[edit]

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Endorphin Power company • ( logs | links | watch ) • [revisions]

I, Kangareu2001, request the undeletion of this Articles for creation submission deleted under CSD G13. Please userfy or restore as appropriate. Kangareu2001 (talk) 19:04, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Endorphin Power company[edit] Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Endorphin Power company • ( logs | links | watch ) • [revisions]

Dear Wikipedia; I have just recieved your notice that proposed entries greater than 6 months old are deleted (Or, so is my understanding of the message I have recieved from you'se....At least that is my working basis from which I am trying to contact you...) I am not the only person that has tried to get an entry on a 10 year old community organization in Albuquerque. I did put a significant amount of effort into it in November of 2011 and was trying to uphold the documentation requirements. I was in the process of fact checking (some of the endorphIn power company's own references to itself were misprinted... I was trying to contact the source paper (the Weekly Alibi, a local newspaper. Long story short, I both got busy and had my computor crash on me.

Anyway, since I got your notification (perhaps again... I do not recall if one was sent earlier) I would like to start up again and finish the project this time. I do believe the organization is worthy of an entry.

thanks,

Reuben Last -Kangareu2001 (talk) 19:11, 9 June 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kangareu2001 (talk • contribs)

according to the recently adopted deletion policy for apparently abandoned AfC submissions, WP:CSD#G13, submissions can be restored to any user wishing to work on them in good faith. I have therefore done so. I removed a paragraph which I think gave too promotional an impression, and changed a heading. Remember that the purpose of an encyclopedia is to describe the subject, not advocate for it. DGG ( talk ) 20:57, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Joseph Heller (zoologist)

The article Joseph Heller (zoologist) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Not notable, and fails WP:NOTRESUME.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Uberaccount (talk) 03:11, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for June 11

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boundary 2 again...

Dear David, boundary 2 is again under attack by POV pushers who claim that this is an "in-house" journal without peer review. There is a sopurce for the latter (Ulrich's), but it's reliability is doubted because it is behind a paywall. Perhaps you can join the discussion on the talk page. I must add that I find it exceedingly difficult to keep assuming good faith here... Thanks! --Randykitty (talk) 16:30, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

There are reasons from recent events at WP for being extremely careful about negative approaches to anything related to contemporary American writers. But Ulrich's is not really an independent source for this--see my comment on the talk p. DGG ( talk ) 17:15, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

So how do you suggest we describe the journal? As "peer-reviewed" or "internally reviewed" (as suggested on the talk page by the SPAs) or otherwise? To me, "peer review" can be either external or internal or both. By the way, PLOS ONE is by now using peer review more or less in the same way as other journals do, as far as I can see (I'm an "academic editor" for them). --Randykitty (talk) 10:35, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Blackboard, revised

Hi there, DGG. Just wanted to let you know that I've finished preparing my revisions to the Blackboard Inc. article. I've started looking for other editors to review it and, once there's consensus, move it to the mainspace. In case you're interested, here is:

• My new draft, in userspace
• My proposal on the article's Talk page

I know you're quite busy on other projects and disinclined to be the editor who moves this live, but if you have any comments or feedback, I would welcome them. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 17:02, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi again, DGG. I've updated my draft again following your comment on the talk page from the 11th. I've left a note on the Blackboard Talk page explaining my changes. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:54, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

SpiderCloud

Hello, you previously deleted a proposed article submission for Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/SpiderCloud Wireless, as you felt the material was too promotional. I have rewritten it and pared everything down to the bare minimum. I am very interested to get your view on the material here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cbranin/sandbox and will gladly try to incorporate any advice you have. I included the awards section, as the Wall Street Journal is obviously a very credible source. Thank you for your time and feedback. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cbranin (talk • contribs) 20:24, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

responded on your user talk p. It's getting there. DGG ( talk ) 22:07, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi DGG, Someone moved it to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cbranin/SpiderCloud_Wireless I've added an additional two articles as you have suggested. It's absolute bare bones minimum information, but am afraid to add to much. Do you think it would help or hurt to add more detail about the products? Thank you for your review and time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cbranin (talk • contribs) 19:00, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I've added one more article, I thought that would be supportive, listed as number 8 in the references area. Hopefully you feel this is ready to move to mainstream? If you have further advice, I'm open to it. Thank you!

Just confirming, as you suggested earlier, you will move it into the approval space? If there's anything else you'd like me to do, please let me know. Thank you for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cbranin (talk • contribs) 17:30, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Journal

Would you take a quick peek at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy - KSSTA? I cleaned out some promotionally, and the refs are a little weak, but there's substantial citations of papers from the journal, so I'd strongly imagine it's notable. I'm not well-versed in what the best usual tests are to indicate that directly for academic journals, and you seem to have (from other discussions I've seen) a clean handle on that, so any suggestions for how to indicate that before I mainspace it would be appreciated. --j⚛e decker^talk 23:42, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I clarified one point from the reference given, accepted it,changing the title to Knee Surgery, Sports Traumatology, Arthroscopy. It needs some additional information, which I will add tomorrow. The basic idea is very simple: if it's in the major indexes in the field, it's notable. Web of Knowledge is sufficient, because if it's in that it'll be in others also. All such articles need a careful but cautious check against the journal's web site for copyvio: there is really no way of expressing the basics without using the phrases from the website, but if the article includes the usual flowery statement of purpose, we remove that part. DGG ( talk ) 05:24, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, much appreciated. --j⚛e decker^talk 14:29, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

PRiSM

Hi DGG, been admiring your work here. Think there's article confusion ...see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PRiSM Widefox; talk 14:19, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

so there was--the NSA/FBI horror is so much to the front of my mind I didn't stop to think or look. (Though it did not exactly take me by surprise--what else could they possibly have been doing?) DGG ( talk )

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Gerhard F. Knolmayer

Oops, missed your rollback on this, I've reverted myself. If you're up for actually doing translation, I'll try and keep that in mind going forward. Best, --j⚛e decker^talk 16:53, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

When I'm certain it's notable enough to be worth the effort, I can do a translation of at least the basic parts from French and German when it's easy & I'm familiar enough with the subject. As you know, I concentrate on academics. Other subjects--even other languages, only when formulaic or a short stub will do as a placeholder. DGG ( talk ) 19:10, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Yup. It's just good to know something academic like this fellow has a better chance at life that way. Very much appreciated. Have a great day! --j⚛e decker^talk 19:29, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

James B. Hunt Jr. Library

• James B. Hunt Jr. Library

Hi there, DGG, I hope you are doing well! :)

You previously raised concerns about this article at Talk:James_B._Hunt_Jr._Library#Close_paraphrase.

I was considering reviewing it for GA candidacy, but I wanted to check first with you to see if you could revisit and note on the talk page if those issues have been resolved to your satisfaction?

Thank you for your time, — Cirt (talk) 19:13, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

commented, at length. DGG ( talk ) 00:15, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

List

FYI. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:53, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

The Wendy Walk

You PRODded this, and it was deleted. Undeletion has been requested at WP:REFUND, so per WP:DEL#Proposed deletion I have restored it, and now notify you in case you wish to consider AfD. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 19:28, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata weekly summary #62

Here's your quick overview of what has been happening around Wikidata over the last week.

• Noteworthy Stuff
  • Geocoordinates can now be entered in Wikidata and language links can now be edited without JavaScript
  • The folks at OCLC did a great intro video to Wikidata and VIAF/authority files
  • And here's some interesting analysis on the most unique Wikipedias according to Wikidata
  • Magnus updated his tool to add missing properties to an item
• Did you know?
  • Newest properties: battle/war (P607), exhibition history (P608), terminus location (P609), exhibition history (P608), terminus location (P609), highest point (P610), religious order (P611), mother house (P612), OS grid reference (P613), CHRC (P616), yard number (P617), source of energy (P618), spacecraft launch date (P619), spacecraft landing date (P620), spacecraft decay date (P621), spacecraft docking/undocking dates (P622), crew photo (P623), guidance system (P624), coordinate location (P625), Sandbox-GeoCoordinateValue (P626), IUCN-ID (P627)
  • If you're interested in a specific topic then the task forces are a good place to find like-minded people. Can't find one for your interest? Start one!
• Development
  • More progress on supporting links to sisterprojects
  • Fixing issues with geocoordinate datatype that popped up after deployment
  • Selenium tests for time and geocoordinate interface
  • EditEntity Refactoring (added parameter “new”)
• Open Tasks for You
  • Help fix formatting and value issues for a property
  • Respond to a "Request for Comment"
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Read the full report · Unsubscribe · Global message delivery 20:45, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

PROD

Hello, today I found out that an article that I deleted was put on the PROD list. I was never informed of this and therefore never had a chance to bring it up to standards. Typically, in the past, I've been informed if something I contributed to was up for deletion. From looking at the deleted textbox, it looks like you were the final person to review this. Is it possible that you could restore it temporarily so that I may add relevant sources, etc.? I did not create with the intent of it being a promotional article. I am not affiliated with the author, publisher, etc. Thanks for your input. --domesticenginerd 20:58, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

this is apparently Love Does, a book by Bob Goff. (The program I used, Twinkle, should have notified you--I shall check my settings.) It was deleted by another admin, but since I our policy is to undelete any prodded article for good faith improvements, I have undeleted it. What it needs to show notability is substantial book reviews from 3rd party independent published sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases or material on amazon or publishers' sites. If you have them, add them. I'll look again in a week or two. DGG ( talk ) 23:44, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Curb Chain

Would you be willing to provide some sort of informal mentoring to User:Curb Chain? He was reported to ANI after nominated another list of bands for deletion. My impression is that he is well intentioned but overzealous. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 22:51, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

unfortunately the topics on which he primarily works are ones about which I am ignorant. I would have no way of knowing, for example, whether inclusion of a band in a particular list is or is not reasonable. DGG ( talk ) 02:30, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

A mere redirect is not promotional

Maybe we need to reconsider the text of Wikipedia:Redirect#Reasons for deleting and in particular #4. The redirect constitutes self-promotion or spam. --Bejnar (talk) 19:27, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

It can be a reason for deletion, and sometimes even for speedy. For example, if I were to redirect my law firm to Punitive damages, it would be a G11 as I see it. The article in question was a redirect of a primary school to a school district or a town. It's informative to make such entry for schools, and its routine practice. A redirect isn such a situation in not promotional. If we redirected it to Public education, that would be another matter, though I would call it inappropriate, not promotional. DGG ( talk ) 01:41, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Your ANI post got mangled

I think your ANI post got skewed somehow and it didn't get signed. I just wanted to let you know. Kumioko (talk) 20:29, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

G5 speedy deletion

I've started a discussion of this rule here and thought you might weigh in with your ideas. Paul venter (talk) 09:45, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

so I did. And at unreasonable length. DGG ( talk ) 19:50, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for that contribution - it covered all the thoughts I had on the matter, and far more eloquently than I could have. Paul venter (talk) 10:44, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Change for the Cure

It's unfortunate this article wasn't speedied. There never was any organisation. Just one woman wandering around Toronto claiming she had cancer and a charity in order to defraud people. This article should only fall under WP:CRIME or WP:BLP1E.

Now the article's creator is making uncivil accusations at the AfD [27]. It appears this editor has been blocked for various things [28], [29]. I have asked them to stop their disruptive behaviour at their talk page, but given the apparent history..... I really wish Wikipedia would stick to indef blocks when they're given out. Regards Taroaldo ✉ 03:18, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I gave my opinion on the article at the AfD. The community will decide. The AfD is the place to discuss this, not here. DGG ( talk ) 05:15, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Heh. I just came by here to say howdy to you as a fellow old timer, DGG, but this is just too good. Keep your daughters away from that Kendrick7. He ain't nothin' but trouble! (I guess Taroaldo has been around a while too, but I can't recall he and I crossing paths before.) -- Kendrick7^talk 05:23, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

In my opinion declining the speedy was a mistake, and I wanted to communicate that to you. Sorry for bothering you. I will confine future comments on this subject to the AfD. Regards Taroaldo ✉ 07:09, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Comments subpages and CSD

Well I tried to submit another 30 but Nyttend reverted my edits again, against what I would see as a clear consensus so I am going to leave another note to ANI about it. I just wanted to let you know since you mentioned submitting them in small groups. Kumioko (talk) 03:50, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I responded to your comments on my page. Basically Nyttend's actions completely violates the concept of a collaborative project. When one editor or admin can force their own will over consensus, that is a violation of policy. He should be desysopped for violating policy, not allowed to continue violating it. Kumioko (talk) 11:55, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

he won't be. Speedy is one of the things where people have a Liberum veto, but that does not apply to XfD. DGG ( talk ) 14:16, 17 June 2013 (UTC) .

Well I know he won't be because, well, that just doesn't happen. Once an admin always an admin for the most part. Kumioko (talk) 18:00, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of Sue Snell for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Sue Snell is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sue Snell (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

Blackboard Inc.

Hello there, DGG. I left a note with you last week, but it would have been easy to miss upthread. As I said then: I've updated my userspace draft again following your comment on the talk page from the 11th, and I've given specifics on the Blackboard Talk page explaining these changes. Hope you'll have a moment to look soon! Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:51, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I think it;'s OK; I will move it tonight, when I can use my admin account. As you know, I don't usually do this, but in this particular case I am familiar enough with the subject field to accept some degree of responsibility for the article. 'DGG (at NYPL) (talk) 18:14, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Yep, I know this one is an exception based on your knowledge of the subject, and I really appreciate it. I've also updated my draft now to incorporate the one reliable source from a problematic Criticism section that appeared last week; my take on it is on the article's Talk page now. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 22:12, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Heyzap

Hi, TechCrunch's parent company AOL is an investor in many of the startups they report on via their "CrunchFund investment" including Heyzap through the aforementioned fund's own investor "Ron Conway". I think it is questionable whether they are a reliable source when they have this intricate web of COIs. The COI has been questioned quite publicly: "NYTimes", "AllThingsD". Under that light I would question their validity as a reliable source and their authenticity as proof of notability, on many of the startups they are referenced. comment byUser:Notnoteworthy

I think I said "reliable for some purposes". We have indeed used them very widely as proof of notability, but when I declined your prods, I was careful not to say that specifically. I think what we need is a more general discussion of them that everyone interested will see, and WP:RSN, the reliable sources noticeboard, is probably the best place for it.

Some of those articles struck me as having been prepared by the same PR firm--I work trying to remove promotionalism quite a lot these days, and I look for such similar patterns. That doesn't mean they are entirely promotional, but I have frequently been saying that I regard promotionalism coupled with borderline notability as a reason for deletion at AfD. The place to decide on the individual cases is AfD. I think it fairer than a dialog between the two of us.

However, a least two of the articles in question had full articles devoted specifically to them in the NYTimes--do you think this also suspicious? 'DGG (at NYPL) (talk) 19:30, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

A bowl of strawberries for you!

For your extensive digging at D. C. Reddy. I did checked for sources and all I could find was this. You deserve this Solomon7968 18:41, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

D. C. Reddy

David, Reddy is Vice Chancelor. According to our article on his university, the head is the Chancellor, so in this case, VC is not the highest elected position. I know that that doesn't mean he's notable, but it does mean that the article does not show notability. --Randykitty (talk) 21:54, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

The Governor of Andhra Pradesh is the chancellor of Osmania University. So clearly Vice Chancellor is the highest post. All universites in India follow this rule. See this. Solomon7968 22:02, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I stand corrected, I didn't know this. Thanks for the clarification and link! --Randykitty (talk) 22:09, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

More info all universities in India except those starting with "Indian xxxxx" have Vice chancellor as the highest academic post. Solomon7968 22:18, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, I knew that VC is sometimes the highest position, but when I saw a chancellor listed, I jumped to the conclusion that this was not one of those cases. I'll try to remember for a next time... --Randykitty (talk) 22:39, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Current projects 7-3

I was reading through your current projects listed on your Userpage, and I was curious about 7-3; how would you first define what an "established editor" is? Autoconfirmed? 50 edits? Consensus? Anyhow, I liked 7-1 and 7-2 (and 7-3, just curious about the details). Please let me know when you put this in front of the community at large or if you'd like any help! Happy editing! --Jackson Peebles (talk) 06:49, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I really should revise these. The problems at WP change over time, and so do my interests. I am a little less concerned about articles directly, and more about how we deal with editors, I no longer object to using A7 for organizations, and I'm less concerned about the misuse of speedy in general. Since I wrote that 5 years ago, there has been a greater degree of consistency in speedy deletions generally, and in fact with deletion process generally. But more important, as WP becomes important, we are under increasing attack from people and companies who wish to use us for promotion, to the extent that very strong measure are indicated. Many of the A7 company & organization deletions also qualify as G11, and often as G12, copyvio. Their authors have no interest in contributing to an encyclopedia, but want publicity for their enterprises, and a greater percentage of them are paid editors. I have come to think at AfD that for borderline notability, we should also consider the promotional nature of the article--the combination of borderline notability and considerable promotion is reason to delete--but since that's a matter of judgement, it's a question for AfD, not speedy.

I am still willing to restore articles if anyone intends to work on them, and I'm always surprised at the few admins who aren't, I'd now say, not "established editor" but "editor in good faith", & when there's actually a chance of improving the article. In practice it's usually clear enough--and a good faith editorcan even include the rare paid editor who wants to learn and conform to our standards. The problem is a more practical one, of people finding out about the deleted articles. But this is related to what I see as the main current problem:

in the advice we give new editors. too many people rely on the templates, either in New Page patrol or AfC. In any case where there's a reasonable effort , it is really necessary to explain specifically either what is needed, or why it's likely to be hopeless--and by specifically I mean showing that one has actually read and taken into account the particular article. I don't always do this myself--there are simply too many articles to deal with them all carefully--but I try to do it if there's a likely prospect of improvement, in either the article or the editor. But most patrollers and reviewers patrol or review using insufficient care or the wrong criteria.

I'm currently not that much specifically trying to save individual articles, or even to teach individual new editors--I'm trying to use my experience to help the people who work with new editors do it properly. At this point it's not a question of changing our rules, but the way we apply them, and changing the practices and expectations of the people who apply them. I tend to do this as Idid 5 years ago with speedies--I can't check every article submission, but when I see inadequate advice, I can follow up with that particular person. ` DGG ( talk ) 23:15, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

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NYC Wiki-Picnic: Saturday June 22

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Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

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Selena Du

...is back again (again). Any chance you could salt the title? Cheers, Stalwart111 21:01, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

done. DGG ( talk ) 23:19, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Cheers! Stalwart111 23:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Peanut Butter & Co.?

Hi DGG! I noticed that it looks like you tried to nominate Peanut Butter & Co. for deletion, but it comes up as the AfD for the first time the founder and the company was nominated. I didn't know if you wanted to fix this for AfD or maybe withdraw the potential nomination. I agree that the founder doesn't seem to have much individual notability apart from the company, but I did find some extended coverage for the company itself. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:15, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Review journal

Hi, there is a discussion here about the definition of what constitutes a "review journal", which is hampered by a lack of good sources. Would you know of any? In any case, please participate in the discussion. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 17:11, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

re: CSD G11

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Tyros1972's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Daewoo Express

Thanks for the review of the speedy recommendation. Hope you are not offended that I took it AfD. Thanks again. --FoolMeOnce2Times (talk) 19:51, 19 June 2013 (UTC)