User talk:DGG

“ I am very gratified to have learned that so many people seem to like me, but even more gratified that they understand and like (or at least tolerate) the work I'm trying to do. ” —  at my RfA

/Archive 1 Sept-Dec. 2006 ,/Archive 2 Jan.-Feb. 2007, /Archive 3 Mar.-Apr. 2007, /Archive 4 May 2007 /Archive 5 June 2007; /Archive 0.1 (Journal talk), /Archive 0.2 (Speedy talk)

(some still current material from these pages is below:) :

WP:LOMJ

Hi, in regards to your interest in creating articles for journals, we are already working towards that goal over at Wikipedia:List of missing journals and WP:LOMJ/Queue. In light of your su

The category sggestion on Template talk:Infobox_Journal to "reward" the true OA journals, I would like to create a WP:LOMJ/OA that lists everything in DOAJ, in order that we can create articles for those first. It looks easy to screen scrape the DOAJ listings, but if there is another way to access their db, that would be better. John Vandenberg 20:06, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

initial decisions

There are basically 2 ways of doing this. big, and small.

• You (and the other editors doing it) have obviously chosen big. Between your list and DOAJ, I estimate there will be 13,000 titles.--that is currently published titles--if you add the changed and ceased titles, it will more than double. Harvard gets about 100,000 current journals.

• I like to start small.

In my view, it would be a much more useful thing to make good articles with accurate information for important journals, OA or not, than doing all the journals major and minor. Among the significant ones I would start with OA ones, which is what I suggested.

• In addition to your lists, we have Category:Open_access_journals at the moment a pitiful and incomplete list, and so is a previously started page List_of_journals_available_free_online. We also have the various subject lists in WP, some lists mostly black links, many mostly red.

• There are now several information sources t hat were not there six months ago. One is CrossRef[1] I just updated that article yesterday. Another is ISI, which has an openly available master journal list. [2] There is also the journal list in PubMed [3] which gives the following

1. Title: Comptes rendus biologies

$ISSN: 1631-0691 (Print)

1. Title Abbreviation: C R Biol
2. ISO Abbreviation: C. R. Biol.
3. Publication Start Year: 2002
4. Publisher: Elsevier
5. Continuation Notes: Continues: Comptes rendus de l'Académie des sciences. Série III, Sciences de la vie.
6. Language: English, French
7. Country: France
8. Subject Term(s): Biology
9. NLM ID: 101140040

• We obvious have slightly different things in mind, but it would make sense to merge the project ideas. With a project, it could, like most large projects, have several tracks.
  • Do you have a project name? I could not find one in the project list yesterday. but maybe I missed. it. It would make more sense to use an existing setup.

• • What I would propose starting with on one track, is to take that OA category, and make sure that all of other OA journals that have articles in WP are listed in it. and see that they are also in the list of OA journals. We need the list and the category because most of the titles will be in the list for a very long times. .as of Dec 15 there are 3200 journals in DOAJ. I frankly do not see a point of making a list of all of them, however minor--DOAJ does it fine (or more exactly, reasonable well). WP is not a list of links or a web directory, or so Im told. Google does very well in finding scientific journal titles.

• What I most want to avoid is duplicate work.
  • Before writing any more journal pages, I suggest we continue the discussion of the journal infobox -- where was that beng discussed--I already lost track. :)

(see my user page for some idea of my background. I think some of the people doing this have similar? I know it doesn't matter in terms of whose word goes, but I will do what I can to help with what I know. I've already started in on Comptes rendus. DGG 22:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The WP:LOMJ was intended to be a list where each entry is crossed off, however DOAJ, WorldCat and other lists will always far exceed what we can achieve here at Wikipedia, at least in my lifetime, so I started the WP:LOMJ/Queue to bring some order and discussion to the process of prioritising which articles should be created. As you may have seen I have created a new list WP:LOMJ/DOAJ so we can see which open access journals already have articles created, so that we can add or augment an infobox on the article. This list currently contains false positives, because the journal name may already be used as a general topic name, but I intend to improve my scripts to fix that. I'll also take on board your suggestion of finding these articles and making sure they are in the OA category. I'll continue to automate this script with any suggestions people have.

btw, thanks for pointing me towards [4]; I've been looking for such a raw data dump for about a month now! John Vandenberg 23:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Merging journals list

I left a message here which may be of interest to you. EPM 18:58, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

reply, criteria for deletion

(re-posted here for convenience--answered at Forsfrom talk.) I did recheck the criterion on speedy, and I of course find it as you say, and, in my view, incompatible with every statement about notability everywhere else in WP. And I do check speedies, and for things I recognize as notable and think can be clearly demonstrated as notable I go to the trouble of putting in a appropriate statement in what seems to be the expected language, and often do some editing to the article as well (I make no attempt to do this systematically unless I recognize something & think it can be defended, which is about 1 per day.)

I do not always get all of the procedure right yet, but I try. I notice some of the others in the debate were also unfamiliar with the provision. Perhaps those who have been editing a very long while learn to accept the odd parts and even the incompatibilities as part of WP life. I hope you're glad that new people are becoming active. If you will look at my edits you will see that they tend to compromise. I dislike the intensity of many quarrels here & have no intention of getting involved in them unless I can help reach a solution.

I recognize the usefulness of speedy in obvious cases, but I see it also being applied to non-obvious cases, and I will perhaps make some comments on that. I also plan to collect & analyze some data about the consistency of deletion practice, but not for a month or two when I'll have the time. I know some others are also looking at how well the various procedures work from a variety of angles. I have some background at that sort of analysis. That will of course be OR, and treated as such.

I intend this as a start of a friendly discussion, and if you have any suggestions I will be interested,and I even hope perhaps that you'd feel like joining the analysis. Two judgments are better than one, especially from people of different backgrounds. I like doing this sort of thing as a group.. which is one reason I'm here. Which talk page should we continue at?DGG 16:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

DGG, btw Master of the Playing Cards was speedily deleted, after about 5 mins, by the over-enthusiatic User:Firefoxman, who in the same session had also managed to S-delete Rede Lecture by User:Charles Matthews which was already in a quite advanced form. Oddly enough, CM got an apology; I did not! Quite a few of his SD's around then were thwarted one way or another Johnbod 17:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi DGG!

Thanks for your note. I agree there are many Wikipedia policies and guidelines which seem to completely conflict with other policies and guidelines. Regarding your question, of course I am glad that new people become active. Even with 6,000,000 user accounts, most of the work is done by a few thousand people. As users go on Wikibreak or suffer from burnout, if these users weren't quickly replaced, Wikipedia would soon become a mess.

I agree SPEEDY has often been applied to articles which don't really apply. At the same time, I've speedy deleted hundreds of articles I felt didn't meet the assert notability criteria; most of these were just trash. We get a lot of people that add "articles" about themselves like "Trisha Smith is a girl at Jones High School and she is soooo sexayyy!" or "MySpace.com/ThatOneDude is a great web site. You should go there." Articles like this aren't only about non-notable subjects, they don't even assert notability, and thus meet the requirement for (A7). I'm not sure there's much consistency when it comes to deletion, because WikiPhilosophy varies from editor to editor. I'm not sure I have time to work on an analysis of the data, but would be interested in the results. Firsfron of Ronchester 20:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

==Speedy==

Speedy deletion means just that - it can be deleted at any time. Articles are always retrievable if there has been a mistake, or the creator can redraft to address the problem, if that is possible (notability issues might be insoluble for obvious reasons) jimfbleak 18:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Most speedies are obvious junk/copyright violations/nonsense, and genuine objections tend to come from the creators, who obviously know the content. I don't know if the list of deleted edits is accessible to non-admins. Any article in mind? jimfbleak 18:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I understand the point you are making - the flip side is that even with the present situation the list of articles tagged for speedy deletion is typically 200 items. Put a time limit on, even if it's restricted to sensible articles (and remember many junk articles are deleted before being tagged}, and I fear that admins will be overwhelmed. jimfbleak 20:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Re:overspeeding

I very much agree, DGG. Speedy delete should be within 24 hours, not a matter of minutes or an hour (since AFD is a week or two weeks, I think). Wikipedia policies are becoming way too serious and nuts and its literally ruining the place. — Wackymacs 18:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It might be worth mentioning to Jimbo Wales. — Wackymacs 19:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I have the time to gather lots of stuff together - I think I might be spending too much time on WP to be honest... — Wackymacs 19:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

 ==N.H. Horowitz==

I am thinking about writing about Norman H. Horowitz, Caltech biology professor, previous department head etc. One can find some material about him:

• This piece on Norman H. Horowitz
• Horowitz oral history

And a huge number of publications. I do not want to have a deletion fight again, however. Suggestions?--Filll 21:54, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: usage of full journal names

Wondering if you had gotten a chance to look at some of the responses from science editors to your suggestion on the the FAC nomination for proteasome. In particular, it would be helpful to know how and where you are searching for articles or journals that the use of abbreviations is an impediment to successfully locating a reference. If you really think this is something that's worth pursuing as a proposed style standard for scientific articles, I believe a larger venue than an obscure FAC nomination is needed, as this would affect a large number of editors and articles; I'd suggest starting a thread on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources or Wikipedia talk:Scientific citation guidelines for wider visibility. Since the suggestion of using full journal names does not currently have the consensus of editors in the sciences, I'm going to leave it alone for now, and will make the changes later if it's agreed that this is a useful proposal. Opabinia regalis 01:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

(Speaking only about journals in the sciences), I think that full journal names are essential for WP users, particularly for older material. The abbreviations are enough for experts. WP articles are not written for experts. WP is written for a range of users, ranging from the beginner to the near expert; judging from user pages and user comments, this may correspond from junior high school students to graduate students in allied fields. Journal references serve several roles: even without looking them up, they give some idea of the nature of the evidence--and this is probably as far as many users get. To serve this function for new or for old, the title must be understood, and all users not graduate students in the field are more likely to make sense of the full title.

Or they serve as a route to further information. For material that is open access, the link (which should always be given in a WP article if there is an OA version) gives the access directly. For online material that is not, the link (which should be given even though not OA) will normally lead to at least the abstract of the article, which can be sufficient information in many cases.

For material that is not available online, all users must go through a library. Experts will recognize the journal, will usually have access to a research library, and will get the aticle if owned or ask for it if not, and any university library ILL department can deal with standard abbreviations. For all other users, they must look for the material in an online catalog. It is unfortunately not the practice in standard cataloging to make added entries for abbreviations as a routine practice, although they are sometimes made if they appear on the cover of a journal. It is not possible in many cases to guess the right title, especially if one is unfamiliar with the sort of titles that exist. The less experienced user will be much more likely to find the material by full title. If the user must go through an ILL service in a school or public library, the librarian there will probably be much more comfortable with the full title as well.

I say this on the basis of my experience. First, as a biology librarian at a major university. I know the mistakes that get made. They depend on subject; in biology--there are many standards, especially with older material, especially ewith UK and other European material. After 20 years of doing this, I know how to figure out anything in a latin or cyrillic alphabet, from 1800 on, and I know the places to check for anything older; as a beginner, with only a MLS and a molecular biology doctorate, I relied on persistence and study of journal lists, especially for anything out of the way to a molecular biologist. Second, as a teacher of librarianship. The ability of present-day incoming librarians, even science specialists, to find printed material is deplorable. For newer material, they can acquire the patience to keep trying things on Google until they find something. For print material, it will soon be a specialty, like manuscrip[t librarianship is now. Third, I have been responsible for organizing lists of print and then online journals; the peak was a computer-assisted but manually input list of 10,000 print titles. I and others always did these lists by full title. Although it startled some of the catalog librarians, we did add some abbreviations to help those who did know them.

There are 3 ways of doing this. One is to always use the full title. WP is not paper, but it does make for longer reference lists. The other is to have an abbreviation matching database and do a link. The third is to use ISSN's, the 8 digit serial code. This isn't as simple as it was last year, because there are now two codes for each journal, one for print and one for online--all the vendors are still rewriting their systems--I've advised some of them about it. The ISSN works in all online catalogs, but only if the user knows enough to enter it, which they don't until you teach them.

The simplest way to start is with full titles. The matching database is also underway, as something call the Missing Journals Wikiproject, aiming at entering all 12 or so titles into a WP article, complete with all codes. I'm in touch with the people doing it . They estimate 10 years, but if everyone listened to my instructions I think it could be done in a shorter time (smile). Using the entrez database would help in biomedicine, but not elsewhere.

• EdJohnston's experience with entrez is useful, but it doesn't work outside biomedicine. In biomed, a mass conversion could be done, but getting it entered from some of the nonstandard references people have used will require some work. If I had to sustitute full titles throughout the WP database by myself, I'd do them one at a time with a bot, and then look for non-matches. But it could be done more ambitiously, and if we ever want to undertake such a transformation I would help as well. There are some interface problems in the conversion--the length of articles and tables especially would be affected. I think we would want to try a number of careful trials and we would want help from some of the WP programmers.

For a particular article with say 100 or so refs, i would do them by hand. Since in any one article the journal titles will repeat, I'd copy and paste. I suppose if I had to do more than one article I'd copy the lists into BBEdit and use a grep search and replace, and then paste them back, for all the common titles. I am a great believer in patient manual entry.

Other comments

• I notice that O.r. has said she recognizes the abbreviations better, and so do I. But we are not the average users.
• &There's another problem, which is the use of full article titles. This really helps the beginner. In biomed, they could be linked through PubMed IDs, and some WP editors already use them. DGG 06:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

---

Opabinia, where do you stand on that Object? If you need help converting them in order to address the Object, I can help. Am I missing something, or would we actually have to do every one by hand? I can't find a database that can be used to automate it - if you feel it has to be done, we can divide up the work. I still resist the idea, since it would take a lot of manual work, and the PMID should suffice, but if you need help, I'll dig in. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

In the short term, my plan is to do nothing, since Circeus hasn't responded to the subsequent comments on his suggestion. I left him a note about opening this for wider discussion; a substantial change in style recommendations affecting as many articles as this one would deserves a wider discussion than a thread in an obscure FAC nomination. IMO it would be a bad precedent for future science-related FACs to make that change in response to one user's opinion without collecting some wider input. I don't know of an intelligent automated way to get this information, other than clicking through PubMed's journals link and screen-scraping the equivalents of pages like http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=Journals&term=%22Dev+Cell%22[Title+Abbreviation] sorry, can't get the link with brackets to parse right. If there's a larger discussion I'll certainly oppose this on practicality and text-clutter grounds, unless someone finds a common way of searching for references that requires the full names. FAC doesn't need more shrubberies. Opabinia regalis 01:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC) Without raising the long-term policy question, I don't think it would be that hard to convert the journal names in Proteasome. Assuming the reference uses a journal in the NLM list, you should be able to look up its journal name at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=Journals. This screen has a search box, where you can type in the standard journal abbreviation, and hit 'Search'. You then get back the full name of the journal. I also managed to download (by ftp) a plain text file called J_Entrez.txt (4 megabytes in size) that has both the abbreviation and the full name for every journal I checked. You could do a 'Find' on the abbreviation, and get the answer. So if you need help converting those references, I'd be available. EdJohnston 02:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC) Don't you think our readers would put up with the 'clutter' that would be caused by spelling out these not totally self-explanatory abbreviations? EMBO J, Cell Death Differ (my favorite), Mol Cell, FEBS Lett, PLoS Biol. I know that 'J Biol Chem' looks easy but not all of them are. EdJohnston 02:50, 9 January 2007 (UTC) Thanks for the offer. I doubt it would take long to convert this article - anybody who's done biology work probably knows 80% of them anyway - but I'm strongly inclined not to set that as a standard for future articles, not least because there are screen-scraper scripts for importing PubMed references that would need to be extensively modified. I realize they're not all intuitive (my personal favorite official "abbreviation" is J Phys Chem B Condens Matter Mater Surf Interfaces Biophys) but as far as I've ever known, it's actually better for searching to have the abbreviation than the full name, because almost every database uses the abbreviations. Do you know of any common databases or search methods where that's not the case? I asked Circeus on the FAC page to elaborate why/where he had had trouble, but he hasn't responded yet. Opabinia regalis 03:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC) Right - the problem is not *this* article (which I'll help do, if that what it takes to get rid of the object) rather the sheer volume of manual work that would be required across all Wiki articles, with little benefit. I would also strenuously object to the change in policy, since it requires manual intervention for every journal, to replace the info PubMed provides. Just wanted you to know I could help if needed, but agree it should not be needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Also: how about making the standard ISBN link produce a latent OpenURL like this: <a name='isbn=0-120345678-9' rel='alternate' title='OpenURL'>? Users with suitable browser plugins could then bypass the Wikipedia ISBN page and be directed to their home library's link resolver. --Helperzoom 17:23, 26 May 2005 (UTC).

Wikipedia:Book sources already has a latent OpenURL in the form of an ISBN COinS tag, right under the Notes heading. I've just added them to {{cite book}}: Empty citation (help), as well, so you can use OpenURL tools on the references section of articles. I'll expand it to other citation templates if it goes over well, and add it to the "Cite this article" page, too, as soon as they figure out which format would be appropriate for Wikipedia articles... — Omegatron 01:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Scientific Journal

Thanks for informing me. I had just finished adding a comment to an article about a completely non-notable (and no longer existent) website. I was patrollying the new pages list, which tends to be filled with non-notable articles. I came across the article in question, and saw it as non-notable(as it asserted NO notability), and possibly considered "little or no context", these categories being CSD:A7 and CSD A1,(as seen here). I tend to be a little on the deletionist side, mostly because I value the overall quality of Wikipedia. Thus I marked it for deletion, but it did not qualify for deletion after you merged it into an article worth saving.(have to leave now, on a schedule,

Blood libel

Thanks for your note. I think mentioning his name violates WP:UNDUE, particularly as he himself has recanted his previous views. What do you think? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

==Journals & Academic journals==

Hi. I see you started Category:Academic journals, which seems to cover much the same ground as Category:Journals. Do you agree they should be merged? Dsp13 12:35, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

You have found a real problem, where the terminology reflects the lack of consensus.

The basic problem is the confusion between the two uses of journal--a general meaning, including almost any periodical publication, used to distinguish journals from books,in which such publications as Scientific American are journals, and the use in the academic world to contrast peer-reviewed journals from (non peer-revieweed) magazines, with Scientific American being an example of the latter. Both meaning are in simultaneous use, and people are not usually clear about which they have in mind. :So if you look at the items in category journals, there are many which do indeed fall into the category of academic journals, but there are also some which don't. The actual terminology used in WP articles is similarly confusing--people have called the publications almost any of the various possibilities.

Furthermore, the general category for the group is Category:Serials, periodicals and journals, omitting magazines altogether. Journal, at present, is a redirect to Magazine.

Don't understand what you mean by saying journal redirects to magazine. Dsp13 12:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been a science librarian for over 20 years, and this has continually been a source of confusion If you look at what libraries actually call things, quite a variety of terms are used. I've taught the subject as well, and there is no real agreement in the textbooks, and the key term "serial" has never been really defined, and has now been abandoned in the cataloging rules in favor of "continuing publication".

so which way would you like to merge? In my personal opinion, "Academic journal" is a made-up term -- and i gather that is your opinion also--, but some of the other WP library science people disagree and want to keep using it, as they think "journal" non-specific. I added the cat to prevent people putting things in "Journal" which were clearly not academic journals. I think we would not get consensus on either, or for that matter on using both--it would by 1/3 1/3 1/3. When I came to WP I though it could be straightened out, but if you check the page history of the various terms, you will see that basically I and everyone else who has tried, all gave up.

Thanks for filling me in. I do recognise the distinction between peer-reviewed / not, and as you say there are distinct article pages for Journal and Academic journal at present. I've much less experience in thinking about these things than you, & no firm view on how to label the categories. I don't personally mind the made-up term Academic journals as long as it is consistently applied. What bothers me is the present haphazard duplication, which is a mess! As far as consensus having proved difficult to achieve, which page histories should I check out? Perhaps this is a discussion which should happen on Category talk:Journals or Category talk:Academic journals? Dsp13 12:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

In any case , I think the first step is to rename the broadest category, Category:Serials, periodicals and journals to Category:Serials, periodicals, journals, and magazines, and I am going to propose it. DGG 01:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds sensible to me. Dsp13 12:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

deletion in general

In general (and thanks for encouraging me to write it out in full)

1. When I know or strongly believe something is notable (more exactly, encyclopedia worthy in general) then I don't put on a deletion tag, or if some one else has, I remove the tag altogether. If anyone really disagrees, they go to AfD.
2. When I know for sure something is not notable, and fits in a speedy, I speedy. If anyone disagrees, they can remove the tag or "holdon" if they're fast enough, or go to AfD or Deletion Review. I don't do this much, because I rarely do new page patrol, so the obvious stuff has already been deleted by others.
3. When I don't know for sure, which is pretty often, I usually put it for prod so other people can see for themselves. If nobody feels its worthy of keeping, it gets deleted and there's no fuss. If anybody wants to keep, they remove the tag, unless they wrote it, when they have to ask someone else to remove it. I see that on my watchlist, and depending on what they've said, I usually defer to them but sometimes send to AfD.
4. For shopping malls and schools, I never speedy, because I know that they will all be contested & I don't like to speedy in hope of avoiding a discussion. When a number of malls or schools are in question, I may well prod them all, and let other people decide what's worth saving.

• • But, as for Country Club Plaza (Arden-Arcade, California) I thought it an almost empty article, and probably not notable, but that it was possible you or another editor would know of something more to say. I hoped that you would either add enough to make it notable, or let the article get deleted. That's what prod is for. But of course if you think it is notable as it stands, just nominate it according to WP:AFD, and I will go by the consensus as always. I'll nominate it for you if you prefer. So it's up to you. (Some eds. I know would just have speedied and not even notified you, but I don't like to do things that way.) Further discussion welcome. DGG 05:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Journals from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

As a librarian, could you take a look at this deletion debate: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management. Several peer-reviewed journals from Emerald, which as far as I can tell is a reputable publisher (my university subscribes to it), have been nominated for deletion. The articles look a bit spammy, but I guess that this could be fixed. (It seems that an article on Emerald has already been speedily deleted as advertising.) Pharamond 06:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks as the nom for taking time to comment and take action on this. I'm always keen to see better content arise from an AfD and editors like yourself make this happen! --Steve _(Stephen) ^talk 01:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

And I found one more from the same publisher, if you have time to investigate... Thanks again --Steve _(Stephen) ^talk 01:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry, I wasn't going to dump 50 articles into your to do list! That last one was the only other one I found and it was an oversight that I didn't co-nom it at the time of the others. Thanks --Steve _(Stephen) ^talk 02:29, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

columns

Use

 {{Col-begin}}
 {{Col-1-of-2}}
 Column 1 here
 {{Col-2-of-2}}
 Column 2 here
 {{Col-end}}

Or

 {{Multicol}}
 This text appears in the first column.
 {{Multicol-break}}
 This text appears in the second column.
 {{Multicol-break}}
 This text appears in the third column.
 {{Multicol-end}}

The latter's obviously more flexible. Hope that helps, --Steve _(Stephen) ^talk 02:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

here's your emerald

Spammy, but workable(?) User:DGG/Emerald Group Publishing Limited. When you've got it in a state worth keeping, do a regular page move to Emerald Group Publishing Limited (or, perhaps, Emerald Group Publishing); that'll keep the page history intact. — coelacan — 03:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

SPARC

←I am a little confused by what happened to this page SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation you changed to a redirect yesterday --I see the speedy for the redirect but I did not notice the speedy or other deletion process for the original. In any case i want to recreate it as it is one of the things I know about & I'm sure i could do a proper article whatever may have been wrong with the first--If you're an admin could you restore it to my user space for the purpose? DGG 00:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The SPARC mess was confusing, I'll give you that. :) Someone — I don't know who — moved the SPARC article to the silly title SPARC - Scalable Processor ARChitecture, and created the new silly-titled page SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation. Someone else sensibly requested that SPARC - Scalable Processor ARChitecture be moved back to SPARC. I'm not actually an admin, so my contribution to the mess was limited to moving SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation to Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation, and proposing it for speedy deletion since its only content was a link to the organization's Web site. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=Scholarly_Publishing_and_Academic_Resources_Corporation for the entire text of the page.) Since then, somebody else has speedy-deleted Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation (per my suggestion), and SPARC has been moved back to its rightful place.

If you would like to create an article about the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation, then Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation is the right place to do it. As long as you can find something encyclopedic to say about it, I wouldn't worry about the fact that a previous page on the topic has been deleted. --Quuxplusone 02:29, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Speedys and DRV

You may be right. I have discussed the over use of speedy delete (and A7 in particular) on the CSD talk page several times, as you may know if you follow that page. In the past such complaints have been not infrequently dismissed as theoretical in default of sufficeient examples, and when i did point to a particualr example i was told "That's what DRV is for". I am hoping to build up a list of several examples on which there is celar consensus that a speedy was not warrented, and then use them together in a discussion on the CSD talk page, or perhaps at the pump. Do you think this plan worth while?

But it is also true that I don't feel that it is proper (except in an emergency) to reverse another admin without some form of discussion, and FRV is the sanctioned palce for this particualr topic. DES ^(talk) 03:31, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Contextual information

I have noticed that essays, e.g. WP:LISTCRUFT, are often cited in deletion debates, such as the current Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Socialist Party of Great Britain debates. It might be worthwhile to jot down a concise essay on the value of contextual information, which one could cite so as not to repeat the contextual argument every time. One could argue that such an argument is a natural offspring of policies such as WP:NOT#PAPER and WP:SENSE. Then one could post it as WP:CONTEXT. I am interested in your opinion about this. Stammer 09:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Actual usage of the European Library by librarians?

Hello DGG. Please see my my question for you over on WP:COI/N, regarding the European Library. EdJohnston 21:07, 4 May 2007 (UTC). You asked me about it sometime back, and I've been noticing announcements that it is finally now becoming actually useful; union lists are not used until they have almost as much content as the national ones. It's like OSX, it was obviously going to be universal , but wise people didn't switch over for a while. I waited for 10.4. DGG 20:41, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations

I'm pleased to inform you that you are now an administrator. Please read all the material on the administrators' reading list before testing out your new privileges. For instructions, please see the administrators' how-to guide. Best of luck — Dan | talk 02:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Congrats. Well done. Do well with the mop :) -- Samir 02:20, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations. Your RfA reached WP:100 and is palindromic to boot. :) Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 03:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow congrats DGG! 111 supports, that's fantastic - if you ever need anything just give me a shout and I'll try my best to help. Good luck... Majorly (hot!) 09:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations. I'm glad I was one of those 11 extra to push you over the top at Wikipedia:Times that 100 Wikipedians supported something. You'll do a great job. Smee 11:58, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Congratulations. Here are what pass for words of wisdom from the puppy:

Remember you will always protect the wrong version. Remember you must always follow the rules, except for when you ignore them. You will always pick the wrong one to do. (See #5) Remember to assume good faith and not bite. Remember that when you are applying these principles most diligently, you are probably dealing with a troll. Use the block ability sparingly. Enjoy the insults you receive when you do block. Remember when you make these errors, someone will be more than happy to point them out to you in dazzling clarity and descriptive terminology. and finally, Remember to contact me if you ever need assistance, and I will do what I am able. KillerChihuahua?!?

DISCLAIMER: This humor does not reflect the official humor of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, or Jimbo Wales. All rights released under GFDL.

Notability of scientists vs their science

Hey DGG (first off, congratulations on adminship). In this AfD you write "I cannot imagine that a paper written by a scientist could possibly be notable more than the scientist himself" which seems diametrically opposed to my thinking, so I thought I'd invite you to try entertaining it. If a scientist is notable (in the sense of passing WP:PROF) I would assume it is because their work is notable. Surely then they must be at least a degree more trivial than their work. For example, the Hershey-Chase experiment is a very important piece of science, which definitely belongs in an encyclopedia, but I'm not sure that Alfred Hershey or even more so Martha Chase are of the same level of notability. Similarly, Milikan's Oil-drop experiment important in a way that I just don't think the details of Robert Andrews Millikan's life are. Ditto Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority Study and Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment. In all these cases, the experimenters are certainly notable, but I think they are all less encyclopedic than their work. I guess this is what bothers me about the majority of the stubby little wikipedia entries for assorted professors, that their inclusion makes WP look like a cheap Whos-who unless their work is also encyclopedic. The writers of these bios seem disinterested in writing encyclopedic articles about their research topic, the benefit to WP of these articles does not extend to dissemination of knowledge about science, just the vanity, or vanity by proxy, of a puff-biography. Anyway, best of luck with the mop pushing. I'm certain that you'll do fine. Regards, Pete.Hurd 05:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, & I went back & adjusted the AfD comment,because you are right that I overgeneralized. Fuller reply in the works. DGG 07:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

i'd appreciate your opinion on something

Have a look at Talk:Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. Before I start an AFD, do you think this is below the cut? ··coelacan 07:50, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

That would be great; thanks. ··coelacan 00:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

What's your view?

You had some insightful observations along the way during the recent excitement at WP:N, so I was curious as to your thoughts on the developments.--Kubigula (talk) 03:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. We haven't hit an impasse recently - things seems to be moving along pretty constructively. In fact, it's been almost too collegial and constructive; I half expect villagers with torches at any moment.--Kubigula (talk) 04:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes please about citation count

Please yes a citation count would be good. I suspect the count will be high. Wenocur's major work includes the VC-paper, joint with Dudley which established values of VC-dimensions using hyperplanes and other techniques that were new. The paper with Salant is notable work. Her work on order statistics was new. in abstracting ideas of Einstein and Bose on gravitation as gravitation affecting numbers not particles. In other papers, the alternative proof techniques of identities were publically admired by H.S. Wilf. The indices of many books on neural nets contain references to her work with Dudley on VC-dimension. I personally have employed the order statitistic work and the VC work to analyze data and make predictions for clients. Currently, she is either self-employed or retired or semi-retired; she is not a young person, certainly over age 55. She corresponds with me, a humble consultant, but also with others who are noteable. I think she is tutoring now, also she mentioned, precocious children, and those who need to learn VC-theory for their work at universities or industry or consulting. I think she is also using mathematics for investment counseling in new ways. She won several awards from the U.S. Senate, the President of Temple University, New York City as a noteable woman of science and other awards. This is all I can think of, offhand, right now. Back to work now. Thank you. Alfred Legrand 16:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

AfDs/blogs

Hi, the assumption is that I'm "pro" the blogs I'm currently fighting to keep an entry for, but that is jumping to conclusions. I wrote many new entries on Muslims and Islam, and I would fight to keep them. They're there because I think it's important people have access to information about these issues. In any case, a pattern won't be seen since this user first did a "speedy delete" on several entries using an IP and only identified themselves when I argued that an anonymous user shouldn't be speedy deleteing (to point out that it's against wiki policy and an ip user shouldn't be discriminated). The reason I went out directly against him is because of his claim that he's being attacked for something he's only been doing for "two-three" days, and of course, looking at his "user contributions" that's what it looks like, so why accuse him? I am not accusing him that he's anti those blogs, I'm accusing him of abusing the system and I don't like it. As I wrote him directly, his only contributions are nitpicking those of others. I think that's anti-wikipedia behavior.

I think blogs are in a catch 22, since old style newspapers have no interest in writing about them, and at most they'll reach the editorial page. Most blogs are not worthy of an entry, but I just wonder how many entries are going to be deleted before the policy is changed.

About the Fjordman blogger, for example. When the original speedy delete came up I said that if you google, it comes up in amazing numbers. To which I was told by this user "it's a common name in Scandinavia". But then, why does the blogger get top billings on the first 3-4 pagse of Google (at which time I gave up looking). What do I need to do to prove that this guy is immensely popular? Misheu 06:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I am having comunications problems, so please do not expect regular answers until Wednsdday May 30. Thanks for your suggestions and input. I do need somebody with some common sense to tell me this :-) I'm not so anti what you say as you think. When I told this user that I actually appreciated his speedy delete since it caused me to look up sources he thought I was joking and took it as an insult. I wouldn't be so "up in arms" this time if it wouldn't be posed as "look up all sources now for all entries or else" and come as a 'second wave'. There are so many other ways to approach articles you think need sources. Again, some of the entries he brought for deletion, i agree with, but most of them he's going against established, well known, influential blogs. Misheu 06:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

DGG, thanks for your help in this recent mess. I appreciate the good words helping move this process forward. --Edwin Herdman 21:02, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Kay Körner

Hi DGG, thanks for the guidance. I guess my interpretation of the policy was that claiming to have won only a local club level competition was speediable under A7. Just noticed the same thing at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rebecca Stewart. I'll take it to AFD. --JayHenry 00:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC) (and it was eleted here- replied further on your talk page) DGG

I see AfD agreed with you, or at least the first two people to look at it did. --well, that's what AfD is for. (smile)

Until this I had never thought about an assertion of a local competition possibly not counting as an assertion for purposes of A7--I continue to think it should count, for "local" is always debatable, even if the item at hand probably wouldn't show relevance at AfD; I'll discuss it on the talk page for WP:CSD. -- so thanks for sending it, & for starting the discussion.

Sometime it's an Interesting question what counts as local anyway: for Rebecca Stewart, I conceivably might have said A7 partly because the source was MySpace, & partly because it was high school. --peripheral things like that do have an influence But if she had won the State competition I wonder if it still would have been A7

As for Kay Korner, I think you gave a good argument for delete, the not for speedy. I'm certainly not going to follow it up as a particular case, unlike the general question. DGG 20:45, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

DGG, thanks for your thoughtful response. I see your point and largely agree, but on a practical level I worry that if AFD became filled with Kay Korner type autobiographies then the dozens of articles that need saved would get missed amid the chaff. I hardly know a single person who hasn't won some award or medal in their life; on a practical level they can't all be considered assertions of notability. Again, thank you for the guidance. --JayHenry 16:36, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Gordon MacPherson

Not sure how you did your article search, but I got >120 peer-reviewed articles. Which still doesn't make him notable. What is needed is an independant secondary source specifically referring to 'Gordon MacPherson's important scientific contribution to x'. -Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 03:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a number of people by that name, even in medicine. I was being very conservative--clearly over-conservative. I re-did it in Scopus to get a citation count, and found 58 peer-reviewed papers. I agree that I would in general not automatically consider an associate professor notable (that's the equiv. rank), but to my surprise, I found 427, 279, 250, 176, 146 citations for the five top papers. I think it covers the notability question. (I haven't put it all in the article quite yet. I find it much easier to cut spam down to size than to build up these over-modest articles.) Fiction writers get shown notable by reviews, athletes by competitions, scientists by citations. I can expand on this. DGG 03:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not the point. I strongly suspect that he is notable, but that is not the same thing as 1) knowing what he is notable for, 2) having an independant reference that establishes his notability, and c) having content in the article that discusses the thing he is notable for. Deleting an article doesn't prevent anyone from writing an article about that same subject in the future, it simply says that there's nothing in the current article that justifies having it. -Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 05:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I recognize you know the academic world, probably very well, so I don't have to explain why people there are important to start with (smile) (The next paragraph is what I have evolved as my standard reply-- it's addressed to people who do not know how scientists work, and I do not mean to sound as if you didn't know about this stuff--but it is better worded than what I can do on the spot)

• "We don't judge the work, even in subjects where some of us could, because this is an egalitarian place--we just show how other people have judged it. Notability for academics is typically established by their publications. People become professors by writing notable research papers. That the papers are notable is established by their being published in peer-reviewed journals. The review by two or more specialists in such peer review establishes those papers as evidence of N. For appointment, for promotion to associate professor of senior lecturer, they pass stringent reviews by peers, including particularly peers from other institutions.

this establishes notability much more strictly and reliably than we could here. The profession establishes notability; WP just records the fact.

In general, nobody writes magazine articles on professors, and they dont get a biography until they retire or die. Therefore, since notability in each field is judged by the standard of the field, and notability in this field is established by publications and positions, their publications and positions are always considered suffficient, as is explained more fully in WP:PROF., and consistently maintained at AfD."

"The standard there is more notable than the average." To be noticed by 400 peers is much more important that to be noticed by two book reviewers. To be noticed by more than 200 peers for several different publications is more notable than by being noticed by two book reviewers for several different novels.

Answers to specific objections: What he is notable for, is the subject of the papers. The abstracts are on PubMed for a description. There is no need to discuss the plot of a prize-winning movie to show it's notable. The recognition is sufficient. WP articles have to show their subjects are notable, by the standards of the field. They do not have to explain why the field holds them as notable; its best to get in some sort of orientation, but not essential.

The independent references are the papers themselves, and the are reliable because they have been published in peer-reviewed reliable journals. (in this case, of the very highest quality, and that can be shown too from Science Citation Reports). As a compromise rule of thumb, it seems to have been accepted that Full professors at research university are almost always notable, assistant professors rarely, associate, it depends. In this case, that many citation and papers would be enough even for an assistant professor, not that I can recall an assistant professor article here where he had such a strong record.

There is never much need to re-create an article about a scientist, since by the time enough people show up, it has become clear whether or not it's notable. If I can't get it rewritten or explained in 5 days I go on to the next. I do not defend the non-notable ones. (I do have a list of a few slip-ups when nobody noticed; when people write inadequate article that happens.) The article as it stands is sufficient, and these standards have been shown in multiple prior AfDs --I am not being idiosyncratic (actually, I should probably go back myself and make a list of informal precedents--there are no formal precedents here). DGG 06:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Helpful script

David, I saw you doing some CSD work, so I thought I'd point out a helpful script I stumbled on today - WP:CSDAR.--Kubigula (talk) 04:17, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Bad faith speedies

In response to the allegations that I was posting speed deletion tags out of revenge for having my article posted for such, I honestly wasn't. I read through the deletion policies thoroughly and read that we are encouraged to "Visit a Special:Randompage and jump into the rabbit hole!" to get involved with Wikipedia. So I did, and found articles that blatantly meet the speedy deletion criteria. It was nothing to do with revenge and I was only trying to get more involved in Wikipedia by bringing to attention some other pages - nothing to do with my own. I apologize if this was inappropriate but I do not believe I was doing it in bad-faith. --Davmid055 16:16, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your helpful tips. As I am new to wikipedia, and am just learning the ropes, it is inevitable that I would make some ediquette mistakes. I apologzie for this. But I will do my best to appropriately analyze articles now. As far as the article I wrote, it is mine and I do grant Wikipedia license to it. A few of the factual elements I gleaned from the pages provided in the links section, but I in no way plagiarised any of it. Most of it is written out of my own experience, since I own a five year old Kyi-Leo myself. So I hope other Kyi-Leo owners will later contribute to it. --Davmid055 20:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC) (has been discussed on his page--warning will be removed i a few days)DGG 00:29, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Trusilver

I saw your comment at Trusilver's talk page. I have always been under the impression that just because there is no "set" tag for an article to be speedily deleted, doesn't automatically exclude it from deletion. I mean, there isn't really one for films, not to mention there MUST be at least several dozen of the nearly 2 million articles we have that need to be deleted in a speedy fashion, but do not fit into any special category. I'm not trying to come across in a rude manner, but I do hope to find a common ground here with you. Jmlk17 01:02, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help...I'm still a pretty new admin, and am getting used to it all still. Jmlk17 08:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

re:ignoring the enemy

With the 'late at night' disclaimer, which article/discussion are we talking about?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  07:39, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: ok, I've figured that out :) Note that I use 'crank' only because I am citing a guideline using it, it's not a word I'd chose myself otherwise (per WP:CIV issues). That said, if a minor scholar's work is mostly ignored and only severly criticized in the only two academic reviews that look at it, I fail to see how it can be considered reliable enough to cite anywhere but in article about that minor scholar or his views. A good analogy is: if I get a PhD from history, go to work at some minor NGO or governmental outlet, publish a book at a minor/unknown publisher with some controversial claims not confirmed by any other source and get heavily criticized in two academic reviews by more reliable scholars: are you saying my work can still be cited on Wikipedia?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  07:51, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes, it can, and if the topic is discussed it should. But the articles by other people attacking the work should also been cited , and the arguments of both sides briefly presented. Since your work-- as postulated-- will have been erratic and incompetent, the arguments against it will be very strong, and the arguments for it, no matter how well presented, weak. the readers will realize it & judge for themselves.

This is not my original idea; I follow in this very closely the classic liberalism of J. S. Mill. Intellectual honesty, whether in academic writing or in public discourse, requires all arguments to be presented as well as they can be; otherwise it counts as propaganda. In most academic writing or public advocacy, one of course then draws a conclusion about the relative strength of the argument. In writing for a newspaper or an encyclopedia, one does not draw an opinion, but simply presents both sides. The only place a newspaper can express its opinion is in its editorials, which are mere arguments and carry no authority as evidence for anything. There is no place where an encyclopedia can properly express an opinion, thought it can and should honestly quote the opinions of others--all others.

I understand the provision to omit totally weird positions to mean that if nobody has noticed the author's theory but the author, then it need not & should not be presented--the usual WP standard of notability. DGG 15:26, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Any thoughts you might have on a somewhat similar situation at [5] would be most welcome. Novickas 16:16, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. You have commented before on the presumption of standing that is conferred on those authors whose works are held by major academic libraries. Since the point of contention in the above case is Garšva's editorship of a controversial history book - held by such libraries - would you extend that presumption to include Garšva? Not as a sole source: as a legitimate POV among others. Novickas 18:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Rabbi

It appears we do work in much the same way. Now that I have followed the rabbe link to see it isn't just an alternative spelling of rabbi, I totally understand how there is a claim of notability that merits a chance to be developed. Erechtheus 00:43, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:PROF

My apologies for this, I figured no-one but me would be interested in such a specific question. But now I have another question - was my use of the talk page for this question appropriate? I've asked questions like this before to mixed results and I'd be happy to know of a better venue if I'm using it incorrectly (i.e. talk pages should be for issues regarding the main page only). WLU 16:42, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

it's reasonable to use the talk pages to ask about interpreting the rule, and if has occurred over a particular article, it helps to say which. As a rough guide, any general question you have (or error you might make) will be asked or done again by someone else; & will generally have happened before, for this one, last time was a few weeks ago & it led to quite a fight at AfD, because somebody speedied the pages for most of the heads of Australian universities. So people do need reminding, and it's good for the people who discuss policy there to see what questions people have. Sometimes you can search to see if it has been answered before, but often it needs to be said again. If it is really specific to the unusual facts of an individual page, you can ask individually someone who you can see from the talk page or AfD is interested in the matter. Most have enough sense to tell you when they know their advice is not universally accepted.

Incidentally, many academic people or their students write drab articles, and don't always know what to emphasize. I've learned to never assume something unfamiliar is unimportant without at least a google search, & for academics, google scholar.

And participating in the discussions on policy pages (and AfD) is the way to learn the rules and the customs. I see you've been doing a great deal of good editing on contentious subjects--you will find it useful to know the arguments people use in policy discussions. The text of the rule isn't always as helpful. But I warn you that discussing policy is addictive. DGG 17:12, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Everything wiki is addictive :)

I tend to graze a lot, and for pages like the ones I just prodded, the prod is usually a prod to the author (ha!) to pay attention to the page and up it's notability. Better is to do so myself, but I'm lazy... Thanks for the reply, I'll take it as 'a reasonable question in the right place but it's been done before so next time look for it. And don't erase your question afterwards'. I figure if enough people keep asking the same questions then eventually the people who edit the pages themselves will eventually point to representative archives or modify the policy to be more clear. Thanks! WLU 17:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

RE: speedies

Thank you for correcting my mistakes on the Mearns & Mearns Castle articles. I completely did not realise that this was the correct way to go about things. I can see you are a very experienced editor and I thank you for your help. I just have a question for you, I was wondering, what happens if no-one takes interest in such a non-notable article like the school, is there not a good chance it will get kept up then? Thank You --SteelersFan UK06 23:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Librarian stuff

Hi DGG, I recognize your username from around the wiki (recently at some Afds I'm watching). I see you're an admin and a librarian, and that you've contributed to similar discussions in the past, so I'd like to point out the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Unusual university spam. I think it's about time we developed a clear policy about this sort of thing. As an established wikipedian and wannabe librarian, I've taken a great interest in this debate. Thanks for considering it! Latr, Katr 02:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your thoughtful reply. There seems to be a lot of hostility and misunderstanding around this issue, so I hope we can reach a satisfactory conclusion. If I go for my MLIS, I'll do the UW's distance-learning program, since I don't really want to move to Seattle. It sounds like a lot of fun, but I have to do my research and determine if the extra money I would be making would be worth the extra debt I'd be taking on! Latr, Katr 16:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

P.S. There is a similar thread that I moved just below the one in which you responded that you might want to check out. I'm taking everything related to that off my watchlist, as I seem to have unknowingly created some hostility between myself and one of the editors involved. If you would, please keep me posted if any new policies or guidelines are developed out of this. Thanks! Latr, Katr 17:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

edit summaries

(comment from : User talk:Netkinetic Please be careful to maintain a neutral tone in edit summaries "sorry, John, you arent notable enough for wikipedia" -- even when people are not notable, that dismissive over-personal wording is not appropriate. And to actually use it as an edit summary on both the article and the talk p. of the editor, is, in my opinion, getting close to WP:BITE. (Anyway, that is not the standard for speedy--speedy is no assertion of notability. The statement that someone is a professor somewhere is a clear assertion. ) Before nominating people in unfmiliar fields for deleteion especially with speedy,it is considered to be a good idea to check at least google, and, for someone for whom it might be relevant, GoogleScholar. When I was new here, I sent some articles to AfD about people in sports I knew little about, and I learned a great deal from the reaction. Think for a minute whether a full professor at UC Santa Cruz who developed a notable theory is likely to non-notable. Your excellent vandal fightinng is muc appreciated by all us admins, but please don't make unnecessary work for us.

Actually it would be an even better idea of the editor himself added some more suitable content to his {{db-bio}} violating article. Self-promotion is not what Wikipedia is about and, as an administrator, I would think you would know this. The edit summary may have been a little bit over the top, but "over-personal"? Any objective editor coming across that article would surmise from the creation and verbage of that article that it was auto-biographical, even you admitted that in your response on both the registered and anon talk pages. Editors address each other by name frequently in edit summaries, and if they reveal their personal name, that is fair-game as well. Hopefully your break until July 4th will provide some sufficient time to allow for self-reflection on the principles and guidelines WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:POV before summarily dismissing an article deserving of speedy delete consideration. Regards and be well. Netkinetic ^(t/c/@) 17:36, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Unreferenced_articles#verifiable

A couple days ago you made a suggestion at Wikipedia_talk:Unreferenced_articles#verifiable "There should be another project to examine the articles for which references can not be found", I suggested WP:AfD was that project. Now I have found Jian Yong and posted a comment at Wikipedia_talk:Unreferenced_articles#Challenging article to reference Take a look, is it a candidate to springboard a new not AfD project off of? Unless I missed something this one is looks like a notable historical person, with a fictional current character (minor?), and no reliable English language references. Jeepday (talk) 00:57, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

***INTERNET PROBLEMS***

I AM HAVING COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS, AND MAY NOT BE ABLE TO RESPOND TO COMMENTS QUICKLY UNTIL AFTER JULY 4 DGG 01:14, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

You are quite correct that the edit summary bordered on WP:BITE. However, allowing an article to not be considered under speedy deletion when it violates WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NOR (shall I continue?) is mystifying. A professor at a university is non-notable in and of itself. Please respect the process and allow the community to decide. Regards. Netkinetic ^(t/c/@) 04:03, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

please read WP:SPEEDY, at this time, RS, V and NOR are none of them reasons for speedy. I did not make this policy, but of course as an admin I follow it. If you want to change the policy, WP:VP is the place. DGG 00:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:SPEEDY, criteria exists i.e. "Blatant advertising. Pages which exclusively promote a company, product, group, service, or person and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic." Are you stating that the article in question was encylopedic. Because according to Wikipedia guidelines, which you are well aware (or should be), an article that violates WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:RS is not encylopedic. Unless we have different criteria in place for university professors, perhaps WP:UP? And even admin DGG states the following on an article s/he marked for speedy deletion: "some encyclopedic information and sources were needed". Glad we both agree after all. :)Netkinetic ^(t/c/@) 05:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

we are in total agreement that many articles should be deleted, and I do my share. The article for that comment was about a product with 1 sentence saying where it is made and another saying where it was sold. Clear advertisement. The one prev. discussed gave a sober description of the career and the chief accomplishments, and just needed proper references and the addition of supporting content. Clear not A7 or G11, and unref is not a speedy. Unencyclopedic articles should be deleted, but not all of them through speedy. Nominating that page for PROD or Afd would have been totally appropriate--I generally nominate such pages for prod myself. . Please recheck WP:DELETE. And before citing rules, read them: WP:UP is not the p. about University Professors. WP:PROF is, and it was asserted that he developed a notable theory. But there is no point in arguing further here about single articles--there are too many articles waiting that need deletion.DGG 18:31, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: AFD

I'm sorry, but calling someone ridiculous is a personal attack and making reference to material not of any relevance to a debate only serves to corrupt the equity of the system. I am also curious as to where a "patently unsuitable" nomination is, if you can point one out and provide a relevant policy that it breaches then by all means go ahead. I am going to disregard your warning, quite simply you are not an admin and you haven't justified yourself in making up new policy Sploooshman 08:43, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, DGG is an admin, and a respected one at that. Secondly, would you be so kind as to provide diffs or even a link to the specific AfD that you have in mind? There are plenty of people who stop by from time to time and some of us would like to understand your claims. Antelan ^talk 15:48, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I looked at Spl-man's AfD nominations, but all seemed to be speedily closed (not by DGG) & I lost interest. See closer's comment. Johnbod 15:53, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Johnbod. Antelan ^talk 17:04, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

and my thanks to both of youDGG 22:55, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Siggi's Skyr page

Dear DGG, I noticed that you marked our page for Speedy deletion and that it was subsequently removed. I did read your user page and am very impressed with the work you do for the Wikipedia community. However I must object to the deletion of our page. It had been pointed out to us at Siggi's Skyr that we had no mention on Wikipedia like most other yogurt brands. (Dannon, Yoplait, Brown Cow just to name a few) In similar manner we feel the Siggi's Skyr has a justified presence on Wikipedia. We are planning on reposting the page and would welcome any suggestions from you on how to make the page as neutral and encyclopedic as possible. Best regards, Sveinn Ingimundarson

replied that some encyclopedic information and sources were needed, and reminded about COI.DGG 22:55, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

AFD

Hi. Thanks for the headsup, however, I've deliberately decided to hold back my keep 'vote' for now to give andy a chance to convince me of his viewpoint. I'll make a further edit with Keep or Delete once he's had a fair crack at that. SP-KP 23:20, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

DreamGuy

Just wanted to let you know that DreamGuy has been up to his old tricks at the Parapsychology article. He has been making untrue and uncivil attacks on the talk page, and edit warring- mostly about links.

Your talk page took me 3 min to load- it would be a lot of help if you could archive.

Cheers Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 02:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Here's a bunch of diffs showing his edit warring:

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9] Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 03:32, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I don't care about the category myself at this point- I just don't like the edit warring, the attacks and the bad attitude. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 03:44, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I've been telling everyone else on the talk page- ignore him he's a troll. Doesn't stop me from trying to get administrative help though (he's also up for ArbCom, but it failed). I guess he'll be banned eventually. Thanks for your time (: Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 03:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Will do. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 04:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

DDG, I wish you would recuse yourself from taking action against me, considering your history of foul ups where I am concerned, with your completely out of process block, the warning you gave which you didn't even follow, you undoing a block and not even getting that right, etc. Right now you are basically becoming the go-to guy for editors to file false complaints, knowing that you will hop in to oppose me regardless of the validity of the claims. Your edit comment on your revert at Parapsychology was simply false, and your comments with Martinphi here show extreme bias on your part. Martinphi and a gaggle of other editors are involved in a major batch of coordinated POV-pushing to try to ignore longstanding WP:NPOV policy. In fact they are currently in an active arbitration case about it. Joining in with them is really poor form. Above you said that if you did anything with Wikifur it would be not as an admin, yet here you are pretending to be an unbiased and responsible admin. Very poor form. And if (hopefully when) Martinphi and others get blocked for POV pushing, you'll just look that much more out of step with Wikipedia policy, if your actions on Wikifur weren't already bad enough. DreamGuy 05:18, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course he thinks you're biased- what would you expect? But I'll just go to 3RR.... not that I expect to be able to. Re the ArbCom, I did a couple of bad and a couple of iffy things as shown by my block log, but the ArbCom essentially instituted my understanding of NPOV on the paranormal articles. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 06:30, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Larry M Hyman

Thank you for expanding the article. It looks great! But in the future, either leave the uncategorised tag there or if you are going to remove it, please categorise it yourself. Thanks.

Will Hauser

Thanks for the heads up! I have recently changed the references. Check it out for me!!! But, the link about his old band is all the confirmation i could get (so its still a link to the myspace page). is that okay?

Thanks Again!!
Crazilazigurl07 talk 19:35, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

So, I looked over the Hauser page. Thanks for helping with that!!! And for the Street To Nowhere page. I didnot really do that one! Someone else started the page, and I just updated a few things. But, I will do my best to get the page in order. Again, thanks for all your editing and constructive criticism. You're the first person to actually talk to me before just deleting or erasing all my hard work!! Thanks!!
Crazilazigurl07 talk 23:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

deletion on Downtown Berkeley, Berkeley, California

I want to delete the page because Downtown Berkeley, Berkeley, California and Downtown Berkeley, California have the same content. Chris! _{my talk} 21:28, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I am trying to move Downtown Berkeley, California to Downtown Berkeley, Berkeley, California. But I somehow mess it up and create two identical pages. Could you help me on that? Chris! _{my talk} 21:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

But Downtown Berkeley, California makes it sounds like a city, while it is really just a neighborhood within Berkeley. Look at Cragmont, Berkeley, California for example. I agree that the name I suggest is too long, so what do you suggest. Chris! _{my talk} 21:45, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I have another name for it. How about we just call it "Downtown Berkeley" without the word California in it. Chris! _{my talk} 21:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, cool. Thanks. Chris! _{my talk} 21:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Wish I can change all the links with one click. Chris! _{my talk} 21:59, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Robert Shelly

Hello DGG, sorry for the stub on Shelly but I was planning to research more about this a little obscure (at least to me) philosopher after some organization I have been doing on philosophers' infoboxes (he is mentioned as a "major influence" of Habermas). However, I now recognize that I should have researched more or just discussed about Habermas' infobox... At least I have learned another lesson on how to act on Wikipedia. Sorry once more. :) (PS: you wrote in my "main" page, I will move it to the talk page) tresoldi 01:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I had never heard about WorldCat, thank you very much for the suggestion! Best wishes for your work in Wikipedia. tresoldi 03:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

John Żammit

Are you certain all is well with John Żammit. Article seems to be written by the person himself which might be conflict of interest, but I'm not sure. -WarthogDemon 02:39, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not the least sure how notable he is, but it isnt a speedy for obvious lack of notability--From Google, he seems to be a local big shot in Malta. This isn't going to be easy to source--what I've just done is put a prod on to give time. It would help if you'd keep track--if someone removes the prod without improving it, p[lease send to AfD. Agreed, its COI, but that is not a reason for speedy. if someone with COI writes a really spammy article, then speedy for G11 spam is often applicable. If they're lazy, then copyvio is worth a look. But this is a sober article of dubious notability. Not everyone agrees with me, but I think speedy is only fair when it is unquestionably non-notable or altogether impossible on other grounds. I apologize for not putting on a prod immediately, but there's a large speedy backlog tonight and not enough admins seem to be around, & I want to help clear out the real trash before the holiday. DGG 02:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Consider it done. Watching it. Main reason I put up the bio tag was because I thought it was a vanity page - had I thought there was possible notability I'd have prodded it like you have. I'll keep an eye on it now. -WarthogDemon 02:55, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Not sure why you tagged Girija maa's Wikipedia page. it is not advertising...

Look at some one like Mata Amritanandamayi very similar persons and writings on descriptions

please let me know how to make the page work better so it is not deleted!!!

User talk:PoliceChief

Hi, as a disinterested admin I should welcome your review of the discussion at User talk:PoliceChief which seems to contain some veiled threats. I am at a loss to see what the beef is (apart from his unhappiness at my unblanking the talk page, a secondary issue) and it would be helpful if you were to add an objective view to the page. TerriersFan 16:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I interpret the last message as an indication of peaceful closure & I think it better to leave well enough alone. No one seeing this whole thing will think the worse of you. Saying one will try to have an admin removed shouldn't be construed as a threat-there are at least 2 such comments on my talk page & I haven't seen the need to remove them. There's probably an irrelevant personal issue, the traditional bad night's sleep--nothing the least unreasonable or contentious in any prev. edit. by either.

The Namaste Guild - prod contested, AfD started

Greetings! I noticed that you proposed The Namaste Guild for deletion. I wanted to let you know that the prod was contested, and the article is now in AfD discussion here. —C.Fred (talk) 22:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Correction of fact re. Ronald J. Clarke

I noted that you made changes to the Clarke page concerning discoveries and just wanted to correct some points of fact. Ron didn't discover Sk 847 - it was discovered long before he became invovled in palaeoanthropology - (around 1949 or so). the confusion arises as a result of his having worked on the skull for his thesis in the middle eighties. Secondly, he wasn't invovled in the discovery of the Olduvai habilis - he was invited at a later date to reconstruct part of the crushed cranium for publication.

Regards

Profberger 05:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

CSD criteria on PTDA

Hi, Do you think that an association would count as a group, rather than a company, for the purposes of speedy deletion? It's an interesting point I've never really though about. Seeing as I nominate lots of articles for speedy deletion I though an opinion might be useful. Cheers Kevin 05:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

"The Fore and Aft" Regiment

I understand that you are an inclusionist (I'm just moderate), and I won't complain about you turning down my db-a7, so I made an AfD for it. I don't know if this is taboo, but I hope you will side with me in realizing that this page is pure nonsense and in inappropriate for Wikipedia. That's all. Happy adminning! :D Tdmg 08:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletion vs Inclusion

Surprising, isn't it? You're a fervent inclusionist and I'm a rabid deletionist, and yet we almost always act in the same direction. I suppose your yin balances my yan and we end up somewhere in a fairly reasonable middle.

It still makes you think-- if we end up agreeing so often despite our fundamentally different approaches it probably means Sturgeon's Law is on the nose as always.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 16:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, on a semi-related note, I've closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Twyana Davis last night since you speedied it. I'm no expert, can you confirm I did it right? — Coren ^(talk) 16:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, personally, I'd be in favor of a policy that said that admins should not speedy article unless tagged by someone else. Checks and balances and all that. With reasonable exceptions, perhaps, for G10 and G12 since the very existence of those articles is damaging. — Coren ^(talk) 16:58, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Question

You recently send me a message regarding a page I put up. Could you e-mail me directly? porterjl@indiana.edu The page was put up for a department of which I am in charge of the Web site content, so yes, some materials were taken from our site. If need be I can rephrase things. But again, it's a site that I maintain. I am not well versed in Wikipedia and want to know what I should do. I'm currently in the process of searching to see which of our faculty have pages, at which point I'll add those links. The edits you've made are fine.

Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion

Hey, look! I've been (mildly) bold and went ahead and suggested the change. — Coren ^(talk) 17:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Patricia Taylor Comments

Hi DGG, I am delicasso, and wanted to respond to your feedback on this entry. I added two book reference and her PhD footnote, and some link to (some of) what she is currently doing. I was originally modelling this after the Margot Anand entry. However, I have added a bit more content and footnoting. Let me know what else, if anything, you'd like to see. Thanks, Delicasso (David)

The overdue question :)

Sorry was a bit busy. My question is, how seriously can we include a source that seriously challenges a commonly held view without an explanation. For lack of better example at the moment: Let's say I challenge the view that the earth is round and I provide a citation. But it fails to explain itself and leaves a lot to be answered. Let's say I cite source saying earth could have been flat but most likely it was round. Can I discard such a source that says in a wiki article Earth was flat or round as original research?Hetoum I 20:20, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Depends on the degree to which the view is universally held, and the authority of the source. If the president of the Royal Geographical Society says the earth is flat after all, it can be used in an article about the earth. If there is no explanation, it can still be treated as an opinion. If George W. Bush says the earth is flat, it can be used in an article about him. What's the actual instance? DGG 22:50, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The following quote was referred to in an Article: Movses, native of the village of Kalankatuyk in Utik, was either Uti (Albanian) who wrote in Armenian, or Armenian, which is very likely, because during at that time Artsakh and greater part of Utik were Armenianised.

So, author uses this for purpose of saying in article "this individual was either Caucasian Albanian or Armenian." It is unclear if we should rely on a sole reference with no explanation labeling this individual as Albanian, especially without an explanation.Hetoum I 17:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for interfering, but the quote is from K.Trever, who was one of the top Russian experts on Caucasian Albania. I see no reason why this reference should not be used. After all, we need to include all existing scholarly opinions, not just one. --Grandmaster 06:54, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Wahey archipelago

That the Wallace Line exists is not in question. It has its own article. What is in question is the archipelago's existence. That doesn't seem to appear on any map, including the one in your reference. Kelisi 20:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC) (I goofed) DGG

Faculty of Agriculture Zagazig University

Why did you revert my addition of a CSD tag to that article? It obviously isn't still under construction, despite your assertion to the contrary, since the last edit was made over two months ago and has been left in it's skeletal, contentless state ever since. You can be an 'inclusionist' all you want, but if you don't know how to tell whether or not an article qualifies for speedy deletion, don't remove speedy delete tags. 24.146.29.231 05:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Kenoyim

Would you mind deleting this once and for all? The MfD is over a week old and the sole contributor has left WP. It has just been an eyesore on my watchlist, that's all. Thanks, DLand^TALK 16:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Plot summaries

I have in the last couple of days called for keeping a plot summary for Les Miserables, Angel (TV series) and Buffy (TV series) because the Hugo novel is important in popular culture, and one hears references to it or to situations and characters in it, but no one should have to plow through the endless turgid prose and meandering plot. The TV series are quite different. The plot article provides an overview of the plot arc for the season, which is an emergent property not found in the extremely short capsule summaries for each episode. I am opposed to having detailed, scene by scene plot summaries of every comedy, drama, and cartoon, but a well written overview of series with season-long plot arcs seems quite encyclopedic. These do not relate every event from every episode. I know there is a bias against keeping an article because it is "useful" (heaven forbid anyone should ever find something "useful" in Wikipedia), but if I've heard about a TV show like "Lost" with a complex plot line, knowing the history of the show helps make the next episode comprehensible and entertaining. Seeing one sentence about each episode of a show which has been on several years does not give the reader/viewer the "big picture" like the 2 TV plot guides do. I feel that WP:NOT strongly needs a revision to this effect, but I am all too aware that a cabal will smite down anyone who tries to change a policy without "consensus" when it only takes one or two doctrinaire editors to object and deny that consensus and revert the change. Consensus can also be shown by a set of AFD outcomes. Other TV shows like this might be "The Sopranos," "X-Files" or any other long running series wherein there are plot arcs beyond the individual episode. In contrast, many comedies, cop shows, westerns like "Gunsmoke", and even juvie sci-fi series like "Lost in Space" had pretty much stand alone episodes, with little or no carryover of plot elements from one episode to the next. The fallback position is to call for the season-arc episode guides to replace the existing series-long episode guides in articles about such shows as "Buffy" or "Angel." Shows like these two have been the subject of reviews and conferences with scholarly papers read, and there have been books written about each season, so one could add as many references as necessary to satisfy any requirement that the content be reference based and not OR. Edison 16:26, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

There are 100 references for the main Buffy the Vampire Slayer article. Major references for the plot arcs would be the series of books called "The Watcher's Guide". These are reliable, but arguably not independent, since they have ties to 20th Century Fox. But there are lots of fully reliable and independent sources about the larger plot arcs, also listed as refs at the Buffy main article, such as DVD reviews at Rotten Tomatos, many of which are from legitimate sources such as Salon, which has editorial supervision and identified reviewers (as opposed to fan reviews)., for instance [10]. There is the whole Buffy studies which lists academic works on the series, for those who are more into it than casual watchers such as me. Edison 17:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Central Lafourche High School

Thank you very much for un-prodding this article. Some poor newbie (probably a kid at the school) started the article. I've wikified it a bit. You deserve a BARNSTAR for helping this one out and for WP:AGF. I really agree heartily with you that "notable alumni make notable high schools", e.g., Bronx High School of Science. ;-) Bearian 17:41, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Closed AfD

Thou art much confused, my friend.  :-) T'was not I that commited this close! — Coren ^(talk) 20:02, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

RE: Past Presidents

A valid point about the references. They were already in the article (but rather hidden)and now I've given them their own spot at the bottom of the page. As having members with WP articles, the pickings are slim. But where you might see an AFD, I see a small project of sorts. Many of the people on that list are notable professors/teachers/scientists in their own right. So, I was planning to Start writing articles on a few past presidents of interest, and give them overdue praise for their contributions to education and science. I'd be happy to discuss this further, but probably not tonight--I'm off to sleep. Violadamore

sampling deletions

I've replied on my talk page. SamBC 06:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

==Aaron Bock==

Responded at length over on Talk:Aaron Bock, however, would just like to point out again that I was under the impression it is up on AfD for attack, not for notability. However, I disagree with both of these and would like to remedy that in whatever way possible. I've never encountered this problem before, and I've submitted numerous biographies here. Thanks! --Mrprada911 07:55, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Living Waters Christian Fellowship

Hi. I noticed you removed the speedy deletion tag on this and replaced it with a proposed deletion, as "churches don't fit speedy for notability". Speedy category (A7) covers "groups of people" - or are religious groups of people exempt from this?

pablo .  _{... talk ...} 08:54, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

disputable, so prod is safer. DGG

OK, but seeing as the template itself cites "It is an article about a person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not assert the importance or significance of the subject. " (my emboldening) then I'm quite happy with speedy deletion rather than prod. Otherwise why is this article more legitimate than Tunbridge Wells Psychopathic Gay Society or any other group of people?

pablo .  _{... talk ...} 23:14, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Arthur B. Robinson

Thanks for fixing the links there, but they still aren't showing right. What did you do to fix them? If you have a minute take a look at how they still look. Funny to me. Sky 12:37, 7 July 2007 (UTC). Now fixed.DGG

michael

Thanks DGG. I wrote the source text for Video Interactions for Teaching and Learning and will figure out next week how to transfer the copyright, or rewrite to be different enough for WP consumption. References can follow. I don't have the source article so it would be nice if it were reinstated. emailed. I strongly suggest rewriting. It won't hold up in any case without strong outside refs. DGG

Aspergineering

Hi there; you make a most interesting comment here, with which I do not argue, but merely wish to learn from. You state that neologisms are always deletable by {{prod}}, not by {{speedy}}. Are you stipulating that this is wiki policy? I should point out that I have not changed your comments on the page in question. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 22:00, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - spelled it wrong. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 22:02, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I have got to say that yes, I tend to delete obvious neologisms, and no-one has complained yet. If there is a possibility of argument then, yes, I go to {{prod}}. Or WP:AfD. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 22:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I plan on continuing to delete obviously nonsense neologisms, and wait for policy guidance. --Anthony.bradbury^"talk" 22:43, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

A Treatise on White Magic

You say: "not a good wp article, but not empty enough for speedy, so i sent it to prod".

Do you have any idea how discouraging that comment is? How bad does an article have to be to be considered unacceptable? If even that piece of junk does not qualify for removal, then Wikipedia standards are too low to justify the effort of editing. Kwork 22:30, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

(might actually be notable) DGG

The book is notable within a very tiny community of Alice Bailey followers. No one else reads ever reads it, and few among them bother. That includes the person who wrote the article, because it is clear to someone who has read the book that the editor who wrote the article had not read it. In my view, in this sort of case, it is best to remove the defective article. As it stands now, Wikipedia is presenting an article to the public that is worthless. There is also a second article on the same subject White Magic (Alice A. Bailey).. Kwork 12:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

You wrote on my user page: first of all, i was in some doubt whether the subject is in fact notable, for the author appeared to be notable,--though I see now that you also had some objections to the biographic article about the author--I had not seen that at the time I prodded. I'm not an expert in the subject, so I didn't want to decide that for myself, and therefore prod'ed. I've now gone back and removed the content to which I objected, so I removed the prod. & substituted tags for notability and unsourced. If you disagree, by all means take it to AfD where it can be discussed--I also am willing to go by the consensus there.

My objection to the Alice Bailey article is that it does not give a neutral point of view, and uses her self published autobiography as the only meaningful source. There was plenty of discussion over that, but my tag was removed. Kwork 12:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

afd procedures

Keeping in mind that AFD's are not a vote, a more distinct visual clue (like a colorful icon) helps to give a closing admin more a general idea of the majority consensus. What's more, these icons are in wide use (just look at the AFD logs for the last week). So if you have a problem with them, better to bring it up at the appropriate project or policy talk pages (rather than dictating to individual users how they should present their views on an AFD). VanTucky ^(talk) 02:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I will do both. DGG (talk) 04:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Orbit Award

Not my place to do the author's research before proding. If it isn't in the article, then I am assuming it isn't important enough to be there and therefore, it isn't notable. The author has the responsibility of establishing notability, not the proder. 172.145.177.55 02:48, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't disagree more--we cooperate to improve articles, and delete the ones that we cant improve. DGG

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wauwatosa West High School

You may want to limit yourself to one vote at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wauwatosa West High School, perhaps by combining the text of your two votes. Alansohn 05:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Episode review TfD

I posted this on the TfD as well, but I really wanted to make sure you saw my reply:

DGG, I can't stress this enough, these tags were never meant to be used like this. They were never meant to be added in mass without the tagger looking at the articles and doing some initial evaluation. Abuse of the tool should be addressed, deleting the tool because one user over did it is not a good thing, and just screws everyone else over. The discussions themselves are now being held on individual "list of episodes" articles, instead of a centralized area, and these tags are a way to help more people collaborate with the process. By deleting these templates you are only making that small group stay small. A new idea will always start small, but on Wikipedia things like that grow extremely fast. If you snipe the process before it has a change to get off the ground, then people won't be able to find it. The first template was nominated for deletion before a single episode article even got reviewed. -- Ned Scott 05:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I have come to oppose the entire project, because of the demonstrated effect it has already had on articles. I think the reasonably extended presentation of content of a primary source is appropriate--though I agree that it should be accompanied by analysis. I particularly dislike the method that is being applied-- that the correct policy that there should be both presentation and analysis is being addressed not by adding content discussing the material, but by removing material presenting it. I do agree however, that some of the existing discussions were over-detailed. I agree with merging individual episode articles. I do not agree with deleting their basic content, and such is the practical effect of the tag. DGG (talk) 17:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I respect that and all, think about things like WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:WAF. It's not that, it would be nice to have real world information, but rather, we require real world information. This "project" was started as a way to find potential in episodes, rather than taking them to AfD. You seem to be blaming to the process because no one can find the potential, or even something to hint towards the potential.

You said: "that the correct policy that there should be both presentation and analysis is being addressed not by adding content discussing the material, but by removing material presenting it. "

Did you stop to think, maybe there wasn't anything to add? -- Ned Scott 03:56, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

And as far as merging goes, I haven't been watching the closure themselves that much, but stuff should be merged that can be merged. I'm sorry if anyone is not doing this, and if you have any specific review in mind I'll volunteer to clean up the mess myself. -- Ned Scott 04:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

fair enough, and I've had these discussions end up in joint projects before. Even afds sometimes end that way. its the way things should go.

(and I was about to send:

for video shows and the like, the question of finding material is relative tricky for me, because I myself am neither willing nor qualified to find the material, and it's uncomfortable making bare assertions of the existence of material. (though i think the plot of these shows does tend to be discussed in both specialist publications and often newspapers, for at least the most prominent--certainly for shows like the Sopranos. And they also are increasingly discussed in academic writing on popular culture--but the discussion inevitably comes several years behind. But in this part of the field I'm a consumer, not a producer--I want to read the material, not write it. The only area of pop culture where there is good material of this sort in the articles is rock music, where many easily available publication do analyze it, and the followers know about them.

However, for something where I know the research methods a little better, and where it was challenged, I did find it--Les miserables. There were at least a hundred articles in Google Scholar that clearly discussed the plot, and I was able to select 5 or 6 where the titles made it really evident.

Had i done a serious job with professional indexes and non-english sources, I could have found many more. And from these the critical material could be written. But WPedians are not that great on academic writing, as you know, and it will be a while until the work gets done. I would not remove the articles in the meantime. i would keep, and add.

had those challenging spent the time on adding material to the articles where possible, instead challenging them and removing them, it would have been a start. Of course, had those defending them spent half their arguing time on adding, it would have been better as well. The tendency at AfDs in general on all topics of people to say there is material, and cite it at length at at the Afd, but put off adding it to the article doesn't help. Anyone can edit, and most are lazy about it. I'd love to have a rule that one could not place an afd without documenting where one had looked. I wont delete a speedy or expired prod until i've confirmed the absence for myself. (I'm talking generally here, not this project in particular, and certainly not you in particular.) DGG (talk) 04:24, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro (2nd nomination)

Hello, I am contacting you because you participated in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Francesco Dionigi, which resulted in the deletion of Francesco Dionigi. A new article has been created about the same person, Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro. I have nominated it for deletion, and you may wish to read the new article and comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro (2nd nomination). --Akhilleus (talk) 06:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking about???

When did I create a topic heading called Barbarians anything? LoveMonkey 16:45, 8 July 2007 (UTC) OK let me put you to the test so as to give you a crystal understanding of the horrible mess that my wikipedia experience has been. Here is an article about the Cherokee Native Americans. Ani-kutani This article purposed that according to Cherokee history that a secret society which has technology (including a written language predating Sequoyah). Still exists and is now in Missouri. This article actually does to the Native Americans what Plotinus was stating in his Tract Against the Gnostics that the Gnostics did to Hellenic culture and Philosophy specifically Platonic philosophy. Here is the article as I found it. A good bit of this article is indeed a hoax. As it exists now. [11]

---

Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni or Ah-ni-gu-ta-ni (pronounced Ah-nee-koo-tah-nee/Ah-nee-goo-tah-nee) were the ancient priesthood of the Cherokee or Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya people. According to Cherokee legend, the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni were exterminated during a mass uprising by the Cherokee people approximately 300 years prior to European Contact.[1] This uprising was sparked by the fact that the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni had become despotic and oppressive to the people.[2] The ancient structure of Cherokee Society and the Cherokee Clans were closely linked to the beliefs of the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni. Contents [hide]

   * 1 History
   * 2 Current status
   * 3 Etymology
   * 4 Mormon connection
   * 5 References
   * 6 Notes

History

This group of priests were believed to have created and maintained the first writing system of the Cherokee people, predating Sequoyah's Syllabary.[3] The great Cherokee Scholar Sequoyah is generally credited with the creation of the modern Cherokee Syllabary. However, in recent times, the ancient syllabary of the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni has reappeared, and the legends of its existence may have been what inspired Sequoyah to perform his great work. This most ancient syllabary does not resemble the modern Sequoyah syllabary in any meaningful way, but the legends of the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni are believed to have inspired Sequoyah to recreate a means of writing for the Cherokee people which was believed to have been lost during the exterminaton of the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni. It was legend among the Cherokee that the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni were able to record "the words of the people upon the wind" and that they possessed a writing system that was not shared with the common people, and was considered powerful magic.

Although it was widely held by the Cherokees that the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni were all destroyed, a small group of their descendants hid among the people in secrecy and marched the Trail of Tears.[4] When they reached the banks of the Mississippi River near modern day Cape Girardeau, Missouri, they fled into the surrounding woods and founded a small community in the swamps near the river. Their hidden community was called Kla-da-tsa-yi (Klah-dah-aht-saw-yee), meaning "the place of the panther" or "panther swamp."[5] According to the ancient written prophecies of the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni, the Mississippi River was a boundary that the Cherokee were forbidden to cross by the Creator spirit -- and if the Cherokee crossed the river, they would fall under a curse and war with one another, and not find peace until the people returned to the true culture of the Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya and the ceremonies were performed on the spot the Cherokee people crossed the river. In September of 2002, the Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya and Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni performed the ancient ceremonies on the spot where the Cherokee people crossed the river, and believe that the true culture, spirituality, and brotherhood of the people was restored according to ancient written prophecies. [6]

The Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni also restored the seven priests of the ancient priesthood from among selected individuals of the Cherokee Nation, United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The current leader of the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni is a member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. The Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni are and remain an extremely secretive organization, and the identities of the priests are not generally known, even among the Cherokee people, for fear of political reprisals. Several prominent Cherokee historians who are members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians are aware of the existence of this organization in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and refer to the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni as the "old ones" or the "ancient ones".

Current status A group still exists today as a religious organization called the Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya. They hold many ancient objects and archives written in this ancient Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni syllabary that record the original ceremonies of the Cherokee, which were practiced unchanged for thousands of years. They also possess two stone tablets written in an ancient ideographic form of the language that are believed to be extremely ancient. These tablets record the origins of the Cherokee people, and state that the Cherokee migrated to North America thousands of years ago from somewhere else. These tablets also tell a story that the Earth, E-lo-hi (Eee-loe-hee) was created by the star people who then brought the Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya (all the human people) to dwell here in happiness from the place of the sun, gu-ta-ni(yi) (another star in the heavens). [7]

Etymology The name of the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni can no longer be translated by most modern Cherokee speakers, as the meaning of this word has been lost. Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni translates in the ancient dialect as "the people who came from the place of the sun." Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni is the modern form of the word spoken in the Oklahoma dialect. The ancient form of the word is Ah-ni-gu-ta-ni.

Mormon connection Many Latter-day Saints believe that the Prophet Joseph Smith visited the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni in the early 1800s during his excursions into Missouri, since records of the Church indicate Smith met with a group of Indians, somewhere in Missouri, who possessed a writing system and recorded the history of their genealogy.[8] It is a provision of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that at least some native Americans are actually descendants of Israel, and these are therefore considered to have the blood of Abraham.

References (alphabetical by title)

   * Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya Monthly Newsletters, published Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya Religious Orgranization, October 2002 Issues, HCR 64 Box 816 Grassy, MO 63751
   * Ancient Cherokee Scribes in the 1500s
   * Cherokee by David Fitzgerald and Robert J. Conley; Graphic Arts Center Publishing, 2002 (ISBN 1-55868-603-7)
   * History of the [Mormon] Church, Mormon Historical Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah
   * Tell Them They Lie: The Sequoyah Myth by Traveller Bird. Westernlore Publishers, 1971. excerpts on line
   * Moundbuilders
   * Warrior Scribes
   * Warrior Scribes 2
   * Wilma Mankiller, Former Chief Cherokee Nation, Ani-kutani Society
   * Who were the Ani-Kutani? An Excursion into Cherokee Thought. by Raymond Fogelson in Ethnohistory 31 (1984), pp. 255-263.
   * Writings and History of the Ah-ni-ku-ta-ni. Central archives, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, An-ni-yv-wi-ya Religious organization. HCR 64 Box 816 Grassy, MO 63751

Notes

  1. ^  Autobiography of Wilma Mankiller as quoted in this site; also in Moundbuilders by James Catron
  2. ^  Same source as in previous note, and Cherokee by Fitzgerald & Conley, page 29 (in the references section above)
  3. ^ Tell Them They Lie by Bird, p24.
  4. ^  Writings and history of An-ni-ku-ta-ni (see references section)
  5. ^  Writings and history of An-ni-ku-ta-ni (see references section) (Oct 2002 newsletter)
  6. ^  Writings and history of An-ni-ku-ta-ni (see references section) (Oct 2002 newsletter)
  7. ^  Writings and history of An-ni-ku-ta-ni (see references)
  8. ^  Journal of Discourses and History of the [Mormon] Church

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ani-kutani"

Categories: Cherokee tribe | Cherokee mythology | History of the Latter Day Saint movement

Re:AfDs

DGG, no need to apologize on your part. I've noticed that we often disagree on AfDs, but I have found your contributions well-intentioned and well-reasoned.

If LoveMonkey wants to userfy the conference article, then certainly the AfD could be withdrawn/closed. I actually haven't proposed anything at WP:FORK, I just wanted to indicate that Doug's contribution sprung from a specific debate. I probably am not being friendly enough, but I think you can understand that I'm a bit frustrated with the state of affairs. I appreciate your advice, though. --Akhilleus (talk) 16:56, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Your comment would be appreciated

• At the stub Genealogia deorum gentilium I just made an article from. Please edit to make any improvements you can see or give me some suggestions on the article Talk Page. Thanks.--Doug ^talk 22:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Afd for Wauwatosa West High School

I believe you have weighed in twice in this discussion. Would you consider merging your statements?--Xnuala (talk)(Review) 01:18, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to weigh in a little, probably not my place, but what's wrong with weighing in twice? It's a discussion, not a vote, and it's useful in most cases to see how the comments flow from one to another as responses and so on. Especially, it's not a vote. Did I mention that it's not a vote? ;) SamBC 01:39, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

well, originally I had said "delete" twice. But i had changed one to a comment--though both said about the same thing. DGG (talk) 01:45, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

academics from the University of Chicago

Dear DGG,

Thank you for your comment on my (would be/might be) contributions to Wikipedia.

It's my first experience with editing on Wikipedia. The initial reason why I intruded was a hyperlink to a wrong person, having the same name as the referent. My "contributions" are the follow-up of my attempt to correct this error.

As to the substance of your suggestion, I have no access to extensive bio data of the persons in question, although I know these people by correspondence. If you are in possession of their recent bio data, I am willing to collaborate on improving the articles.

About myself: My real name is Andrey Stanislavskiy (Mr.). I am a freelance translator from English into Russian. I was born and and reside in Kharkov, Ukraine. English is my second language.

Anstan07 08:42, 9 July 2007 (UTC)