User talk:DGG

“ One person at a time, one article at a time ”

“ 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 6 July 2007; /Archive 7 Aug. 2007; /Archive 0.1 (Journal talk), /Archive 0.2 (Speedy talk), /Archive 0.3 (IPC talk),

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

Please post messages at the bottom of the page

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RE: The Truth i numbers article

Hi.

I've just noticed that the article discussed for deletion wasn't mine(from september) but one from April of this year. Any idea when I may know whether my article is going to be deleted or not?

tnx

U5K0 —Preceding unsigned comment added by U5K0 (talk • contribs) 19:15, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

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)

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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)

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)

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)

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)

Speedy and PROF

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 propriate 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)

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 [5]. 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)

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)

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)

academics

Thanks for your navigation. I added something from GGC’s old resume, which I found on the Internet and books from WorldCat and Amazon. I’ll be trying to add some more substantial info on both academics’ work from other sources.

I translated a few US textbooks on writing and related subjects. If you need any help with Russian, feel free to contact me. My e-mail is anstan@bk.ru.

Anstan07 10:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Reed Business

As I'm sure you already know, I've been working on the Reed Business Information articles. I had a quick question for you, even though I'm sure I already know the answer. Would it be out of line to add a link on the each magazine article to a free subscription website? It seems silly to ask but before I do anything "bold" I want admin approval. Thanks again. Sean Montgomery 14:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, I thought a subscription link would be out of line, I noticed one on Industrial Distribution and removed it. I will remove any others I see. I came to you because another admin and user recommended you. As for adding so many small articles, I was trying to get many started and see if I couldn't get more help from the Wikiproject editors. Working by myself would be difficult, and I also feel control over these articles should not be left to one person, especially me (ha ha kidding). I'll try to build existing articles more, but my resources are limited. Thank you again for your help. Sean Montgomery 19:44, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Episodes

I saw your comment on the Notability page. So I take it you'd rather see something like this for television show episodes, rather than something like this?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 00:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Printing

No, I think it was an honest mistake - my edit summary was meant to be taken literally, not as minatory (perhaps not the best phrasing). He is on the warpath again at Four Great Inventions of ancient China but I don't worry too much about that. There's absolutely no chance of me going for admin. Keep up the good work at AfD etc, & I'm still waiting for the Master of the Playing Cards expansion. Johnbod 03:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification

Response at Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification#How long before delete unreferenced article?. We both know that there is some unreferenced content in Wikipedia that is not appropriate. I am asking you to help me build a tool that will address that problem. There are a thousand what if's and a million more discussion, but lets start someplace. We can build a tool that is an appropriate compromise between M:Inclusionism and M:Exclusionism. Jeepday (talk) 14:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd be delighted to work with you, because first of all in individual cases good people generally agree on most subjects, and also because I think cooperation including people known for different views of things will be more readily accepted--as it should, because there will be less individualistic bias. Also agreed that inclusionism and inclusionism are not the right terms for most things and people (the only real inclusionists in a pejorative sense are those who want an article on every human, & the only exclusionists in that sense are those who would confine us to the limits of paper.

I'm not sure we could build an inclusive tool: there are too many problems why they might be inappropriate--and the basic problem isn't in my opinion unreferenced--the reason unreferenced picks up so many problems, is that unreferenced articles are often defective in other ways.

There are also areas where there is no agreement on inclusions, and if there is to be a general effort it probably should stay clear of these, which should be discussed separately until there is some real continuing consensus: crimes, plots, for example. If we go too fast on these we may end up doing the work over as consensus changes.

As policy, I am only willing to cooperate on a project aimed at deletion if there is a genuine commitment to improvement when possible, or if there is a high bar to limit consideration to the articles almost certainly unimprovable. For example, many business articles as they stand are not adequate, but could be improved in knowledgeable people used the right sources, and for this example there's a shortage. We can still work cooperatively, but in perhaps different ways.

The only tools I know of are good objective human beings. Only humans can integrate disparate factors. But there can be technical helps. Personally, in my own opinion I think them secondary--my preferred approach to weeding--and as a librarian I have certainly done a lot of it, though to storage, not disposal--is repeated systematic passes through even the largest set, looking for particular criteria each time. WP has 2 million articles. I've worked with collections that size--though not doing it all myself. But I haven't done them all myself. There was a philosophy common to all, agreed to and applied over 40 years by over a hundred very individualistic professionals--get the obvious, leave the others for a subsequent round. This is the way to go fast. Our consistency was pretty good--the rate of restoration from storage to main collection has been well under 1%. But we had commitment to one common principle: the goal was to help the users, & anything the users had found useful in recent years was to be kept.

Since you started here, lets keep the general discussion here. I'll do a separate archive if appropriate. DGG (talk) 17:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

• Agreed, As you know I work towards inclusion and improvement. on questionable content I am more likely to suggest delete then you are, but I readily accept keeping with a less stringent verification requirement then you. Improvement is the primary goal. "high bar to limit consideration to the articles almost certainly unimprovable" I am not sure that you can dictate this in usage, I understand what you are saying, and I think I have addressed it by placing a very low threshold for removal (or nonplacement) of the template. Like anything there will be room to misuse it but, as proposed placing the template is only a suggestion for deletion. Even if absolutely no references are added to the article, before it can be deleted an adim has to come along and agree to remove the article by actually deleting it. Additionally it places articles in a category, that will be monitored (the same as Category:All articles proposed for deletion for much longer then a prods 5 days. I made some changes (earlier today) to Wikipedia:Requests for verification take a look and see what we need to address. Jeepday (talk) 18:13, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

the problem is that one person can place templates in one day that will take ten people a year to address. Thus the end result of such a process, however, well intended, will be destructive. I care for WP, and do not wish to sacrifice half of the potentially good articles.

You trust the accuracy of admins more than I do; I am one of them, and from doing the work, know how easy it is to make mistakes. DGG (talk) 19:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think putting source tags on uncontroversial statements it diverts energy from challenging and sourcing the controversial ones, and is not a constructive way of improving the encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 21:48, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there is potential for worthwhile articles to be deleted with {{RfV}}. Keep in mind there is no original work in Wikipedia so no knowledge will be lost, articles may be temporarily not on Wikipedia, but someone will add them back. I try to focus more on the future, think of the benefits in 3 to 5 years, every article will be verified. Thanks for joining the team at Wikipedia talk:Unreferenced articles Jeepday (talk) 13:00, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I am glad we agree on where we are going.But WP is also for today, and removing articles in the hope that someone will add back the notable ones is not in my opinion a reasonable approach.

Incidentally, I maintain some degree of sanity here by not getting over-involved in the fate of individual articles. I know I can't save them all, or, for that matter, delete them all. And certainly not get them all written right. DGG (talk) 16:44, 17

Peratt

Guess we just have different interpretations of notability, perhaps based on our personal experiences. I don't consider myself "notable" even though I have more pubs than Peratt and have served as Associate Editor for three different journals versus his one. Those are just the normal things that we do. (Mainstream versus non-mainstream is neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned.) It's a borderline case, as you say. Raymond Arritt 02:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

At some point the normal things one does become notable, if they are good enough. I will check the citation count for yours'. As for me, I'm safe: my citation counts are very low. (smile). DGG (talk) 02:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

heh, maybe I'll end up AfD'ing myself for lack of notability. That could be fun in a quasi-dadaist way. Cheers -Raymond Arritt 02:58, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually happened that way with a biologist around here- but he was held to be sufficiently important that he'd get the article anyway. He's gotten used to it. DGG (talk) 03:01, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Summer colony

Hi, I noticed you tagged this article... I have made some example improvements to it and left a note on the talk page, if you have any comment I'd be interested. This seems like as good a project as any to spend a few hours on JSTOR making some improvements. --W.marsh 00:25, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV only if less then a week

User:BirgitteSB made an interesting sugggestion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification#Not sure what I think about this proposal in short "{{RFV}} may only be used on articles articles less then a week old." It address many concerns of those opposed. It clarifies that this is tool for encouraging referencing and limits (severely) the potential for misuse. Think about it for a minute then please come and share your thoughts. Jeepday (talk) 13:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

replied, in brief, that it would violate WP:STUB as currently written. DGG (talk) 19:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

CSD A3

About a comment of yours while removing a Speedy Deletion tag, "lists of internal links are not among the things to which A3 applies": Actually, wiki links are not excluded and thus are included by CSD A3. Here is the text: "No content whatsoever. Any article consisting only of links elsewhere (including hyperlinks, category tags and "see also" sections), a rephrasing of the title, and/or attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title. This does not include disambiguation pages." Note that the text has to explicitly mention hyperlinks because wiki links are the basic kind of "links elsewhere" and are implicit to the definition. Hu 23:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I stand my my interpretation that the CSD criterion is not intended to eliminate an article which is a list composed of people or things, each linked to their individual WP pages. Such lists are a standard and well accepted part of WP, and using CSD to delete lists on this grounds is not reasonable. Indeed., list pages are frequently opposed on the opposite ground--that they include items that do not have a WP article & are therefore non-notable. You might want to propose at the VP the elimination of such articles from WP altogether, if you think that is what the community will want. DGG (talk) 00:00, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Your username

Hey, I noticed the note at the top of your userpage. Since User:David Goodman hasn't ever made any edits, I think you can have your username changed (and your edit attributions changed along with) here. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I think that may have been me, and I lost the password. But since I seem to be known around here as DGG by now, maybe it's simpler to stay put--though I could still use it in the sig. let me think about it. DGG (talk) 00:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Whatever you'd like to do. I just thought I'd bring it to your attention, after I saw you around AFD. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

RFC about multiple deletions?

Hi DGG, you had left me a note about opening a discussions on mass-noms at AfD, and I'd be happy to participate if you've created it, or aid in the creation if not yet. Just let me know what I can do. Thanks!! Eliz81^{(talk)(contribs)} 17:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Blogs etc as references

I am wondering about when blogs become useful as references. Some blogs are written by known figures who are notable already from their other writing, or from their qualifications or expertise. Some are associated with people who give their real names and professional positions and credentials. Some science blogs have been highly rated. For example, Nature magazine placed a "review of some of the best blogs written by working scientists" on its website in July 2006.[6][7].

Some examples:

• Pharyngula (weblog) by PZ Myers, a biologist from the University of Minnesota, science category winner in the 2006 Weblogs Awards
• Panda's Thumb (weblog), with many professional scientist posters, also highly rated (second place winner?). Almost every poster I have seen on there already has a WP article, and is noted for other writing already. Usually with good sources.
• talkorigins not a blog exactly, but with many articles written by well-known professional scientists and well-sourced
• RealClimate, a blog produced by "real climate scientists at the American Geophysical Union"
• Aetiology, found at [8], written by Tara C. Smith, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in Iowa
• scienceblogs, a provider of science blogs includes many interesting and useful blogs [9]. Note that they are selective in who gets to blog, in fact.
• Nature itself hosts assorted science-related blogs [10]

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?--Filll 04:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

essentially, i think a review like that of Nature gives authority to the blog. The best way of establishing the authority is to write an article about the blog for Wikipedia. I think this is true in general for any type of sources which not everyone will recognize as notable without an explanation, and I have done so for a few reference sources, and have always intending to do more, including some blogs. Blogs run by magazines are like letters to the editor. Some places screen them very very carefully, some don't. (remembering again to distinguish from the letter to the editor type of short article, as in Nature). Something published in a blog by a recognized authority is an easy case--regardless of where she publishes it, she gives it authority. But remember to be fair about this--some blogs by those with whom we do not agree are also responsible.

so I encourage you to write some articles about blogs. Let me know & I'll look at them. DGG (talk) 04:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

For your consideration: A description of a science blog

Please take a look at my draft of an article on the science blog Aetiology, which appears here. Thank you.--Filll 16:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have slowly improved this draft a bit and also, at your suggestion, started a draft on the author of this blog at User talk:Filll/Tara C. Smith. I think I am getting close to showing she is notable, but you tell me what you think.--Filll 23:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Smith has published 3 books, and taught at 4 different Universities, and has several journal publications as well. Smith organized the Iowa Citizens for Science (with a few dozen members), and been engaged in lobbying and organizing public Darwn events (1 so far, another upcoming in 2008), and an article about her activities in this area has been in the Des Moines Register. I think she is well on her way to notability, if she is not there already.

Her blog is rated number 7 in science from Nature, out of 46 million blogs evaluated. I count 4 print mentions (including in Cell (journal) and 5 cyberspace media articles about Aetiology (in addition to just 1000s of general blogosphere discussions on other blogs). Notable?--Filll 16:09, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

An essay I've written

Hello. Though we are often on the opposite side of deletion debates, I thought you might want to read an essay I've written, found at User:Eyrian/IPC. I'd be interested to hear any feedback on its talk page. --Eyrian 15:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Primary source only articles

I would tend to agree that a teacher would and should insist on the student looking at the book itself. That's because any self-respecting teacher would have the student writing a secondary source—a research paper or the like.

On the other hand, this is intended to be a tertiary source. It's intended to be a collection of the reliable and verified research of others from looking at primary sources, not our own work in that vein. Sometimes, primary sources can be used for some supplemental material with secondary ones being used for the main bulk, if purely descriptive claims are made. But in everything, we should be mirroring secondary sources, not second-guessing them. If a reliable source says something I believe to be wrong, we go with the source, not me. By the same token, if secondary sources don't write about a given subject at all, or a given aspect of that subject, we should mirror that—by not writing about it at all. Students in class are intended to be the original author and first publisher of their work. (If they're not, they'd better hope to have a dumb teacher!) That's not the idea here at all. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure there. I think it's good we tend to require secondary sources, just because of our nature as a tertiary source. I guess I just don't see "List of times X got mentioned somewhere" as of particular relevance to that, it seems to fail indiscriminate information collection. (I'm aware that's significantly overused, but here it really does seem to apply.) I think the cultural influences of works are better done by citing works that actually speak to how the work has influenced culture, rather than just saying "X seems to have been influenced by Y" with nothing to back that up. In some cases that is a purely descriptive statement which doesn't need secondary sourcing (for example, to state that Weird Al's "Like a Surgeon" is a parody of Madonna's "Like a Virgin"), but in a lot of cases it steps over the line into original synthesis if no one's actually studied it and come to that conclusion. I think what TV Guide or other secondary sources do there is allow more elaborate conclusions to be placed in and sourced, where it would be original research to draw them ourself. If that can't be done, and it's basically just a list of "Family Guy spoofed X one time, and so did The Simpsons", I guess I fail to see the value. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, I'm certainly not saying "never notable". (WP:IDONTLIKEIT is just as invalid as WP:ILIKEIT, and mirroring, not second-guessing, sources applies just as much in the other direction). There's tons of material, for instance, on the cultural impact of shows like The Simpsons, South Park, and even some soap operas. I'm sure articles could be written on those subjects and sourced perfectly well. But a good article on that subject would go far beyond "A was mentioned in X, Y, and Z." Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Claims to notability

I view that the burden is to assert notability. An award which is not obviously notable, like the grade 8 Canadian history award won by Mr. Deeprose, does not get you over that hurdle. For all the world knows this is the highest of the 8 levels of history award given by the Canadian government and personally awarded by the Queen. I doubt it, and unless it's obvious no one should have to assume it to say that there's an "assertion" there that merits avoidance of a7. You just need to get over that 1st hurdle, assertion, barring pure bollocks such as "king of the world", for once you've made it over that hurdle it's off to afd land or prod ville. As you may be able to tell from my edit history, many originally tagged speedies get sent by me there or I notify the tagger that speedy isn't right, maybe afd would be. As to trust, part of the trust is to prevent bollocks or non-notable articles from being on the site so that it remains an encyclopedia where people can trust the information, and doesn't become the yellow pages or myspace or youtube or ebay. When someone objects on my talk page, as you have seen, I am willing to restore or not object to restoration of the article, barring copyvio or attack situations. It doesn't mean that the article will or should survive an afd, because I will often send it there to find what the community thinks, as you might have also seen - not that I give you notice each time that I do it :-). Some of these issues really ought to be discussed at CSD page because there is a fundamental good-faith difference of opinion among editors, admins, and the community.

By the way, as an experiment, I made a little list of articles I looked at and wondered whether (sorry if I personalize this, I mean no disparagement) you would agree with my delete assessment. I put that little list in a word file, but did not act on any of the "closer" articles, but will check in a little bit. I'll be curious to see how many have not been deleted in the interim, how many have, and how many by you. Ultimately, I try to be fair - to the author but also the encyclopedia - when things are outside a7 land, I call it that way. I assume that you do the same. Carlossuarez46 03:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Everyone of us looks for something different, and there are 1200 of us. You have no need to convince me you do most things right. I am sure we each make mistakes, and I am sure there are places where we disagree. The choice in CSD patrol is not keep/delete--it's keep/afd/prod/leave for another admin/delete. Most people watch the articles they put speedies on, and if they disagree with me & want to pursue it, they can go to afd in a perfectly friendly way with my blessing. I notice at Deletion Review that I almost always disagree with the people who say to get the right result regardless of process.--I think following the rules is the way to minimize conflicts over their interpretation. If you want to see what I decline to delete, there's an easier way--just look at my contributions. I leave a clear summary. 04:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm still trying to learn and one way is to see what others with whom you don't always agree do and see if you can learn from that. There are a couple of inclusionist admins that I want to understand that philosophy better from them. I do note that I got overturned at a DRV for an article I on a personal level would have loved to delete, by calling a "no consensus" close. I was baffled that it was overturned but not deleted, as the editor bringing it to DRV sought. I suppose the closer relisted at afd despite no new arguments one way or another at DRV. My prediction is that it'll be deleted, without any new arguments presented. Sometimes you can't win for losing. :-) Carlossuarez46 04:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree; I realize that I'm in the minority more than not: see my user page and you'll see little majoritarian about me (but I do hope that being a Democrat in 2008 will be majoritarian :0). We should work together; I have utmost respect for people with whom I disagree when the disagreement is in good faith and civil - which this has been. I even offered to nominate for RFA one of the guys I can count on !voting to keep anything I'd like deleted because no matter how strongly we disagreed he always has a good faith argument (that I just disagree with, as he does mine) and is civil. Where do you suggest we cooperate. Carlossuarez46 05:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• Slightly more "real" than Mr. Deeprose above, what do you think of Brendan J Smith? He does have awards. Carlossuarez46 05:21, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• I haven't come across any deWP articles as you describe, but as you might expect I am sympathetic to articles that aren't in English - I moved one speedy tagged one to translation depot today because there was no obvious equivalent in Turkish, my best guess as to the language, I only have a tr-1 babelbox, and can't be entirely sure that it isn't Turkmeni or another related language in Turkish orthography (it certainly isn't Azeri), but I digress. There are lots of Catalan articles that ought to be translated into English about bios & ancient history (my favorite area). My reading of Catalan is probably 95% comprehension if done slowly - knowing Spanish gets one most of the way there and honestly it's much easier to read than to translate by hearing (ditto Portuguese but contra Italian which sounds much more like Spanish than it reads, go figure). My German, with a dictionary, can approach 90+% on non-technical subjects. The issue I have, which I raised but never got addressed at the requested translations pages, was how do translations comply with GFDL? Don't the original foreign editors whose work is being translated deserve history credit too. I'm not super hung up about my words but I wouldn't project that (probably nonmajoritarian) view onto others, particularly Europeans, as Europe has a strong ethic of protecting authors' rights. I have edited some but not substantively on de, ca, es, pt, it, scn, nl, a few others that escape me but I much prefer writing in English as I do most of my thinking and conversing in it nowadays - other than my family and few childhood friends - I can't remember the last time I had a long conversation in Spanish. So if you point me to some of the German ones, I'd be glad to help - even if only to find sources. Carlossuarez46 06:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• Civil disagreement should not jeopardize rapport. I trust that works both ways. I have not noticed a strong "better as a cat" movement at the afd debates as you mention, but as a courtesy rather than question the observation or how strong such a position is (by numbers), I attempted to rebut what I worry would be the effects of these sorts of cats. No bashing, no accusations, just what'll we look like with hundreds of ...popular culture categories to either supplement or replace the articles. Carlossuarez46 17:01, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Notability question

Hi there. A quick question for you on notability - you declined to delete a village definition (Adamant, Vermont) as you said all villages (and presumably therefore by extension all towns, cities etc.) are notable in WP. Is this official policy ? Does this also apply to articles on schools, colleges etc. - whilst it's unlikely you could ever accuse someone of 'blatantly advertising' a town, it is possible to write an article about an educational establishment that's phrased in such a way as to attract positive attention. Are all educational establishments also notable, and if not, whats the 'notability criteria' ? CultureDrone 09:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC) Long response at your page -DGG

Invitation for comments

Dear DGG, at the suggestion of DES, I am extending an invitation for you to read and review a project I've been working on, under the guidance of, and suggestions from DES.

After posting my thoughts on the TTR talk page, and discussions with DES and Carcharoth, Carcharoth asked if I'd be willing to put my talk page thoughts into an essay, as mentioned on the DTTR talk page, and at DES's added suggestions, I decided to go ahead and take a stab at it. Here is the initial draft of the essay. As of now, the essay is not public, DES and Chrislk02 are the only ones who have taken a look at it during its initial creation. DES and I have a fairly lengthy discussion on the talk page, as well. However, now that I've taken his early suggestions, and have finished all the sections, I'm ready to move into further discussion of the essay, aimed towards any improvements in format, layout, content, etc. I have invited Until(1 == 2) and IPSOS to take a look as well. If your schedule allows you the time, any wisdom, insights, or suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. ^Ariel♥Gold 17:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear DGG, I want to first of all, thank you so much for the time, and effort you took to put together your thoughts on the above. I've read through them, and I'll go through them several times to get more ideas and understanding. I'll add more on the essay's talk page, but just wanted to drop you a big thank you! ^Ariel♥Gold 23:48, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Eyrian

Very supportive of your view at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Eyrian.

Can you tell me if you're intending to set up a centralised discussion on the issue? If yes, I'm tempted to run through all the disputed AfDs with a...

Speedy Close (per WP:IAR) pending resolution of the issue at so-and-so centralised discussion in light of the comments of myself and others at this RfC.

...type of vote. AndyJones 17:06, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. My suggestion was to suggest it, not to implement. My real question was whether you're intending to set up a centralised discussion? (If not, do you know if it's open to me to do so, and if yes would you support me?) AndyJones 17:25, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I would, of course, support a centralized discussion on this topic. Bearian 17:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Good, but do any of us know how to actually set that up? Good idea though it is, my experience is mainly in editing in article space, not in adminstrative stuff. AndyJones 19:11, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

'In popular culture' AfDs

DGG, you are a fantastic editor, and I (think I) understand where you are coming from in your passion in these AfDs. Regarding your comments on the one that I saw most recently (Eiffel Tower in pop culture), I decided I needed to tell you where I am coming from in these situations. I am not against pop culture. Far from it, I think that serious academic study does not pay due attention to certain things because they consider them 'pop culture'. It is not the pop culture element itself that I am against in these articles. What grates me how notable the topic actually is. Pac-man, for instance, is notable. But has Pac-man had a significant impact on pop culture? If so, we should write an article on that impact and how and why it has become an influence in movies, television, and (especially, I would imagine) video games. Paradise Lost is also notable, but every reference to it in pop culture is equally non-notable. There is certainly a well written prose article to be written on how that poem has influenced our culture, and there is definitely scholarship out there on it. A list is not only notoriously difficult to maintain, but it does not provide anything to the reader. An article like 'Paradise Lost in popular culture' should really be Miltonian tradition and talk about Milton and his influence, not a list of things that may or may not have been influenced by him. Please understand that my votes in these AfDs have nothing to do with wanting to banish popular culture from Wikipedia, just to write prosaic, well sourced, and informative articles on these topics. I believe the first step in doing this is to delete these articles that are lists of trivia. I hope you see where I'm coming from? CaveatLector^Talk 01:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your essay, which I think you should add to one of the debates. Let me respond briefly-- In the case of Pac-man and the like, a point could be made that that the page is not really necessary, for the entire discussion of pacman is about the subject IPC-- that's the inherent locus of the subject. For influence of X, then you are right that in general more academic titles are much better--and i would be suggesting them except the same parties have nominated several such articles and seemed it would just confuse the discussion. I'm not sure about Miltonic tradition--this is really over-formal and would sound strange to most WPedians. But there's a third point: the influence of Milton on literature, music, and so on, is a perfectly sound and delmited set of topics. But there is also the influence of Milton on non-literary things. The total sum of references and allusions in even the most trivial of places indicates the impact on the world as a whole, not just the literary or creative part, for it is assumed the viewer/reader will understand. And all of these allusions are related to each other--the set of them, how they are used, why people who have never read the works still use and understand them, is a topic, and the topic is best shown by the collocation of the findable references.

I'm not a specialist in this subject in the least, but I am a bibliographer. I once collected 18th and early 19th century references to Samuel Richardson's works--in the pre internet era, by systematic searching of likely places and by following leads, working in libraries which had perhaps 90% of the possible sources. I didn't work on visual references--I do not have the knowledge of the sources and the tools. And I could never work on 20th century media references at all, for the same reason. But for everything since about 1990, this is different now, and the place to do it is Wikipedia. There is a sense in which this is OR, but for the topics WP concentrates on, it's a logical extension. Gathering is not OR; only interpretation is. Even if WP is the not the place for the work, it's the place to collect the sources,. I don't want to do this work, but I don't want to destroy the sources for it. I am as a librarian horrified by the speed at which we are destroying access. I will still have access as an admin, and the material should certainly be transferred to another wiki--I can help with that but do not have the time to work on it or organize it-- and it is unnecessary--it could have been kept right here.

The question is how to build these up. The current way of deleting them first is so much the wrong way to go, that it is about this that I am fighting. I have things both at WP and in the RW I should be doing rather than defending or rewriting these, things I could do much better than this. So will you help preserve some of it? Will you, for example, help with the Eiffel Tower article, and categorize the ones you know. And then look for the sources for them individually? will you perhaps look at Irvine for a book discussing it to add to the references for the article? On a longer scale, will you rewrite at least the academic sections for some of the ones based on classical topics--your own field? Will you -- even -- be prepared to say at some of the AfDs, "keep, and edit." ? DGG (talk) 02:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I am still at Penn at the moment, but I'll see what I can do (time is tight and the library isn't open all hours now because it's summer). As for the AfD's, you've convinced me to be a bit more lenient in what to give the delete to. Perhaps a Project is in order to get these articles policed and compiled into good articles, with some set and agreed upon guidelines. You should, by the way, mention your profession and how it's influencing your decisions in the AfDs, as it helps me understand greatly how some of these topics can, indeed, be notable and useful in the realm of encyclopediahood. As for Eiffel Tower in pop culture, I'll userfy it and see if i can't get to categorizing or fixing it up. CaveatLector^Talk 02:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

• For the rename, are you thinking something along the lines of "Yale in culture" or "Yale's influence on culture" or something like that but better-phrased than what I can think of at the moment? (Antelan)

• Keep let's try to think of a good title, sure, and discuss it on the article talk page. I agree that "..in popular culture" is fairly lame, and does indicate an inclination to collection really trivial stuff. Yale's influence on culture is a different matter entirely--Yale's influence on culture is the influence of the work done at Yale and by Yale graduates in the arts and other fields of civilized endeavor. We don't have any real articles of this orientation for any university, besides what's implied in the unviersity articles, and lists of X university people, and it would be a good series--an excellent idea--but it's separate. This article is on the effect that popular knowledge of Yale has on cultural artifacts--things written about Yale, or using Yale as a symbol, or as a theme. It is by the total accumulation of these themes that popular culture--contemporary culture-- is built. The orientation of these articles in WP is almost exclusively on what form of association: the artists, with some attention to the genre. They're easy to write. But the subjects of popular culture are also important. The different subjects that popular music or fiction or film uses indicates what the nature of the films or books or music is--its as important as the people who wrote it, as important as the technical aspects of the genre. These articles are harder to write. The individual items are minor in themselves in most cases--but the assemblage of them is not. In most genres, artists usually work on subjects--not all genres-- Abstract Expressionism comes to mind as an exception. But nobody just writes a love story. they write a love story about people of certain types in a certain setting. That a story refers to Yale indicates something -- they think it indicative, or they think that it will prove interesting.

since when does WP not write about "culture junk"? The glory of WP is that it covers all of it. Notoriously, one persons junk is another's deeply meaningful art. We cover all of what people care about that way. Some people find baseball teams relevant, some people find pokemon relevant, some Opera, and for these and for everything else there are millions who think that such indication is a sign of immaturity or arrogance. Now, the things their works are about are relevant too. The allusions they make in their works are relevant too. that is what culture is about.

The place for accumulating knowledge about this is Wikipedia. Gathering is not OR; only interpretation is. Even if WP is the not the place for the work, it's the place to collect the sources. I don't want to do this work, but I don't want to destroy the sources for it. I am as a librarian horrified by the speed at which we are destroying access. I will still have access as an admin, and the material should certainly be transferred to another wiki--I can help with that but do not have the time to work on it or organize it-- and it is unnecessary--it could have been kept right here.

The question is how to build these up. The current way of deleting them first is so much the wrong way to go, that it is about this that I am arguing this. I have things both at WP and in the RW I should be doing rather than defending or rewriting these, things I could do much better than this. So let us preserve this, and then improve it. Let us see if every one of these trivial references can be sourced and integrated. If we care about WP, let us preserve the content, even if it takes more than 5 days to do so. Every argument here comes down to "keep, and edit." DGG (talk)

use of such material

Sorry if I sounded arrogant, but there have been altogether too many simultaneous discussions of this, and I'm getting a little tired , and yes, exasperated at needing to say it all in some many place to meet the simultaneous comments. Freak104 confirms my uninformed guess that WP is a prime source of comic book information, which I consider an excellent thing. Now it remains to make some use of this by organizing it. Listing things by series and creators and major characters is the obvious first step. Discussing it by themes and allusions is the next. Fully analyzing this is of course OR, but collecting the material already in WP and finding outside references to support it is not. this is what the so called trivia sections now do in a primitive way, and the job now is to do it better. By analogy with other genres I know, and using the basic ideas of organising information familiar to librarians and bibliographers, the first step is to make articles on the various themes and so forth, collect the instances, group them in what logical way the material suggests, reference them exactly to the primary sources from which they came, and then look for additional sources discussing them. Then one normally looks for analogs in other media and genres, and adds them, to show the significance of the material to those not primarily interested in the form, working n a similar fashion. simultaneously one connects the material used in this genre, to articles based on the other genres. Some think there is probably a level of use too minor to be accounted for, but I think the history of scholarship shows otherwise. Most notably, it is the study of the minutia in paintings, that they are ascribed to their proper artists and the historical development of each artists work discerned--this is the basic method of art history. Similarly in literature, there is no allusion in Shakespeare too minor to illuminate Shakespeare, and every trifle has been studied. The day will come for comics too. The material here will be the initial aid in research until more sophisticated work becomes general. I apologize that I have probably repeated all the cliches of such work, but I do not mean to condescend or imply that they are not well known to anyone--I think this a good place to set down a general indication what can be done with such material in general, and hope those knowing the various fields will elaborate and correct. (from WP:Trivia Cleanup). DGG

MRC article/Chemistry journals

Hi, is it OK if I start amending the Wiley Chemistry journals with the information you gave me for MRC now, the manager is starting to nag. I know it's not 100% perfect yet but I don't think there's any controversial information on there any more that would cause the pages to be taken down. Dchambers101 12:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Notability clarification

A week or so ago I posted a follow-up question on an AfD discussion you commented on. If you missed it, I'm still interested in any clarification or elaboration you might have. On the other hand, if you saw it and chose not to respond, I apologize for re-opening the issue and I'll drop it. -- MarcoTolo 02:55, 8 August 2007 (UTC) Since this would likely fall under your userpage comment that you have "a very strong dislike for deciding matters by technicalities rather than the merits" (and, in retrospect, my question probably falls into the former), I withdraw the query. Thanks. -- MarcoTolo 02:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey, don't withdraw the question, I'm in the middle of answering it: as you guess, my view is that it does not depend on the wording, but the meaning. It depends on what is being asserted. The way I think of it is that if it is anything that the author of the page could reasonably have thought notable, it escapes speedy. For the article given, the person posting the article could and did reasonably believe that the position of Dean of that school was notable. It isn't, but that was another matter. Anyway, this is a matter that comes up from time to time at WP:CSD talk. My rationale for why it's better this way is that if there is any chance, it's better that the community look--it's more consistent, and it saves time in getting the junk removed fast without needing to discuss it or deal with appeals. DGG (talk) 03:24, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks much for the clarification - much appreciated. -- MarcoTolo 03:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Your work on IPC articles...

...is extremely commendable, but it is more accurately described as rewriting (if not writing something completely different), not fixing. What, if anything does this have in common with this? That is the fundamental issue that lies at the heart of what I am doing: Every article that I have nominated (under the IPC/trivia campaign) is unsalvageable. Yes, you can rewrite it, but that has nothing to do with the article as it stands. Did that fact that "The late rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard sometimes referred to himself as Osiris" help you find resources about Egyptian themed murals in Indiana? Best to tear down these monstrosities so that good articles can be built. --Eyrian 16:45, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to butt into DGG's talk page here, but I disagree with you on this, Eyrian. Best to take the article to a forum of collaborative effort, where it can be renamed and rebuilt. Flat deletion will only encourage argument and recreation of these problematic articles. CaveatLector ^{Talk Contrib} 22:17, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Use of blog as source

At your suggestion, I have now built up Tara C. Smith's article to hopefully reach notability, as well as the article about her blog, Aetiology. Do you think these are now reasonable? Do they demonstrate notability? Can I now use them as sources at [11] ? If you think that this is a good source now, would you help me reinstate the citations on the article Physicians and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism for me? I have not found other sources, at least yet, because it is pretty obscure so far. If you know of other sources, I would welcome those as well. Thank you. --Filll 20:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Another editor has disagreed that the general audience, popular nature of the 3 books should be mentioned. They also disagree that the book reviews should be included. They also want to put personal information in the article, such as material about her d.o.b, ethnicity (???), family life, etc. I disagree with this, even though I can put it in there. Possibly the year she was born can be included, but I think the rest is sort of irrelevant. I want to concentrate on her professional career. Comments?--Filll 14:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Marduk AFD

I gather you think that mythological references indicate nothing much--this is a private value judgement of your own. I think that's what adds to the culture density and significance of games. The makers of the games certainly seem to agree with me, as do the players

In my case, I gather that you have an unfounded belief in your mind-reading skills and/or problems with reading the plain English of my statement. Please don't project your peculiar interpretations onto my actual words, please. --Calton | Talk 02:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

(My comment followed your "Hello, another useless and random collection of factoids, documenting where a bunch of unrelated writers drop in cheap pseudo-mythical references to prop up their stories. Whoop-de-do." I consider it fair comment on a somewhat scornful posting, well within the practice at AfD. You don't find me complaining on people's talk pages about the comments they make at AfD. DGG (talk) 03:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Grieg's music in popular culture

I did a lot of work on this one. Hopefully I have saved it from the Visigoths, as per the Heymann standard. Bearian 20:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC). Good job - DGG

Relevance proposal

Hi. Can I ask you to offer your thoughts on WP:RELEVANCE? It's a careful and ongoing attempt to cut a middle path on the subject of "trivia", among other things. Much obliged.--Father Goose 09:02, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Re:

I'll try to find some stuff thanks. --Vonones 17:53, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Grieg's music in popular culture

Thank you for your kind comments in this discussion. Bearian 01:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Ahiram (King of Byblos)

Well done! -- Avi 03:39, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Input needed

Hi, DGG. Great to be able to call upon the expertise of a librarian. Someone added PLoS to WP:EXRS. I thought maybe it was a worthy addition, but tried to reword it so that it better suited the instructive nature of this guideline. It would be great if you could determine whether this statement is an acceptable addition to this guideline and whether PLoS is a good example. See [12]. Thanks. TimidGuy 16:32, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Input needed

I have written Earlbaum associates for permission. I do not understand what to do with it once I get it. How do use a GFDL license?

User:mlcommons 19:32, 12 August 2007 (UTC) What article are you asking about? As a general answer, see WP:Copyright. DGG (talk) 01:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment

Thank you for your comment on my RfA, which was successful. I have a lot of respect for you from encountering you at AfD, and it meant a lot to me to see your support. Lyrl^Talk _C 01:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

DGG by David Shankbone

NYC

Hi guy, it was great to meet one of my mentors. My brother and I both had a good time, although he think's I'm a Wikipediholic. Thanks again for answering my random questions. Bearian 15:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I've seen you around a bit, thought I'd say hello

For what it's worth, whenever I've seen your contributions in any of various places around WP, I've consistently considered your remarks to be well-considered, balanced, and reflective of some of the better aspects of WP in general. Best regards for your efforts. dr.ef.tymac 15:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Notification of proposal: Guideline/policy governing lists

Given your participation in recent AfDs involving lists, and given your track record for neutrality and diplomacy, I'd appreciate your input on the following:

Wikipedia: Village pump (policy)#Proposal to make a policy or guideline for lists

Thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have on the topic. Sidatio 16:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

FYI, this conversation has moved to User:Sidatio/Conversations/On list guidelines. I look forward to your continued input in order to reach a consensus on the issue! Sidatio 00:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

AfD notification proposal

Hi DGG. You do not need to change policy to have people notified about AfD. You might want to contact the developer of User:Android Mouse Bot 2 to see if s/he can create an Android Mouse Bot 3 to post the AfD notifications using stats from Wikipedia Page History Statistics. If you check out my contributions, you'll see that I am in the process of manually using Wikipedia Page History Statistics to add AfD warnings to those AfDs listed at the bottom of the August 13th AfD list. I also add {{Welcome!|-- [[User_talk:Jreferee|Jreferee]]}} to their talk page if they are new. I utilize Microsoft Word to assist me in all this. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 16:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Another thing that happens is the article itself sometimes is not tag for deletion even though the article is listed at AfD. See this, for example. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 17:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Schools Proposal

I assume you mean the Village Pump policy section? Or just write a new schools notability proposal? VanTucky ^(talk) 03:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

It needs wording tweaking, but I like the general idea. Requiring sources confirming its existence (we need to be clear, is it only public schools within a district?) and location prevents an apparent disregard for the core policies of WP:V and WP:RS. Again, I personally still don't think hs are considered even mostly notable, rather than completely. But this is a reasonable compromise that adheres to the spirit of policy, so we can see where it goes. I agree that a firm ruling on this is most important here. VanTucky ^(talk) 18:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Welcome onboard !

Hello DGG and very welcome onboard the WikiProject True Origins. Very honored and pleased to get someone of your experience and a knowledgable articles SAR admin I have seen you are also in the WikiProjects Council which I recently joined, and you are also colleague of another participant of the WP:TORIG, I am sure Librarian2 will appreciate that. Nice to share Wikispace with you Daoken 18:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Dental software

Thanks; I didn't know that template existed. Maybe there should be a speedy-template for tables. --Orange Mike 20:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Prods

There is no clear notability std for British footballers, so rather than taking unilateral action and just say 5 days have passed and deleting them, it is better to bring them to afd and let those whose standards differ on their notability hash it out. Or would you support prod deletes in areas of questionable notability areas? Carlossuarez46 21:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks, it's still a learning experience - and I do welcome your critiques and questions. Even though we often disagree I still admire you - your civility and willingness to discuss things constructively are rare indeed. For better and worse there are enough gray areas that if we put things into afd perhaps they'll become clearer. Still let me know if you find a German article wanting translation - I did a Spanish one recently incorrectly tagged A2 (it didn't have a counterpart on es.wiki). Carlossuarez46 21:44, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
• I'll keep that in mind next time, I also considered doing all of the football (soccer) people together but those group noms tend not to find consensus one way or another. You working your way through the speedies? Carlossuarez46 21:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Relevance mediation

If you'd like to join the mediation, I believe you should post a formal acceptance of the case's mediator at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-08-16 Relevance of content#Mediator notes so that the case can get under way. Thanks.--Father Goose 04:31, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Notability of schools

I should welcome your comments on User:TerriersFan/Schools that should be made on the talk page of that page. To start the ball rolling I'm alerting you and User:Alansohn but views from anyone else are, of course, welcome. TerriersFan 00:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

True origins

I made some clarification on the definition of the aims of the project after some good input from some editors passing by, I also added links to the banners and created a page of guidelines to reliable sources. I think that the aims are more clear now but I could really appreciate your opinion when you have the time, I am going now and come back tomorrow, no hurry. If you think it should be reverted to how it was before please let me know, you have abundant experience Thanks Jenny^Len 00:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Fictional Q-ships

Thanks for your support and encouragement, though I believe that deletion is a sure thing now. Playground politicking and lawyering isn't what attracts me to Wikipedia, so I've never had to face this clique of users before, I really don't know how anyone can convince them from their self appointed mission. Live and let live just doesn't seem to be in their nature.KTo288 14:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC) advice on your talk page. -DGG

what wikipedia is not

In response to your recent non-deletion of world's largest airlines I ask you, what's the point of having what wikipedia is not, if it doesn't define what wikipedia is not? Pdbailey 23:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC) Some lists are encyclopedic, some are not encyclopedic. We'll see what the community thinks on this one, that's what AfD is for. DGG.

could you help me reformat it and reopen it? I thought I had used the template right but was apparently unable to get it to work. I was looking to object based on, WP:NOT#STATS which reads, "Statistics. Long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readibility and neatness of our articles. In addition, articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader. Articles which are primarily comprised of statistical data may be better suited for inclusion in Wikisource as freely available reference material for the construction of related encyclopedic articles on that topic. Infoboxes or tables should also be considered to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists."Pdbailey 16:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I can repost it for you, but I urge to to reconsider. It did get listed at AfD, but without a reason given--and in consequence, it was speedy-kept. But it was kept not only because of that but because of the comments of several other editors besides myself--and good editors-- about the merit of the article. Consider that it was already in the form of several structured tables, and a key word in the paragraph you quote is "may". Many such tables should be and are deleted--and I have voted to delete in many instances-- but some are kept. This is, quite honestly, one of the better ones. Even if you disagree, it is not really that likely to get deleted. See the discussion.DGG (talk) 16:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I saw only two editors comment on the merits that I was criticizing, and I think the lack of reason was harmful. I just relisted it and BillCJ took it off claiming that you can't relist. I see no ground for not giving me 24 hours to give a reason since I'm not an anon editor and assume good faith would appear to suggest i be given a chance, but the good faith assumption appears to be out the window (I'm not trying to imply that you are not assuming good faith, you have been an exemplary editor on this topic). Pdbailey 17:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help. Now I hope the process can run it's course and if it's a "keep," at least the nomination will have had a reason to consider and the discussion will have been allowed 5 days. Pdbailey 17:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'm still having a hard time with this, and since your an admin, I figure you probably know what I should be doing. First, does it matter that it isn't listed on the page after it was removed? Second, did I list it right on it's page [13] and on the articles for deletion page [14]? Thanks for any help! Pdbailey 21:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I figured it out the linking amongst the deletion pages for myself, sorry to bother you. Pdbailey 22:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, and now another editor re-added the link to the deletion discussion, so that's taken care of too. FYI, I asked you a question over at the deletion page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/World's largest airlines (2nd nomination). I mention because I don't think it's typical, but I don't know. Pdbailey 13:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

A question for you: User Cats

This is not intended to be as nasty as it will sound, so please keep that disclaimer in mind when I ask you:

Have you ever voted to delete a user category?

As I said, I am not trying to attack you, or to impugn your motives, but I cannot ever recall you advocating the deletion of a user category in UCfD, and I have seen you support the retention of some categories that I simply cannot fathom any possible value in retaining (which speaks to a fundamental difference in our philosophies). Do you believe that there are user categories that should not exist, or are you of the belief that almost anything goes, short of outright attacks towards others? I really am curious, because while I generally believe in deletion of marginal cats, I sometimes vote to keep them, because I see collaborative potential in them. I'm curious if the reverse is true for you. Horologium t-c 03:22, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• I accept your question as reasonable, and I never think it wrong for someone to ask me to justify what I do. Normally at UCfD there are almost unanimous votes for deletion of most of the categories. I don;t see the point of piling on. Nor do I vote to keep all or even most.--I vote on very few where there is in my opinion some chance of making a difference or at least a protest. For example, most of the language merges this weekend to group xxx-1,2,3,and 4 into xxx are very good ideas, but my support is hardly needed--they will go through if nobody objects.

If you will look at my user page, i list myself in very very few, and only those which I think necessary for the sort of work I do. For example, I know some foreign languages a bit, but anyone who relies on me for translation would not be well advised. Others can decide differently. The longer I'm here, the more tolerant of other people I become--I thought I was pretty much so before, but I have really had my eyes opened to my limitations, one of the great things about WP.

There is no easy way to see my contributions on specific topics--enWP hasnt activated that feature, so I can't check my record. I think I have said to delete in a few cases of really unpleasantly divisive politically nationalistic categories and the like, but there seem to be almost none of them left. There is a difference in our overall approach--I would only eliminate those that need to be eliminated, and keep all the others. I ask you, why not? There's more overhead in running UCfD than in having the excess categories.

this is very much of a side issue for me--my main concern is keeping article content of interest to small groups but not actually harmful. So it's sort of a by-product. At AfD also, my !votes are keep about 4 to 1, though perhaps 80% of the stuff that goes there needs deletion--it gets deleted perfectly well without me, and I'd rather work on the items that need work one way or another. DGG (talk) 03:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I had noted your selective participation in discussions, but was not sure if there was a pattern, or if you only discussed categories for which you had strong feelings. I confine myself to UCfD (for the most part) because I find the other discussions to become deletionist/inclusionist wars; cleaning up user cats is far less binary than that, and improves the clarity and ease of navigation when trying to find appropriate categories. (It's a lot easier to find what one is looking for in a list of 20 appropriate categories, as opposed a list of 100—20 appropriate categories, 20 frivolous categories, 20 support/oppose categories, 20 categories that focus on a single subject or aspect of a subject, and 20 that belong elsewhere in the user cat tree.) That last is a big sticking point for me, as there are too many categories that are subcats of multiple parents, which is a good idea in article space, but less so in user space. The recent discussion about the programming categories is an example; those languages are in Category:Wikipedians by language, Category:Wikipedians by software and Category:Wikipedians by skill. I'll stop now, before this becomes an expository on your page. (smile) Horologium t-c 13:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Rationalizing category trees, in user space or mainspace, is one thing I very much support. The problem of organizing things here is substantial, and the current efforts inadequate. When I came here I thought that as a librarian I'd work on it a little, but my priorities developed differently. Your example is interesting--what I would do is put it into one of them with cross references from the other. I'll support moves like that. Frankly, I am in favor of support/oppose when it relates to WP questions, though I have been known to list myself on both sides. My views on politics and the like are changing--I think I'm getting more supportive of forthright declarations of biases and allegiances. DGG (talk) 22:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for disclosing biases; my userpage clearly spells out (both in prose and through a userbox) where my political views lie, and I also disclose (via prose and userboxen) where I live and have lived, where I have visited, what language I speak, a few of my views on grammar, and what job I held for 20 years. However, with the exception of the bare-bones language (not a regional cat, just "English") and location (nation and state) cats, I don't have user cats for all of that (and in fact I edited one of my userboxes to eliminate the cat, and nominated a group of cats associated with one of the other userboxes for deletion). Part of that is another personal trait: I prefer to be identified as an individual, not as a member of some larger group. If someone wants to contact me for editorial collaboration, I want it to be based on my contributions, not an arbitrary membership of a group. However, I am not hostile to the concept of others using such group identifications as they see fit; I just want to keep it manageable and rational. Horologium t-c 23:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

As mentioned above, I personally use almost none, except sometimes to highlight a particular WikiProject. My reasons are pretty much the same as yours. DGG (talk) 00:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello colleague

Hello there ! I was away sorry for the delay in responding. Thanx for the welcoming message and information, glad to find another "filing sufferer" around . I have been around a bit and is fully comprehensible (the wiki environment I mean) You see many incidents though. But I think I manage myself. Tell me something, how I make a nice signature ? I mean nice but keeping the level, not toons kind , just code it up or ? Let me know if I can be of assistance at any time, I have some acces to real antiques (books not people) See ya around Librarian2 16:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC) See WP:User. (but you need to know some elementary html markup). or tell me what you want to do--I'm not an expert, but I can do simple things. Incidentally, I am really a filing sufferer--I am the last certified instructor at Princeton for the filing rules in the old AACR1 card catalog. DGG (talk) 16:45, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Gosh! You are really a filing-sufferer. (even if I love that feeling of paper more than the screens) (for the first 5 minutes that is). About the signature, whatever makes me find my postings fast in a chain, any ideas ? (Yeah, ctrl-f right ?) Librarian2 19:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot you told me about the username similarity right? I have no problems with that but if you prefer I change it (I am the new one here I yield for the experienced elders) Just let me know how I do that Librarian2 20:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

CSA Trust and "2 users"

The "two users" remark was in response to the entry by User:Steinbeck, who said, "If only two people in the world want to learn about either the village festival or the CSA Trust through looking at their Wikipedia article, the existence of these articles is justified." Obviously, I don't agree. Realkyhick 17:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Re: TORIG

DGG, I'm not sure if you saw my reply to your question regarding the True Origins project; here's a link to it. I hope it at least speaks to the gist of your inquiry. Antelan ^talk 03:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello DGG, I accidentally saw your message to Antelan. She did not created the project, Daoken did and he is nothing of "Paranormal" he has to do with organizations mostly just that he probably has been so busy setting up the whole thing that is not editing for TORIG yet. Anyhow, your comment was a good call I think, I left the following message at TORIG:

I have seen a comment from a respected sysop that True Origins seems to be focusing in some areas. Obviously not, as I can see open tasks as far as "Road", "SpaceFlight", "Takemusu", "Water Memory", and medical articles. Perhaps because more resistance has been found on "paranormal" related articles, was more concentration on those ones or perhaps because many members have medical backgrounds there was some focus on medicine related articles. This is not abnormal at all and time must be given as obviously each member edits better in his/her own areas of expertise. Just an early warning call to open the targeting scope a bit more guys, this is a very important and interesting project and many will dislike us because we will challenge their legitimacy when not well referenced so be ready for some bad reactions and don't give any reason for been seen in any other way than neutral and multidisciplinary. Just wanted to say my opinion Jenny^Len 09:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello DGG. I am who created the True origins WikiProject, remember that I welcomed you ? The project is truly multidisciplinary, there is not a preference for any area. It may seem that "Paranormal" articles have more resistance to be challenged to provide accurate information and therefore those editions may call more attention. It also happens that a few of our members are of an specific background and have tendency to revise articles within their fields, that is a normal tendency but nothing that I can see it needs more addressing of what Jennylen has already done. I appreciate your opinion and hope you start to actively participate soon Daoken 14:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I am glad to see there are some more ambitious plans. I suggest you not use the word challenge in any context. You are simply out to improve the content of some complicated articles so it shows more accurately the history and nature of the topic discussed. BTW, I'm not sure you picked the best name. "true origins" is so non-descriptive that it might be thought to imply some sort of a hidden agenda. I'm trying to think of a better, but it will of course imply my own view of what 'sneeded. This should now be continued at the project talk page. DGG (talk) 19:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

There are not plans, but already realities :) Challenge is one of the many abused words unfortunately, what it means is not what you seem to understand, each time you ask for something, you are challenging for an answer, maybe my profession carries me to use words in another meaning than you are used to, anyhow, it is not a word I use at discretion and widely but only in conversation with whom I think is a friendly party.

I know perfectly what the project is about, it is simply about improving the accuracy of historical references and claims,and if possible to promote the use of such citations, simple and straight. True origins is so descriptive that scares some because they assume it is too penetrating, and they wonder why?

The true origin of something cannot be more direct and easy to understand, it is simply the true origin of something nothing too complicated or obscure.

I would like to know the reason why you joined, is it for a better look or for curiosity or for actively be involved? I was waiting for you become an active member but instead I see a different attitude, it sincerely surprises me.

I invite you to exchange ideas at the talk page of the project as you proposed, I replied here for the sake of continuance, now we can meet there when you may feel for visiting. Thank you for your opinion, it is always welcome. Daoken 20:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC) Afterthought: What you say seems to tell me that you have not been at the project for awhile, please do visit and read all the info.Daoken 20:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

comment--will comment there, but I think something is necessary here. I joined for two reasons--first, because I am very interested in improving the accuracy of the material on traditional academic subjects, including history. Second, because I often join maintenance projects to see what is going on--I have (like others) joined projects aimed at inclusionism and at deletionism, because both approaches have merit but can be taken too far. Sometime I can help coordinate the work with what is going on elsewhere. In practice the articles I work on are those immediately challenged at AfD--and the procedure there is unfortunately very much a challenge. If I have more time. I look at some newly submitted ones of interest to try to get a least minimal sourcing. And I try to work on a few where there are interesting discussions of he nature of sourcing, or where I otherwise can make some particular conribution. I do wish I had time to do much more actual writing in article space about the things that interest me, rather than rescue.And there are some specific things I can help with. But to some extent Im here to give advice, such as that your definition of primary and secondary sources is totally discordant with the one at WP:RS. Anyone who does not like my suggestions tis free to ignore them. My advice is that in general in pays to go very slowly and carefully with new projects. DGG (talk) 01:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:TORIG is now WP:TIMETRACE

WikiProject True Origins WP:TORIG is now WikiProject Timeline Tracer WP:TIMETRACE also WP:TIMET. This follows many opinions that teh previous name of the project could confuse or provide negative feelings in some users. Daoken 02:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

good choice.DGG (talk) 02:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks hope it serves well Daoken 02:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

non-refernced biographies

Please see my rationale here.

You stated: "Several other editors have noticed similar articles prodded without justification."

After reading my rationale above, could you please tell me how you can say that I don't have justification?

You also stated: "being the member of a national team in any sport is notable". Again, I'm not questioning notabilty. Anyone can put an article up here stating that "Joe Blow" is a member of the Antartic National Volleyball team. My issue is - if it's so - then prove it. Theoretically I could put up an article tomorrow claiming that I'm a member of the US National Ski team, unsourced, and that's OK? A person coming to Wikipedia for facts shouldn't have to be going to a dozen other sources to prove what's on a page here. The source should be in the article itself.

You stated: "Unreferenced is quite clearly not a reason for deletion, either by prof or afd or any other method."

This statement goes directly against Wikipedia:Citing sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Notability (people), and specifically Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. "Unsourced' or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles." You may point out this is simply for "contentious" material, however "contentious" doensn't just mean controversial, it can also mean "contested", "the ability to being contested" (or in a broader sense,; litigated; litigious; having power to decide controversy).

You stated: The criterion is "unsourcable", not unsourced. Please see WP:Deletion policy.

If you're referring to "content not verifiable in a reliable source" I beleive that the others that refer specifically to biographical articles (as above) give more detailed and specific rationale that states quite clearly that for biographies the cirterion is "verifiable sources".

You stated: "the rationale for proposed deletion is an article which clearly would be deleted if taken to afd, but which you think nobody is working on or will defend."

WP:DP "An editor who believes a page obviously and uncontroversially doesn't belong in an encyclopedia can propose its deletion. These pages can be deleted by any administrator if, after five days, nobody objects to the proposed deletion." I do believe that these pages obviously voilate several policies & guidelines and should not be herein. The prod gives the author & others ample time to correct the lack of sources.

You stated: "The thing to do with articles lacking references is to try to find references for them..."

I again refer you here

Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons clearly states, "The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia... rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material." It's not the reader's responsibility (or mine) to go and research articles for verifiability and sources - it's the editor (or article creator). SkierRMH 19:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Remember that I deprodded only a few of your tags. For almost all, which were articles that I thought clearly would not make it, I left them--and would have tagged them myself. I also mention that I was by no means the only one disagreeing with some of those tags.

I doubt we will convince each other, so I'll save the detailed arguments for a more public place. But to put it simply, I do not think the consensus at WP agrees with your interpretations. And why should it? How does it improves the encyclopedia to delete instead of source when sourcing is trivial? Such tagging simply makes more work for everyone. Basic sourcing is usually rather quick for most contemporary subjects. I always thought it part of my obligation here as an editor is not to try to delete or to keep articles on the basis of formal details, but to see if the subject of the article was in fact likely to be notable and sourceable. Despite what some think, my aim is not to keep as much as possible, but to do in each case what was appropriate for the ultimate content of WP. My deletion log shows I am not the least reluctant to delete as an admin--I remove several hundred a month. Yes, the rules are sufficiently contradictory that one can play a Wizards' duel, otherwise known as wikilawyering, countering each rule with an opposite. There are after all a great many articles for which with ingenuity one could find an acceptable reason either to delete, or to keep. The main principle--more fundamental than any of the other policies-- is that we are here to build an encyclopedia. Often that means deleting clearly unencyclopedic material. But for subjects that might be acceptable, it means keeping the articles and adding sources. Deletion is the last resort. DGG (talk) 04:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:TIMETRACE has been enhanced, give a look

WikiProject Timeline Tracer has been greatly enhanced with Guidelines and Strategy as well as many alternatives which will make your editions more easy to target, easier to tag or comment and much more. Please go to WP:TIMETRACE, give a look in the new tools and get busy helping articles. Remember that this WikiProject is helping the backbone (beyond content) of all articles , Reliable Sources and Verification. Thank you for participating Daoken 11:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Impact factors

Hopefully you're not going by our article on impact factors, since this article is being edited by the Elsevier socks.

They should have been deleted to discourage the practice of creating sock puppet accounts to create and complexly link articles on Wikipedia, as has been going on since 2004 (the earliest ones I found).

I suggested just making them redirects initially, but the adminstrator was hell bent on attacking me, rather than doing anything useful for Wikipedia, so I gladly followed suit--I've found taking the high road to be entirely useless on Wikipedia.

Not all of the journals are as high impact factor as others, but Trends in Plant Sciences is a leading journal in the field, as is Current Opinion in Immunology, I believe. Both of these journals could have their own articles, as they're certainly more notable than the average Pokeman card--as could quite a number of other science journals that aren't even mentioned on Wikipedia.

But unsourced, single purpose COI sock accounts need to stop creating articles on Wikipedia for commercial puproses, and if their articles are not simply deleted, but debated and kept, this is an incentive to Elsevier to continue producing crappy clone articles all over Wikipedia. No one blocked the socks, or even cared about them, it was all about me.

And, the more crappy clone articles, the more articles put up on AfD to be deleted because they're unsourced, and don't state their notability--these articles about perfectly notable journals are just crying out to be AfDed by anyone with the time. And this is more time I personally waste defending keeping articles about things that have been discussed for longer than cartoon trading cards existed. The deletion then creates an edit page that is a disincentive to recreating a good article, because it comes with the notice that the article has been deleted as non-notable or some other such thing.

There's no way to win at this--particularly when my reasonable suggestions are ignored, in fact, I'm ignored unless I go overboard. And the sock puppets are given carte blanche to continue, and it becomes about some administrator getting her feelings hurt rather than about what's really going on. I simply can't deal with it. Nothing I do is ever of any value, no matter how obvious is seems to me, and I have to assume I am simply out of step with Wiki reality. Sock puppetry is welcomed, commercial COI accounts are fine, all is as it should be, apparently, until I wasted everyone's time saying anything. I feel like an idiot in comparison, that I spend time reading and translating technical papers and picking and choosing and searching for references, when people are willing to fight tooth and nail to keep sock puppet generated crap.

And I've had it up to here with administrators calling me a troll because I question their actions--enough.

KP Botany 19:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

PS I did once offer to rewrite an article by the author of a book, and have been mercilessly hounded for it since then. The article is still a worthless piece of crap, but its author and owner is fine with that. Good luck. Here's the active sock account for communication User talk:222.67.188.123.

Frankly, I consider a subject notable no matter who writes it. Much of the important content of WP is from people with a very close relationship to the subject. The problem with COI is that they dont write very good articles, they write lousy undescriptive articles like these. My attitude to PR people is different from yours. I think they ought to be taught to write good articles, and then we ought to edit them carefully. I have worked with PR guys from several publishers, including this publisher, and gotten decent articles out of them. I've had them withdraw the articles, and get an ok from me off wiki before reinserting them. It can generally be made clear to someone what is needed, if the person is reasonable. I've rarely had trouble with guys from major companies--they know the importance of getting the material written so it stays, even if it means learning a completely different style. Where I have trouble with is amateurs, or sometimes guys who own the business or run the journal or the society, who have so much emotionally invested in it that they can;t see past the self-interest. And also PR guys from academic departments--I've succeeded with one, and failed with several. One of them refused to rewrite his series of articles after multiple appeals from various people, and they got deleted. Can't figure out why. I was tempted to email his boss. I'll give a try with your anon.

As for the impact factor article, thanks for the hint. I'll take a look. since i wrote a good deal of it in the first place, I should take another look. But if I know Elsevier, they're trying to explain why impact factors aren't that important (since their journals by & large don't do well by that measure). I've answered them on the professional lists, I can deal with them here. DGG (talk) 02:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I rewrite a lot of small biographies, some of physicians, and recently took a completely different tactic with a COI writer. I showed him an article before User:Acalamari and I got to it, and I showed him the article after we were done with it. His response was, wow, cool, you'd do that for my uncle's article? Yup, because his uncle, although poorly referenced on the web, is obviously an important and notable physician. I'll have to research him next time I go to UCSF, but the editor is fine with us taking whatever time we need to give the article a professional appearance. I think if you prepare a couple of before and afters it might be equally as effective with other COI editors.

Yes, Elsevier's journals are hit and miss, more miss largely since their prices went through the stratosphere; however, for some obscure areas and journals they have higher impact factors than for others, so it's not safe to assume all of their journals are anything. Every botanist I know reads their Trends in Plant Sciences, alongside only Taxon and American Journal of Botany--although I don't know why. (Oh, I see, it's a journal on biochemical plant genetics, kinda the area I work in. So, maybe my idea that it is a more important journal than the other Trends journals is skewed.)

I don't know enough about impact factors to edit that article at all, but there has been a lot of funky editing going on over there. You'll catch them if you go to the edit histories and run through the diffs of most of the red-linked editors, not the ips. Here's one of Thomson Scientific's editors.[15] This guy has a PageRank agenda.[16] This guy's pushing Seymour Melman and Economic Reconstruction.[17] Anyway, it was an interesting article to run through the red-linked authors on--they all seem to have agendas. There were also a couple of Springer clones doing the same thing the Elsevier socks are doing, but I don't know if I marked them. I will be glad to send them all your way, though, in the future. KP Botany 04:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

not only are some of their most outrageously priced journals the most notable, they're by far the easiest to document, since people have been loudly complaining for years. I'd expect on balance I'd want to keep 80-90% of the ES titles, but the subject people can decide. The Thomson guy isn't necessarily following company line--they don't like Page Rank particularly, except to the extent that its based on the citation index principle. And if he's been doing Economic Reconstruction, it's a personal hobby. Not every who edits out of a company office is doing it primarily for the company. But by all means, add to my collection as you see them. U Chicago Press is another problem, by the way. The priority for adding of course is the scientific societies, not the commercial publishers--would you like to do some botany journals? DGG (talk) 04:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I've never looked up botany journals on Wikipedia. What are we missing? You can toss them my way, I'm skewed towards the biochemistry, genetics and ecology, but I read 2 or 3 plant journal articles a day for my research which is mostly about systematics. I'm going to just start writing short bios of major scientists who are missing on Wikipedia, but not really using references--it's too much work, and not the least bit rewarding. I can't believe we didn't have a word about Daniel Axelrod on Wikipedia. At least let me know what's missing in botany journals. Oh, I see we have the American Journal of Botany but not the Botanical Society of America which is currently thickly in the midst of a scientific revolution--and the AJB is a crappy stub. No Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden which is in the same place. Oh, I found the list. But we have a pretty article for Curtis's Botanical Magazine, at least. KP Botany 05:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, this is a great discussion! Some of the COI stuff you are uncovering is really good, KP. Please do keep an eye on that sort of things, and don't let the reaction to the Current Opinion epsiode put you off. DGG, you say "add to my collection as you see them. U Chicago Press is another problem, by the way" - would you be able to expand on that? Is this collection of stuff (COI stuff, or just 'journal contacts'?) online or something you maintain offline? And how are U Chicago Press a problem? More of the same? You'll notice that the Category:Journals by publisher category structure I started included three of the bigger companies I know of: Elsevier, Nature Publishing Group and University of Chicago Press. I don't know enough about journal publishing to say whether that list of three misses out any big publishing companies. My vision for that category structure would be to have the big ones having their own categories, and with the ones published by "the scientific societies" grouped in another category. Some, of course, appear in both, so before I go ahead with that, would you and KP be able to provide any guidance? Royal Society publications would be a good place to start. See Royal Society#Publications. Also Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society used to be published in-house, but is now done by Blackwell. I'm also wondering if we should have a more specific category for things like JSTOR and Astrophysics Data System. They are currently collected in Category:Digital libraries, but maybe the ones containing journals should be grouped apart from the ones containing books (and the ones containing both would go in both, obviously). Would that work, do you think? There are definitely enough digital libraries in that category now to justify subcategorising based on topic (arts and humanities, vs scientific, for example). Carcharoth 19:24, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

1. . Categories. dont go too fast--they are a real nuisance to change. Please first consider the problem already present with just journal publishers and scientific journal publishers. There's some discussion of this at the top of the page. Publisher names change. Most but not all Elsevier titles in WP are from what used to be Elsevier Science, and is now Elsevier Science+Business. A good many articles and links need fixing. I think the two KP mentioned below are good to add, though as a start.
2. . digital libraries. Dividing by subject is possible, though there are many multi-disciplinary ones that it might be necessary to list in more than one article. Dividing by type is more of a problem. Almost every one of the major ones is constructed differently: ADS is a complex multi-type information system: an free index, a set of links to outside articles at publishers and elsewhere, many of them toll access, a free preprint data base, and a few other parts also. JSTOR is a subscription-access database of scanned journal article backfiles licensed from various journal publishers, together with a freely-accessible OCR-based index, which is what one sees at google Scholar. Muse is a aggregator for current journal articles from several major non-profit publishers. Pubmed is a index, with online abstracts, but part of a remarkably complex system, & there's a whole wikiproject devoted to the various parts. and so on. There have been some serious disagreements about what to call the various types, and digital Libraries is nicely nonspecific. Similarly, what most university libraries do nowadays is just list everything as "Digital resources" or "electronic resources", without attempting to distinguish the journals from the indexes from the reference works.
3. What i think is needed more than organization is simply more articles, about as many journals and database systems as possible, done in groups if convenient. I think a good deal of Royal society is already in, but sure, add the others--there is the advantage of a long history to write about and many published sources. DGG (talk) 04:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're missing quite a few, Springer, and Wiley for starters. It would be good of you to organize these, as you did a great job starting, and the stubs you wrote would be adequate for all jouranls for now. If you have the time could you possibly improve the American Journal of Botany article? I don't have much time for editing and research right now, but it, along with the Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden have been the leading publishers of information that has radically changed Angiosperm systematics since 1993, and they both should have articles that reflect the importance of the major articles. Also, the Linnean Society journals, now that I think of it. (I know I spell his name wrong.) KP Botany 03:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

what journal articles should have as content

My suggestion about suitable content in general, is:

• of course the infobox stuff: title, and publisher, and starting date, and frequency,
• An explicit statement that it's peer-reviewed, and whether its a review journal or an abstract journal or what. Publishers like to list all the sections. i don't think that's encyclopedic. Every scientific journal typically has articles and editorials and letters to the editor and occasional reviews.
• The subject field only if it isnt obvious. Publishers often try to say something like X journal of chemistry covers organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry and analytical chemistry and biochemistry, and will be of interest to research and development chemists in industry and the academic world, as well as related specialists. I think that's pure PR gibberish.
• and a thumbnail of the cover for identification purposes,
• availability of online version and coverage of backfiles
• changes in title and dates.
• The name & institution of the editor in chief, but usually just the editor in chief. Some publications with extremely notable past editors in chief should list them, but it's usually excessive. This information is used to establish the notability of the scientists concerned--any ed. in chief of a major journal will generally get a WP article. Not the whole board.
• Major indexing services.like ChemAbs, Web of Science, Scopus, Inspec, Compendex, Medline/PubMed, Biosis, Psych Info, or the analogous ones in other fields. This is a major factor in establishing notability for a journal. *You can and should give the impact factor. The current ones are 06. It can also give the JCR rank, but best as as 4th out of the 80 journals in ___. It means more than just 4th, because 4th could be 4th out of 8. s.
• Use the category for the publisher and the subject-journal categories--the higher level ones are filled automatically. Do not link to other journals the categories will do it.

and optional if convenient,

• The circulation, from Ulrich's if available, or from the USPO statement if there is one.
• the two or three most notable or highest citation papers ever published
• Whether its included in major 3rd party online services such as ebsco or proquest & if there is an embargo, as there usually is for journals like these, how long it is.
• sometimes, the number of libraries holding from WorldCat--that is basically the number of US+Canada libraries.

People sometimes want to see 3rd party references. i usually list JCR and Ulrichs. DGG (talk) 04:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I'll try and try my hand at expanding a few stubs and see how it goes. A similar conversation is taking place at User talk:Geogre#IRC and AfD, more focused on humanities journals. I'm going to cross-link the two threads. As for the categories, I will make some lists and play around with various groupings and run them past you and others before creating the categories. Carcharoth 13:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, looks good. In this sciences, I would like the major articles to be listed closer to the front of the article than much of the other stuff. There are a couple of major scientific revolutions going on, one in angiosperm systematics, in which papers of astronomical importance have been published, this should be discuss early on, and linked to the primary article that discusses something from the paper. (APG II for example.) Does the infobox include language of the journal? There are some Japanese geological journals and still German journals on physics and some other oddballs in languages other than English, with extensive abstract distributions in English. KP Botany 04:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure, language. I think there's provision for it. For the many journals that were once multilingual or German and now are English, that would best be said in the article. No reason not to put major papers at the start, either. Or really major authors, sometimes. Or the authors first and then the papers. I think there's room for a good deal of variation and experimentation in this. Main job is to get the articles, and put them into the appropriate subject categories.,

Categories-- The basic one is the subject category, as Category:Botany journals, etc. Usually they get added also to a category like Category:Chemical literature, if there is one for the subject. Often they also get added to the category for the broad subject or sometimes the narrow one or both--I am not 100% sure it's a good idea, but it's usual. and the appropriate publisher category, as Category: Elsevier journals. (I just found out from the publisher that the name to use is now in fact Elsevier , not Elsevier Science or Elsevier Science+Business.

And another thing--if the journal is an Open access journal, add Category:Open access journals; if its one of those with open access after an embargo period, use instead Category:Delayed open access journals. There exists also the category Hybrid open access journals, for those titles where an author can optionally pay for open access for a particular article, but I think it is now useless, since all the journals from most major publishers now allow it, and an increasing number of societies--every Springer journal, for example, and most or all of Wiley and a lot of Elsevier. These pages need some updating.

And there is also a working party at Wikipedia:List of missing journals, which we need to coordinate with.

DGG (talk) 06:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding categories, the naming is sometimes inconsistent. eg. Category:Botany journals and Category:Botanical journals. The former is correct, the lattter needs changing. Carcharoth 17:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

And it's Category:Chemistry literature. That all needs sorting out. I might also try and find books and essays and magazines to expand the "literature" categories, but that is outside the scsope of the journals wikiproject, now at Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals (I dropped a note off to John Vandenberg. Carcharoth 17:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

August 2007 (UTC)

Journals

I see from the above that there is more history to the Elsevier stuff than I had realised. I'm a bit puzzled by your reference to a "speedy" though. Are you referring to the Current Opinion stuff, or the Category:Journals by publisher (and related categories) that I created recently? Carcharoth 00:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

the Current opinion stuff, and the DRV this morning [18]. The categories of journal by publisher are the obvious way to go, though there are some questions about overlap. I don;'t see any attempt to delete them. As you said at the AfD on current Opinion in Immunology, [19], the job is to get in articles for all the other important journals. I'll help as I can, especially if my knowledge of the publishers can be of any use.DGG (talk) 00:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello colleague

Do you feel like a Librarian today? If you do, give a look at WP:KIS and let me know if you have someone in mind who could have the time to code the most used labels (languages and most known projects). Also I have a problem with the box for the labels, I don't know what code to enter for the labels display horizontally inside the box instead of vertically. If you don't feel like a librarian today, that is fine also, we file it for another time ℒibrarian2 20:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The box problem is solved, I made instead a rail kind of thing where the labels go (makes you remember something?) I like it better anyway. But the need of someone as I said above is still actual ℒibrarian2 21:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Marilyn Carroll

Hey, Would I add a section called "defense" or something? How do you recommend that I go about it?17:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)Carniv

I would suggest continuing the section on animal rights campaign with an equal length discussion of her statements, those from the university, and those of her supporters. Don't give extensive quotes, but do give references. I would also add a section of Scientific Work, and discuss her actual scientific work and list major publications especially as referred to in the controversy. They should all be in PubMed, which also indicates other articles referring to them. Include a mention of her degrees and any awards--her official website is a suitable source for noncontroversial details like that. Let me know if you'd like me to take a look. DGG (talk) 17:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest

Hi, we had spoken before about creating articles for Physics journals. You had said you would be able to help to make sure there is no conflict of interest. I have a few articles I would like to post and would like you to look them over before I post them and run the risk of a COI. Thank you and I hope to hear from you soon. Journals88 15:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Journals88 (talk • contribs) 14:50, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

sure. I have made a page for you to use for this purpose, User talk:Journals88/sandbox. Just add one there as a start, and let me know. We have an expanded help pages that you may want to read, Wikipedia:Business FAQ DGG (talk) 17:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I added an article to the page you setup and enabled my email. Thank you so much for your help! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Journals88 (talk • contribs) 20:44, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

I added another article to the sandbox page, User talk:Journals88/sandbox, using your advice from the previous article. Would you be able to critique and make sure it is not a COI? Thank you for your help and sorry I have been taking so long to get back to you.Journals88 17:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

try them now. DGG (talk) 18:53, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Business Wire

Thanks for the feedback and education on editing guidelines. As I'm a representative of Business Wire, I'll limit my comments and suggestions to the discussion page of the site going forward to honor the COI guidelines. Becktold 21:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)becktold

QW

Sorry I didn't have chance to reply to your message from the 28th until now. I think that looking at the history of that article, it is a chain with too many links which never change beyond two opposite colors. It is wise to try to salvage what can be repaired but unwise to try to salvage what is beyond repair, that, if kept, will continue to be a source of debate and never a good article, I would advise to let go and to create an article about the subject, say "Frauds in the name of medicine" or "Health frauds", make a good article about the subject, include a good section about QW which doesn't sound "puffed" and then, if desired by the defendants of QW, to create a redirection from QW entry or a very "cold" QW artcle linked. I just think is unwise what is going on and still more unwise to try to keep it going on (my opinion) looking through my experience in true life mediation of conflicts Daoken 08:55, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Though such an article as you suggest--though you need a different title, as it is asking for endless disputation to use the word "frauds" in the title of anything-- would be a good idea, QuackWatch remains a highly notable organization, and an good article on it makes it clear that its publications are a usable source, though a POV one. For any subject at all, I'd strongly resist simply deleting an article because it will be subject to debate or even attack. That's letting the POV pushers control the encyclopedia. It's almost as harmful as permitting people to remove articles about themselves if they do not like the content. Perhaps a solution is to find a way of preventing individual editors from working on particular subjects. I'd like to see a NPOV noticeboard parallel to the one on RS. DGG (talk) 10:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

A7

I understand what you are saying, but I don't think it agrees with the language of A7. I think it's quite a stretch to assert that Kurt Hellmer explained how the subject was important or significant. I really think the mere fact that KH was affiliated with a notable author for an unstated time period does not do it. Would the notable author's lawyer have been automatically significant? Are all of the author's works important? What about his family? Anyway, if A7 is refined or abolished, that would moot all of these fun debates! Take care! -- But|seriously|folks  16:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

my idea of an acceptable assertion is one that a reasonable newcomer to WP could make in good faith, thinking it might possibly be considered important here. Saying someone is the son of a famous man is not--at least as far as anyone outside the family is concerned, thought there are some good editors here who think it might be. enough, & I am open to argument. Saying that someone is a famous writers agent, that is. Most of the stuff suitable for A7 speedy is much lower then the son of a famous man category. Nobody can reasonably think that to have formed a band that has not yet recorded anything is notable by any standards. DGG (talk) 18:02, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

COI and My Details

I can assure you that I do not work for the said company. I am however a Business and Technology consultant and have fairly decent knowledge about Indian publishing industry and intend to put it details about all other publication companies and histories that are viable in an encyclopedia. I will be stating my details on the user page. thanks.

Geekgyan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geekgyan (talk • contribs) 11:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Whether you are employed by them, are doing it as a consultant for them or for the industry generally, WP:COI applies. And even if doing it as a friend of the company or the industry, or even if I were to do it--and I have written a number of such articles for journals I know--the same rules for content and objectivity apply. See your talk page for some further advice. DGG (talk) 01:07, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Academic Journals project

Hi DGG, I've moved my "Journals" project proposal to Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals (the name you recently proposed at User_talk:Geogre#IRC_and_AfD) in order to centralise discussions in this area. Cheers, John Vandenberg 15:35, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

good. I will put up some links to stuff, or make some summarizing statements--over this weekend, not just this minute :) DGG (talk) 20:11, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Generational Dynamics

Thanks for the tip on the speedy delete. I'm still pretty new at all of this, and appreciate the kind help. I feel very happy that the whole generations thing is moving along. I don't see the defenders of Strauss and Howe stepping up, so I think we're in the clear. --Dylanfly 22:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Generational Dynamics is not part of the Strauss and Howe nonsense. Although he mentions them, it seems to be the personal promotion page of John Xenakis (who, technically, has a book). How that page lasted one year is beyond me. I guess I'm saying I think a Speedy Delete is okay on this silly page. Follow the links to the man's promotional website and you'll get the drift. This isn't a "book" in the sense of Generations. --Dylanfly 22:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

DGG, the article was deleted before I could pool together my resources. What would you suggest? Thanks MichaelEaston10 13:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC) Adivce on your user talk page -DGGDGG (talk) 14:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

prod problem

Hi DGG, how are you? I recently prodded the article Rat-Cha, and the prod duly expired. Normally, an admin would have just deleted it the article and that would have been that. However, before the backlog could be dealt with (or whatever prevented it) an IP removed the already expired prod from the article. I asked the admin who closed the cat of that date's prods if he could delete the article, considering that the template says the article may be deleted at any time after the prod expired. He simply informed me tersely on my talk page that "once a prod has been removed, it doesn't go back on. Take it to AFD." I had just prodded, and then dutifully brought to AFD the contested prods, of at least 5 other articles in the same date. I find being treated so quite appalling, considering I'm no newb trying to revert to a contested prod still in the waiting period. VanTucky ^(talk) 04:38, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Such are indeed the rules, and WP:PROD is clear about it. Prods only work for uncontested deletions--if they turn out to be contested, then afd is the way to deal with them. Even after they have been deleted, any admin is supposed to restore the articles at the request of any user--so even had you moved faster, the same process would have occurred. There has just been on Deletion Review a case re-stating clearly that restoration of a deleted prod does not have to go to deletion review, but will be done on request. I'm not qualified to comment on breeds of dogs, but I do recall that deletions of most such articles are contested in good faith & have to be discussed on the merits. Just send it on to Afd--if you are right, it will be deleted easily enough. At least there will be the consolation that after an AfD it can then be speedied if re-created. DGG (talk) 04:48, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment

Hello! I read your post in the discussion about Dawn of the Dead. Anyway, I've found many of my conversations with you to be respectable and as you can tell, I am to a large degree just outraged about the whole ANI thing, especially since it followed what I perceived as somewhat harassment from Eyrian (i.e. two editors with similar habits going after me unjustifiably) and it just raised my suspicions level greatly. Anyway, I posted a reply to your comment and would be more than happy to focus on the article at hand and if the illegitimate accusations leveled against me are retracted, I certainly would be entirely okay with striking the more accusatory posts from that discussion as well. I am alwasy open-minded to acceptable compromises and paths that are constructive; I just had enough of the nonsense that had come my way. If you have any additional advice, I am of course receptive. Regards, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 04:54, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

once things get to this point, the best course is just to keep the peace and hope the other people will also--insisting on withdrawal of each others accusations usually inflames the controversy, as does bring a third party into it. Corpx is correct. Dont feed the flames. If I had ever said anything like this, I would just straight-out apologize. Channel frustration into good arguments on the merits of the articles being discussed, as you did later on in the discussion. DGG (talk) 05:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. It just irritated me that I would get "reported" when some editors used similar tactics in those things and seem to be ignored. I'll send a positive gesture Corpx's way. Maybe if we can work on something amicably together, we'll get along better in deletion discussions? Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 05:09, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

yes, but you will have to always think twice about what you post. A useful thing here as in many other contexts is to write, but not post until the following day--after reconsidering. It's kept me out of a lot of trouble myself ;). Another useful thing to consider is to limit exchanges--after 1 statement and a follow up, there is rarely much point in continuing the same line--if you have not made your view clear by then, further rounds won't add much. DGG (talk) 23:16, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikicrats

Could you look at this discussion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Pcirrus and reinstate an article I wrote. Pcirrus 22:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC) (now a redirect, a reasonable solution-DGG)

Content policy analysis

Wikipedia:Relevance of content/Content policy analysis: let's try to synchronize our views on this subject so that our continuing work on it can be more effective.--Father Goose 23:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Notability of University

Hi, I'm happy to be corrected about M S Ramaiah School of Advanced Studies, but I do have a couple of questions, as I did look into WP:N before I Prodded, and they haven't asserted notability on the page (the external links don't appear to be reliable secondary sources). My other concern is about advertising. There's only been a single contributor of significance to that article, and that same editor has created (and had deleted) a number of individual articles on course at the School, and has also put links in to the school in inappropriate places. So, if you could direct me to the guideline about all university programs being inherently notable, along with any further comments you think are appropriate, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. — Timotab ^{Timothy (not Tim dagnabbit!)} 19:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

As submitted, the article was considerably spammy--take another look at the editing that I did. there's probably some more to go. The individual courses are, as you say, not notable, and I assume you've removed the inappropriate links. But this is a graduate university offering the PhD, and I am quite sure that it would be considered notable at AfD. All universities brought there have been, except for some correspondence schools, unaccredited institutions, and cases of crystal balling. Small colleges are disputed sometimes, I think on rare occasions successfully, but even they must go to AfD as PROD is only for those that won't be disputed. But the universities is only a de facto guideline based on current practice, which you are of course welcome to test & argue against at AfD. As for sourcing, except for BLP, the criterion is unreferenceable, not unreferenced. DGG (talk) 19:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation (and yes, I did remove those links).— Timotab ^{Timothy (not Tim dagnabbit!)} 19:36, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Unified discussion

Wikipedia:Trivia discussion -- I nominate you to get things rolling. Please feel free to change the overview I already put up, or to simply post the first comment to invite discussion/tell people what they should be discussing.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

21:21, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

please first consider whether the mediation on WP:relevance of content might first need to discuss this as a split. And then consider whether the discussion should have the word triva in it. Personally, I think it prejudges the issue--trivia by definition is trivial. I very strongly suggest immediately changing it "in popular culture"--in fact, not even as a move. Delete it and restart it cleanly. DGG (talk) 21:35, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this would garner a better response from both sides if you created the page. I'm not exactly seen as an objective party in this. I think you should make the page wherever and named however you think is best.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

21:39, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I've already nominated it for speedy deletion using {{db-author}}. Go ahead and delete it.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

21:46, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

It would be my hope for us inclusionists to sound out what it is we seek at Wikipedia:Relevance of content/Content policy analysis, and after we've aligned our goals, bring them to a broader venue for the "real" debate. Where is the root problem? At AfD? WP:TRIVIA? WP:NOT? All of them? Somewhere else? Can we come up with a fix that the broader community would agree to?--Father Goose 23:12, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that's a bit ambitious. People feel strongly about the trivia issue, because they see it as an immediate problem. It won't be easy to convince everyone that content guidelines in general are what we should be talking about.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

23:31, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

We can't have a private debate among just inclusionists, you know. :)

Let me ask some preliminary questions--here is as good a place as any:

1. There are two different decisions--what we really want, and what we think is politic to ask for--these may or may not be the same. Should we ask for less than we want, in order to get a ready compromise, or more, in order to bring the final result nearer what we want? If we try to make a true compromise offer, will we be gamed?
2. And do we have enough of a common position, or is this just a temporary working alliance?
3. Should our basic position be tolerance and quality, not N and V?
4. What do we want besides more flexible standards for articles? Is the main goal better standards for content, not justifying inclusionism.
5. and for questions of notability, should we deal with it primarily by changing process, not standards?
6. And in terms of standards, should we reach for accuracy keep/delete every time though argument, or bright-line rules?
7. Should we discuss IPC as a preliminary altogether separate issue--possibly one that should be discussed first and urgently.

My feelings on these points late tonight or tomorrow, but my questions indicate the way I am thinking DGG (talk) 00:47, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't usually label myself. I don't consider myself an inclusionist, per se. What I believe is that overly-specific guidelines disrespect the intelligence of the editors. I think they're built with the goal in mind of taking away as much of the decision-making as possible from the individual editors, for fear that they won't be intelligent enough to make good decisions. I think that any ban on trivia or pop-culture across the board is a mistake, because even the average editor would support having limited lists of only truly noteworthy items. There's just this fear that trivia lists, for example, will inevitably become overwrought with obvious facts and other nonsense. And fear often leads to the loss of freedom. They're thinking that people will make bad decisions, so taking away their ability to choose will solve the problem, and the incidental loss of freedom is acceptable. Sorta... like... fascism, or a dictatorship, dare I say.

So if inclusionist means I want nothing removed and everything included, I'm no inclusionist. I just don't want the choice dictated to me. I want editors to be able to decide themselves what belongs in articles on a case-by-case basis. Trivia and pop-culture might be good for one article but not for another, and some items within those lists belong while others don't. So I might not be so much an inclusionist as I am a freedomist. You'll have to let me know what the definition of inclusionist actually is.

That was my contribution to #2. You guys will have to let me know how similar your feelings are on the matter.

As for #2, I think small steps are the best way to go. I don't think we're going to be successful in making a major change all at once, via compromise or otherwise. I'd be impressed if we could even get the trivia template deleted (and I see that as a pretty small step). If we aim for something big, I think we'll be dismissed by too many people as nuts (as all illuminati once were).

3 - I don't know what N and V stand for.

4 - I'll have to think about that one.

Ditto on 5.

6 - I don't know what IPC stands for.

Aaannnnd, I'm spent.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

01:32, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

IPC is "in popular culture" it save a lot of typing :). , N is WP:Notability, and V is WP:Verifiability, the basic WP rules. They save a lot of typing too. Those wanting to work at AfD should learn them.

And work at AfD might convince you that case by case decision is an incredible amount of work, gives wild inconsistency and instability of decision, and is very susceptible to pressure groups one way or another. I seem to spend most of my WP life there, and I'd rather write articles on what I care about, which are not usually the things that take up the time at AfD. That, and helping newcomers adjust to the artificial reality here. I am willing to argue, and I hope I am moderately effective at it, but it is not what I really want to do. DGG (talk) 01:41, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

So what do you want then? When you say you're an inclusionist, what does that mean to you? How does it actually differ from my description? And thanks for the explanation of the abbreviations.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

01:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I want to maintain and improve the coverage of WP so important things are written about, and improve the quality so they are written about fairly, accurately, understandably. There are lots of deletionists who want just the same, but they want to start by removing all the low quality articles. I want to improve them. And I know by experience that the things that I think important, not everybody does, and therefore hope for mutual tolerance. And I want consistent, fair, reliable, stable, balanced, open process, ensured by similarly fair review. DGG (talk) 02:00, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, my focus is more on list sections than it is on the retention or deletion of whole articles. I'm not sure how relevant that is to inclusionism. Although I agree on fair balanced and open processes. Although balanced is gonna be a tough thing to dictate using policy. Balance depends on the people involved acting in a mature and objective fashion.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

02:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

by balanced process I have in mind specifically a more equitable treatment of keep and delete decisions DGG (talk) 03:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, if we're going to hold it here, let me ask you to archive some old threads -- I'm on dialup.--Father Goose 03:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC) Nah, on second thought, can we hold this anywhere else, even just a subpage of this page? User talk pages shouldn't become issue pages.--Father Goose 03:49, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Moved to User:DGG/unified as requested. only this particular thread is being moved -- other related matters should remain here on the regular talk page. DGG (talk) 04:36, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

DRV

I have initiated a deletion review of an AFD which you were involved in. You may wish to contribute to the discussion. Balancer 04:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

For you

[20] Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate list of all journals related to a subject--I'm on break. KP Botany 06:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's about 1% of the total and 10% of the ones in JCR. things could get a good deal worse. We normally do this as a separate list when possible , e.g. List of scientific journals in chemistry, or List of botany journals but we sometimes have included such a short section in a subject article. I do not think the number is excessive. The logical first step is to try to write articles for the journals. I will advise accordingly. DGG (talk) 08:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

No, the first step is for the editors of the article to decide which journals and sources are the most important that should be named in the article. This user is only adding Elsevier and Springer links, to at least one article where the leading journal, unmentioned, is a Wiley publication. The logical first step is to delete the spam, explain again that this requires talk page discussion, and expect that this be done. KP Botany 17:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The journals that were added in the first instance were only about 20 titles in a number of fields, from a range of publishers including the leading scientific society in the subject, and not unreasonable. I advised the person adding them, reminding him he had to show notability for the journals, and how to go about it. I see he is continuing in a less useful manner and i will deal with it a little differently now. DGG (talk) 03:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Journal categories

I've replied on my talk page. Please feel free to review my edits in this area and discuss them with me. I'm always happy to be corrected on things. Carcharoth 10:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

As an example of an uncontroversial change, I'm going to nominate Category:Botanical journals at CfD to be renamed to Category:Botany journals to fit the naming of the other categories. Carcharoth 11:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

And looking further, the only categories that have adjectival names are Category:Scientific journals; Category:Academic journals; Category:Medical journals. But all these are based on actual articles: scientific journal, academic journal and medical journal. I wonder how botany should be treated? I'm copying this to the CfD discussion. Carcharoth 11:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

That Botany change was suggest long ago, but never done. It's a good start. DGG (talk) 02:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

That "Dave" comment

See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/quotes

Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL. HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

See? :o) Guy (Help!) 11:32, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

==Should we delete this list== Some people are selective they would like to see only lists of their own domination, what do u think does this list warrant deletion or should we let it stay?[21]--יודל 13:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC).

Sorry to bother you

I am really sorry to bother you but I don't know any other administrator, I don't know you also but I know you are an administrator because you are in the list of a project I was helping. I could like to know if you can tell me what I can do in my ordeal, here is the story: (details in edit history) If you can answer anything please send me a mail because they have blocked me even the talk page. Thank you in one way or other you decide to act. DannaShinsho 202.67.154.148 18:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

As far as i can tell, that organization is not likely to be of any

constructive use. I strongly suggest you withdraw ALL pending legal actions, and e-mail unblock-en-l at lists dot wikimedia dot org, as Nick suggested. Whether or not you intended to include the user mentioned, he has in fact been notified by them that he is included. DGG (talk) 23:53, 3 September 2007 (UTC) (further details in edit history)

Here's another one

[22] KP Botany 18:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

List of Akatsuki members

The List of Akatsuki members AfD you participated in has been brought to deletion review here. Please take a look if you're interested. I'm guessing you saw the DRV already, but since I'm notifying the other AfD participants I reckon I shouldn't leave anyone out! — xDanielx ^T/_C 19:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

London streets

Have replied on my talk page so anyone coming to me with a similar point can see my answer — iridescent (talk to me!) 21:29, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The spammer

He's not a publisher, but he works for a company that somehow represents both publishers commercially. I don't have time to refind it. He somehow represents more than one journal, and it's the company he works for that represents more than one journal in some way or another, or more than one publisher, and I saw it somewhere, it was a PR firm or a marketing firm or something, in Chicago, maybe, and I had come across it a couple of times in some of the earlier ones. They have a very small Wikipedia article, and I twice cross referenced same day accounts with minimal contributions to adding journals, but who were editing in between the journal socks, and made single edits to this company. I'm sorry, let me see if I can retrace my steps. No, I'm not having any more luck. But you realize there appear to be hundreds of these one day sock puppets for the publishers? This appears to be industry wide. [23] I don't think this is one, though:[24] KP Botany 04:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I really can't think of it. But when I saw the first edit, I looked it up, then when I saw the second one, it vaguely dawned, and then it hit me what he was doing and why he's posting more than one publisher, and why an earlier one I dismissed for the same reason was doing the same, it's was a US firm, but they were all European publishers represented. There was an additional international connection with an ASEAN publisher, maybe Singapore? Sorry. I'll be off for a few weeks, in the mountains. It will probably hit me, or maybe you'll find it. KP Botany 04:21, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking along those lines also. In this particular case, I think I can find out the names through another channel. I also know just how to spread the word more generally & will do so quietly & without names on the appropriate list. Personally, I regard the inclusion of one ACS journal probably just a clever attempt to look impartial. On the longer run, the way to prevent this is to add the major journals ourselves, or with carefully controlled assistance. But most of the ones added in this batch do deserve to be in WP eventually, but of course not preferentially. The scientific societies remain the priority.

i do not like to block without really strong reason. But I will do it to get attention when needed.

technical details I like to do: In some cases, I like to comment out sections than to revert the addition--it's easer to re-add the key ones. I do not think it wise to insist upon the use of "cite" templates, especially as there is no actual requirement--I rarely use them myself except if an article has them already or if things are complicated. I think they make the code hard to read and edit. -- I use <ref> </ref> .

But have a good time--I assume you will be coming back with some more pictures. DGG (talk) 04:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Example clean-up for WikiProject?

Current Opinion in Immunology got kept. At the moment, the article has no more information than is found in Current Opinion. Do you want to perform a clean-up that can be used as an example at the WikiProject of how to do this sort of thing? Carcharoth 11:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

you mean, do I want to fill in as extensive an article as possible. I will improve the article, but its would not be the best model for others, because of the complications of being part of a series of which only some is shown, a situation I hope we will soon change. But we already have a number of other good examples. For instance, though I cannot think of any that are ideal. But look at Journal of Chemical Physics, which I did a little while back to save it from deletion, or Annals of Mathematics, for a different type of article.DGG (talk) 17:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. How did J. Chem. Phys. ever get put up for deletion?? Carcharoth 23:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Curzon Street

Can you please revisit this discussion. I have done some digging and have found that the street has a very prestigious history, which I have added to the article, including several references. I believe the page is now of a quality whereby it should be kept. -- Roleplayer 22:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

re: WP:Trivia

Did you intend to delete the comments of two other participants in the discussion in this edit? If not, you might want to go back and correct it. Rossami (talk) 00:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC) (fixed my error) DGG

Requesting help

Hi DGG, I wondered if I could ask for your help with an article. I am trying to improve the article on Kevin Eggan, the Harvard researcher who developed a method of creating stem cells from skin. He was profiled by Nature, and has been written about in nearly every newspaper in the country (literally, a Nexis search reveals 486 articles), because his breakthrough reshaped the debate on embryonic stem cells. I'm at a bit of a loss on how to defend this article any further. As you have a more academic background and more familiarity with WP:PROF than I do, your help with this article, if you have the time, would be greatly appreciated. --JayHenry 00:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC) (some info added--DGG)

Re:CSD

Thanks for the information. I reviewed the non-criteria for speedy deletion shortly afterwards. Also, I've prodded another article by the same user, Hellsing Death Nether, that is more or less a copy paste of the aforementioned article with a different name. Could you simply delete that, or should we wait for the prod to finish? Much appreciated. Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 06:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Speedy Delete a talk page?

The article associated with this talk page (Talk:Aidan Baker) was speedy deleted a few days ago, but talk page still exists - and has been modified by a bot since. Since there is no article, can the talk page be deleted? If so, what tag goes one it? Or don't worry about it at all? Jauerback 13:17, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The tag would be {{db-talk}}; sometimes these pages are deliberately retained to provide information on why the article was deleted--that was not the case here, so I just now deleted it. DGG (talk) 13:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Academic conferences

I'm not going to mention it on the Journals WikiProject (unless you think it is relevant), but I thought you might be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Conference on the Gulen Movement as a way to gauge feelings for notability of conferences. I'd be particularly interested in a reaction to my comment "The question seems to be which academic conferences are notable? It is rare for academic conferences to get coverage outside of their specialised areas. Does this mean Wikipedia shouldn't cover them?" Thanks. Carcharoth 15:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course, picking a conference that hasn't even taken place yet might not have been the best idea... :-) Carcharoth 15:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

In my view, almost no individual conference is notable--the bar is very high. I can thing of a few exceptions--none of which presently have articles, nor would I at this time try to introduce them. The few that have made it as far as AfD, I've usually said delete. Series can be; in some cases their proceedings are major information resource. We need articles on most of the major ones--there are probably at least 50 in the sciences--though not 5,000. The current practice is usually to put them under the names of the sponsoring organisation. I may mention it at the project, because there is a related question of how to handle book series in general--but again, I'd want to get journals more throughly established first. 16:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Response

Howdy! I've responded to a comment of yours on the DRV for Flyaow. Regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 17:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

No response? - CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

responded there--sorry for the delayDGG (talk) 01:53, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Trivia

Template:Trivia has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Pixelface 20:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Stuart Dauermann

There is an attempt currently under way to delete Stuart Dauermanns biography, i understand that much info is based on sites fond of his work, but this man seems very prominent and notable in those circles as the Google Results make the impression, can u help save it? by correcting the problems if u find some on it. Thanks--יודל 22:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Dowell Myers

The sources listed in the Dowell Myers article seem to be mostly from his own shop, the type of sources that are not considered reliable. The few others, including the one that I added from Multi-Housing News, support very narrow points. Could you support on the Dowell Myers discussion page your statement that the sources for the Dowell Myers article are sufficient? Thanks. --Bejnar 22:17, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi this is BPRoy

Did you check the year? What was that 2004? 2005? Those articles have probably been deleted. I don't remember, but I think some of those 'fake articles' were identified by the other people on that chat page. I haven't made one of those kinds of articles in two years, so I don't remember. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BPRoy (talk • contribs) 00:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Gender-neutral language proposal at MOS talk

Hi, thanks for you input. I've removed "artificial" from the draft. "Singular they" has gone in and out and in and out (not my doing), but I may well remove it when it comes to interpreting the debate. At this stage, I wonder whether you feel able to offer support, partial support, or remain neutral, or would like to object. Perhaps you could provide two answers: with and without the singular they clause. Thanks. Tony 06:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I regret that I still cannot support--see my discussion there. Essentially its not just this, but that I find much of the mOS to be excessively rigid. Just my view. DGG (talk) 19:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Canvassing

Light crossposting is acceptable, but when the crossposting specifically targets editors whose position is expected to result in one side, and does not inform editors whose positions can be expected to disagree, that becomes too much like canvassing, I am afraid. -- Avi 14:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I can only judge really the effect on myself; the editor had notified me, an editor who had disagreed with him and said delete. I took another look, and decided to support on the merits of the improved article and the subsequent arguments --otherwise I would probably not have revisited the discussion and seen the additional material. That's the proper and desired result of notifying people. This could not even have been expected--most of the time when asked to revisit I find my earlier views confirmed.DGG (talk) 19:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, thank you. -- Avi 20:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

In popular culture links

Hello! You suggested that I include references in my AfD posts in the future. Anyway, good news: for two of the "in popular culture" discussions today, I actually found some excellent links. For Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jet_pack_in_popular_culture, I found a Popular Science article on how "From Buck Rogers to 007, the jetpack has fueled our greatest personal-technology fantasies," and for Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The_three_wise_monkeys_in_popular_culture, I found an article published in a scholarly journal on the three wise monkeys' "truly astonishing impact on our popular culture." I am so elated that such articles actually do exist in published reputable sources and I found them incredibly quickly. Perhaps we should require AfD nominators to make some effort to find these sources first? Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 14:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Great--these are closer than the ones I'v been finding. Now the question is whether the people still holding out on the other side will accept them. If he doesn't,perhaps at least it will indicate that they object to this content regardless of how good it might be. DGG (talk) 19:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply. If Popular Science and a scholarly journal found on JSTOR are not reputable and reliable references, than I don't know what is! So, hopefully, these will be sufficient. :) Also, you may want to see what I found at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/King Kong in popular culture, as some of these in popular culture topics have books even written about them! Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 19:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I see that they are in fact being ignored. Suggestion: abandon the weakest articles, or those where there is no prior support from others. Then try to get not just the one reference but a/ general references to the notability of the concept, and b/ sources to at least a few of the items. Concentrate on gettinga few god ones kept as models.

Okay, I'll do my best. Have a nice night! Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 00:30, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

You might start with Hell in entertainment and other popular culture I think it might repay the work. DGG (talk) 05:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

AfDs

Thanks for your comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hague Justice Portal. I think an AfD can be notice to people who care to improve artciles per WP:HEY. P.S. I have put off an RfA for myself for a few more weeks. Bearian 19:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Biography (Science and academia) issue

Hi DGG. Saw your user name at WikiProject Biography Science and academia: I was wondering if you may be able to assist with a quick look at this issue: Talk:Mike_Morris#Usenet. Thought I'd ask for your input before bringing this up for verification at BLP--I'm a bit concerned since this involves what seems to be (at least without verification) like unsubstantiated speculations in a biography of a living person. Thanks in advance. All the best, Afv2006 02:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

CSBot and disambigs

I've just left a note on CSBot's talk page about the disambig bit. — Coren ^(talk) 02:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Burials at Brookside Cemetery, Englewood

I have replied at the AfD, since I think you made a mistake in your comment there: there is no guideline, despite what Alansohn claims, but only a never used style guide. You are of course free to maintain your "keep" opinion, but the reason you gave is incorrect. Fram 07:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Comments Please

Could you please have look at this when you get a chance. Cheers. Twenty Years 09:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

RfA questions

Hi DGG. I'm disappointed to see my question deleted unilaterally on the RfA page, when I was trying to be as straightforward as I can on a hot-button topic. There's no need to escalate it to an edit conflict. If you continue to disagree with my judgment, you may use the answer section on that page, or discuss with me on my talk page. Let's have a civil discussion. Thank you. Xiner (talk) 15:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Since you were an Admin involved in this...

I would like to bother u and ask u to clean my name, he says that some unethical suspicions are raised because of my latest edits regarding the messianic articles, since smoke is a sign of fire, i beg u please help me to set straight my record. I promise u that i do not have 2 user names in any shape or form, u can check that all my edits have only one ip address and User:Yidisheryid is the only name used of that ip adress. [25]. Thanks--יודל 16:09, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Orangemike again

Orangemike re-deleted an section in Corset article without/against consensus again. What to do? --78.0.18.147 11:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Masterfully done! --83.131.80.42 23:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

DGG's edit made sense, unlike the original section (which I feel was deleted in accordance with consensus, thank you!). I still feel it's Undue Emphasis (especially on catsuits), but it's not the silly spot-the-corset game which the original list would lend itself to. --Orange Mike 15:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

agreed that the catsuit part needs further expansion--so does the rest of the material--it doesnt even mention what I think the most notable use: Gone With the Wind. DGG (talk) 15:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"agreed"? I'm saying it should go out, not get expanded. None of this stuff is very notable; it might be relevant for a Corsetry wiki or fetishist forum, but I really don't see why you think it belongs here at all, much less at greater length!? --Orange Mike 18:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

we obviously disagree on the importance of this material--I've given my reasons at length at multiple AfDs. The use by notable artists of a particular theme is notable, and goes under the theme as well as the artist. As a general field, it forms one of the parts of the academic study of cinema etc and popular interest as well. (In art history in fact it's the basis of dating and provenance). When editing this sort of material I remove references from non-notable artists, judging in fields I do not know by the WP entries, as for a list. I'll do the GWTW tonight--it's one of the most famous scenes in the movie. I notice you use the term "very notable"--but it doesnt have to be very notable or even notable to be acceptable content, that standard applies only to articles. And even for article notable, not very notable is the standard. One could indeed make an encyclopedia of only the very notable, but it wouldn't be WP--there are other projects with that goal. I replied hoping your comment was an attempt to find some common ground. (My current suggestion is to abandon video game uses as in practice unsourcable, to accept other cultural refs, and to integrate bio into the bio. and adaptations into the main section on versions.) DGG (talk) 18:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

re:hadith

Yo, got your message man. Anyway, I see where you're coming from as far as improving the articles. For the time being, I would recommend reading this archived discussion as any points I could make were already done to death in there. As far as substantial later literature on each hadith, that could be said for almost every hadith ever recorded. The issue is, I don't think those are any more notable that say, hadith about where to place your arms after coming up from rukoo or length of a woman's idda after divorcing during her period; making an article about individual hadith almost seems a bit excessive. The ones I nominated are a good example; if we were to remove all the original research, there would be so little (or maybe none at all) content that it would make more sense to me to just merge is with existing Sunni-Shi'a relation articles. Regardless, I respect the clarity with which you've addressed the issue and if you feel strongly then i'll defer on those articles you remove the prod on. Please let me know what you think and thank you for coming directly to me with this. MezzoMezzo 14:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Now, this is not my own intellectual tradition--I know much more about the Christian and the Jewish literature--and I think the hadith correspond most closely to the sugya of the Talmud; there are no present plans as far as I know to do them all, but I think it would be possible and even beneficial. There wouldn't really be enough detailed commentary in English except for some portions, though there certainly is in Hebrew. I think the really best approach to the Hadith is to eventually do them all, but do them better and do those of most general interest to users of the English wikipedia first. Surely there is modern commentary? Surely there is more traditional commentary than the few ones cited? There may not be enough in English for hem all, but there should be some, and key parts can be translated. Which should be done? I think there is interest in the ones relating to the origin of the split between the Sunni and the Shi'a--most English readers are now very well aware of the different traditions. How to organize them is a problem I cannot deal with in detail; I agree with you that they could probably be merged--but I think not into the general articles, where they will get lost. But the important thing is not how the articles are divided, but what they contain. I recognize the utility of quotations for the exact statement of the traditional views--we are hardly likely to improve on them. But of course they should be shortened, and connected by explanation, and by detailed citation of the modern views. I however would not be competent for this--except perhaps for some obvious shortening. I similarly think there is general interest in the ones on relations with non-Muslims. The ones on sexuality and the status of women are also of some more general interest in regard to the interest being taken in the liberal tendencies within Islam. I can see though why they might be considered more controversial--more specifically focused on maintaining or justifying a point of view. (and similarly with the ones on criminal law). Personally, I'd like to see more extended discussion of the Muslim views on finance and banking. I appreciate your flexibility, and I will go back over the ones I've been examining with a closer attention to relative importance and priority. I may put back some prods. But then I leave it to you and the others who have the necessary knowledge to improve them. DGG (talk) 18:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I see I promised a little more than I can perform--I cannot myself sort them out--I can only de-prod them all, (except for he ones that seem to deal only with the relationship of the two pilgrimages, which I do not see being of general interest), and I suggest that you figure out how best to merge them: I would suggest as "Hadith related to sunni/shi'a" for example, with redirects from the names of the individual ones. there is certainly too much overlap to keep them all separately. DGG (talk) 20:09, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh I get it, just dump it all on me now, lol. I see what you're saying with the merge though, at least preserve them. I'm a bit caught up in a conflict of sorts right now, as i'm currently being stalked and harassed by a group of sockpuppet accounts and IPs and, until I can get some sort of response from site admins, there's not a lot I can help with right now. I'll make a deal with you, once I get this sorted out i'll come back here and we can try to formulate a plan on how to best deal with this - leaving the discussion open to anyone else who wants to help, of course. Let me know what you think. P.S. You may want to archive your talk page because it's mad long. MezzoMezzo 16:06, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I suggest a workgroup (also called a task force--see Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/Task forces )on Hadith. The advantage of using that route is that the decisions of such groups are taken quite seriously as suggested guidelines. I'll be glad to observe, but I do not know the literature well enough to contribute.DGG (talk) 17:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Columbia University's School of Continuing Education

Following up, please note - this paragraph is a word-for-word copy of page four from the school's 2006 Dean's Report.[26]

(details refactored)

I hope that's enough to demonstrate the problem: most of the page is copyvio from university publications, posted by single purpose IPs or accounts that either resolve to the university or are obviously related to it. The abuse is so blatant that bulleted lists aren't even reformatted in wikimarkup. Please speedy. Durova^Charge! 22:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

indeed yes--I perfectly well realised that it would all have been copied from various places. I left that edit summary just to prevent deletion while I reworked it quickly. I have now removed all the detailed sections and stubbified the basics. I think a stubbified article can serve a useful lesson--more on your page--our postings seem to have crossed. DGG (talk) 22:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Ironman Live

Hello, DGG ... I'm having a problem with a vandal on the article Ironman Live (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) ... Chriscross79 (talk · contribs) has only edited this article, and keeps reverting my reverts ... thnx for any assistance, and yes, I was going to tag it for deletion earlier, but it sorta improved, so I backed off. —72.75.74.236 (talk · contribs) 22:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Too perfect...

Two cans of worms collide nicely - just discovered that the Arbuthnot Family used to live in Cork Street. All I need now is some kind of connection to Harry Potter & Scientology and I've completed the flamewar set — iridescent (talk to me!) 00:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC) Much appreciated. DGG (talk) 00:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

ANI I just started

User Dannicali just insulted myself, Mandsford, and others (I'm not sure if he mentioned your specifically, but if not, then it may be implied) and so I started a thread at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Incivility_by_User:Dannycali. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 05:46, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

when people say foolish things, let them. Ignore them and say sensible ones. My advice is not to waste time with this but instead to find some good sources and add them, like you did before. we have enough work defending the articles. show how foolish the objections are by improving t he articles to a degree that is beyond reproach--it is the only thing that matters. IAI=Ignore all Insults. (my own policy) . DGG (talk) 05:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay and thank you for the encouragement and reply. I just thought he should be reminded to keep civil and sign posts and I felt that if I just said that, I'd be ignored. Thanks again! Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 05:58, 9 September 2007 (UTC) Let other people remind him to sign posts. someone always will -- and in fact, someone did before you got there. DGG (talk) 06:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I think there may be larger issues with that editor, though. He apparently has some history of being warned for incivility and even tried to edit the Vince McMahon article to say that he died even though it was part of a storyline! I'll update the ANI thread accordingly with diffs. Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 06:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

The Novels WikiProject Newsletter: Issue XVI - September 2007

The September 2007 issue of the Novels WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 09:26, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Shraga Hager

Hi, there is currently a discussion about the notability of Rabbi Shraga Hager your insight on this would greatly be appreciated[27]. Have a beautiful day--יודל 13:10, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Generational Dynamics?

Didn't Generational Dynamics get slated for deletion? It was restored, sans flags. Very suspicious. Any clues? Cheers, --Smilo Don 15:18, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

there are multiple overlapping processes. it was first changed to a redirect to Generation dynamics (lower case d) Generational dynamics was then deleted (and we will get into that next); GD was then deleted as a redirect to a nonexistent page. It was then restored by User:MIchael Easton10. You then flagged it for speedy delete as not notable, which is not the way to go, -- one can not use speedy-NN for either a book or a theory. No admin has been willing to delete it on those grounds, & I have removed that tag accordingly.

As for Gd (lower case). It was proposed for deletion, and then deleted by another admin as G11, advertising. Personally I do not think that was really a suitable basis, for it was fixable, and if it had been complained against it might well have been overturned at Deletion Review. But anyone can recreate a speedy deleted article if they improve it sufficiently, so it was not wrong of the editor involved to try. I don't think he fixed it enough. I left a rather long note on the talk page there advising what was needed, and saying I was not sure it would be possible to improve it enough to pass notability.

I would give him a few days to try and then proceed in one of two ways: either yourself reduce it to measure, as a short article about the book, or send it to AfD. If it is deleted there it will be deleted definitively, and can be speedy deleted if reconstructed even if using another name. DGG (talk) 21:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Small-world Experiment page

I recently learned that the Small-world Experiment page is scheduled to be reverted over possible copyright violation issues. As the person responsible for the suspected copyright infringement, I have posted a clarification on the talk page. Hopefully this clears up the issue. For further clarification, you are welcome to contact me. --Jerfgoke 20:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC) I've replied at length to your question about this on the article talk page Talk:Small world experiment. Please also see [28] for how I proposed to deal with this. DGG (talk) 20:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/300-page iPhone bill

I know this is a subject of interest to you, so I would appreciate your opinion of whether or not you think this is a case of closing against consensus. It is now at DRV Dhaluza 23:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC) got there first (smile)DGG (talk) 23:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Blue Lady

Just curious. If CSD isn't appropriate, wouldn't a redirect to SS France (1961)#SS_Blue_Lady be? Into The Fray ^T/C 00:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

quite possibly, but hard to tell till they write it. If not improved in 2 weeks, feel free to redirect.DGG (talk) 00:45, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Good deal. Thanks for the guidance, sometimes I'm not clear. Into The Fray ^T/C 00:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Note

You might have asked me (or MastCell) first before claiming that there was off-wiki discussion. In fact, the entirety of the discussion occurred on MastCell's talk page because we edit-conflicted on the close. I agree on the need for transparency on-wiki, which is why I find being called out for something I did not do all the more troubling. Best, Mackensen (talk) 01:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Looking again at it, you are correct, I over-reacted, and i fully apologize. I'll fix my comments at the Deletion Review. 01:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks. Mackensen (talk) 01:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Removal of others' comments

I'm a bit puzzled as to why you appear to have deleted others' comments from a Talk page. Can you please help me understand what happened? Thanks! --ElKevbo 04:44, 10 September 2007 (UTC) Carelessness, of course. I fixed it, & thanks for spotting my dumb mistake. DGG (talk)

Thanks

Thanks for your help regarding the "Catherine Grand" article. --ŴôôDéļf 12:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

CSD Message

You left a notice on my page regarding a CSD. Which article are you referring to? Usually if I see some sort of reference or citation or something that can be considered notable, I either tag it for cleanup, prod if I think it is a most likely delete, or ignore it. usually I reserve the CSD tag for something blatant or something that screams PR piece (one of my biases unfortunately...). Spryde 19:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, now I see the intersecting edits on Pirkle Jones. The doctorate info was added after I saw the page. That makes it notable. Spryde 19:13, 10 September 2007 (UTC) (our postings just crossed- DGG)

Retirement

My retirement is over. I realized that I can still save the trivia. Hey, if Mario returned from retirement, I can to. --Alien joe 19:37, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I again repeat that I hope you'll make a come back as I think you are an asset to this site. :) Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 19:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Assignment article

Please take a look at User:Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles/Why in popular culture articles are an asset to Wikipedia and do not violate policies and feel free to add additional instructions or edit what I have to make it more acceptable if necessary. Thanks! Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 19:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

More "in popular culture"

Hi DGG. Thank you for the kind comment on my userpage. I think that a precendent that some "in popular culture" articles are OK for Wikipedia has been set by this stage. One IPC article, Turtles and tortoises in popular culture was deleted after an AfD way back in July. I saved a copy of the deleted article, and I think I can write an acceptable version of it now. What is the etiquette in such cases? Should I ask the closing admin to undelete the old article first, or just go ahead and post a rewrite of it? Bláthnaid 23:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Work on it offline, then ask someone (like me) for an opinion. I would suggest limiting it to the individual items you can find a reference for, such as the review, mentioning the signif. of the turtle, etc. I'd certainly eliminate songs etc where only the title is relevant, & video game characters for which there is no available source. Better a really sound small article. Then copy it to your user space, and ask a Deletion Review. There are other routes, but I think for a really sound article this is the best way. Let's try to show at DR that a good one is possible--the article in its final version already had good general references. It's a good example to try. DGG (talk) 00:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll do that. I should have a revised version of the article in my sandbox by tomorrow. Bláthnaid 12:26, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Rough draft of the article is finished. I'd appreciate your thoughts on it, if you have some time to look at it here. Bláthnaid 23:20, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Books & works

Replied chez moi, and also copied to User:Johnbod/Books v Works, where I am trying to start a discussion - many thanks for kicking it off! Johnbod 00:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC) (continuing there) DGGDGG (talk) 18:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Another one.

These users should have been blocked and severely warned, as I'm tired of this. I don't have time for this one, as I'm writing a report right now. [29] KP Botany 00:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Same user, back again. Has been blocked & I will clean up. I too have now lost whatever patience I have. If you see any additional ip addresses , let me know. DGG (talk) 02:14, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I got inspired to track things down further, found several additional ip addresses going back to Sept 1, blocked them all, removed links (& a good deal of misc. spam from others), & figured out some other ways to find them. Will follow up on COI page. Yes, you are right that my initial AGF was not correct. Kept going till my mouse stopped working from overuse. Literally. DGG (talk) 14:32, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Yup, pretty bad. Thanks. KP Botany 01:09, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Requested for deleted Fair Use justification

Hi David, please would you be so kind as to retrieve the Fair Use justification on deleted Image:Davewong.jpg? Thanks, Fayenatic (talk) 19:54, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that quick help. Now that I've left that for her reference, I hope the deleting admin will explain where it fell short, 'cos I thought it was all right! Fayenatic (talk) 21:17, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Class projects

Yeah, but I thought what we were supposed to encourage was class projects to work on new or existing real articles, not articles called "English Department Wiki Project" and the like. NawlinWiki 00:38, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

• Got it -- what you are talking about makes sense. Thanks, NawlinWiki 00:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

RE: Using Film to Teach Literature

Sorry, but I don't see anything on WP:WPCC about this page. Could you please explain why this page should not be re-deleted the same way the first one was ("g6 wp:not for use for classes" - NawlinWiki)? Thanks. GlassCobra (talk • contribs) 01:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Sorry for being hasty. Hope everything works out okay. GlassCobra (talk • contribs) 02:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Technical book categories, any input?

Any insight on technical book categories would be appreciated.[30] KP Botany 01:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

William Stewart Agras

Your point is well taken on my part. However, the publications list is a "publish or perish" smörgåsbord that would make any professor proud and the lack of interest by other editors speaks to his notability. Life is too short for Afd. Thanks for your interest in my edits. It keeps me honest. Happy editing! --Stormbay 02:29, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Milky Way

Hi, I have a question about page moves. The contributors at Milky Way have decided they may want to move that article to Milky Way Galaxy and have Milky Way become a redirect to a disambiguation page. The problem is that Milky Way Galaxy has already existed since 2005 (mostly as a redirect to Milky Way) and has some history, albeit not much -- but enough, I think, to not meet the criteria for speedy deletion. How could we get that page deleted so we can move the Milky Way article there? Does it even need to be deleted before the move? I'd appreciate any advice you could offer. Thanks.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

17:23, September 12, 2007

the way is to list them at Wikipedia:Requested moves. If here is any question about acceptance of the move, list it as a potentially controversial move, otherwise as an uncontroversial one. As you say, the histories need to be merged. DGG (talk) 19:27, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Warning

I was only following the advice of those at Talk:Milky Way. I wasn't trying to resolve any editing disputes with speedy deletion. Please read the discussions more carefully before issuing warnings. Nondistinguished 19:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

If people agree, list the article at Wikipedia:Requested moves -- but still under "Other proposals": and say so on the article talk page.

I'll reword the notice on your page. DGG (talk) 19:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

He's right, there was no dispute. Nondistinguished was trying to carry out a decision that had a consensus, by following my advice, which turned out to be wrong. My apologies for the misunderstanding.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

19:58, September 12, 2007

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:MrFizyx/songs/List of songs about weather

Hi DGG, thanks for your support in the above MfD and your support in general for song list articles. Although we won the debate, I am planing to propose deletion of some of the articles that I no longer plan on working on. Before I do that, are there any of these that you would like to adopt. I think we have done a reasonably good job with articles like List of songs about school and List of car crash songs. Both are now well-sourced and have not been nominated for deletiion again. Please, let me know if any see any titles in the MfD that have potential and that you might have time to work back up to article status. Thanks, MrFizyx 19:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I will take a look. However, I really do not see how I can adopt any more articles. But deleting them is possibly not the best solution anyway--there are various places and ways to list them for attention. What other ones are you planning to stop working on? DGG (talk) 19:23, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Good question. I haven't decided yet. I may prod a majority of them. There are many factors to consider. Availability of sources that pass WP:RS, interest level of others such as yourself, whether the current list is overly-bloated, etc. It takes a fair amount of effort to fix up one of these. It is a shame more editors don't value having these sort of quirky features on the 'pedia (at least not editors that vote in deletion debates). Where would you suggest we bring them for attention? -MrFizyx 19:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

first step is to compile of list of the ones you think ought to be developed & maintained, and another list of the ones you think are not worth the effort or are altogether hopeless. Are we talking about 5 pages, or 50?DGG (talk) 19:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/De Aston School

Hi, I wonder if you would be prepared to revisit you 'weak keep' recommendation, please. In addition to a range of sources being added, it has been established that there is one of a handful of state boarding schools, was founded in 1863, contain a listed building etc. TerriersFan 21:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Evangelical Free Church of Canada

Thanks for removing the speedy tag. Had I been at my computer when the page's creator stated the group's association with Trinity Western University, I would have removed it myself -- that, to me, demonstrated notability. I appreciate your having assisted the editor (and saved me the trouble <grin>). Accounting4Taste 22:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Hoaxes and CSD

Hi there. In declining the speedy on Fahad Ahmed you said that hoaxes can't be speedied. However, I'd always been under the impression that particularly blatent hoaxes qualified as pure vandalism, and WP:CSD#G1 says "(Patent nonsense) does not include poor writing, partisan screeds... or hoaxes of any sort; some of these, however, may be deleted as vandalism in blatant cases." Of course, what counts as blatant is open to interpretation, but I'd have thought an article largely cut and pasted from Stephen Hawking and Paul Dirac with the names changed would be something that nobody could take seriously. I'm not partcularly bothered about the specific case though - just wondering if you could clarify the policy. Best, Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 22:42, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

well, I noticed that too, and I admit you do have a point there. (I also see from the AfD that the creator's page about himself was properly deleted a few days as nn). But the article was already at AfD, and once an article is , I think it much better to let the AfD continue (except for copyvio and BLP), and the article will be out of here soon enough--I just went there and suggested WP:SNOW. And AfD has the further advantage of enabling G4 to prevent re-creation. Looking at history of deleted edits, I'm going to suggest salting. Getting rid of something before AfD, that can be another matter, as it saves considerable work for people. DGG (talk) 22:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Once Thomjakobsen had noticed that it was a pastiche of fragments I thought that it was best to stop bothering AfD, especially on a day where it was already swamped with 50-odd lists of ethnic types, but you're right that snowballing was probably a better option than a plain speedy - and I see Mike Rosoft has gone ahead and done that. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 09:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:TIMETRACE

Hello, I wonder if you could, while editing diverse articles, check if they have sources in their history or chronology (or when they mention any important date. If they don't, could you please place inline {{Timefact}} calls where those citations to sources are missing, this will display . If you find an article with too many inline calls to place or totally lacking needed history of the subject, you can instead place {{histrefm}} at the footnotes of the article's main page, just before Categories. If you could add this to your routines, it will most certainly help WP:TIMETRACE. Thank you for your help. Daoken 06:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

The Truth i numbers article

Hi. I'm new to wikipedia. I'd just like to know when would be a good time to repost this article. Thanks U5K0 —Preceding unsigned comment added by U5K0 (talk • contribs) 12:38, 13 September 2007 (UTC) Replied on your page- DGG.

Hi. I've just noticed that the article discussed for deletion wasn't mine(from september) but one from April of this year. Any idea when I may know whether my article is going to be deleted or not?

tnx

U5K0 —Preceding unsigned comment added by U5K0 (talk • contribs) 19:15, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I have looked at all the versions. I do not see that any of the versions are really acceptable. I urge you to work on a better article, and then try to get it accepted. DGG (talk) 03:27, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note

I appreciate it. The nice thing about a collaborative project is that there are other people to pick up after my rookie mistakes. -Chunky Rice 17:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Good points all. I don't shy from scrutiny. It's the fastest way to become a better editor. -Chunky Rice 17:44, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Might I have your assistance?

I am attmepting to remove an image (Image:Highlander-IE2.jpg), as it is a decorative slipcover for a DVD, not allowable under current fair-use guidelines, and must be removed speedily. I am not sure how to proceed. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 20:44, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

according to WP:CSD, disputed fair use claims cannot be speedied. DGG (talk) 21:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Freedom of panorama

Hi DGG. I found your preference at the AfD interesting. I thought you were a WP:VER and a WP:NOR advocate! ;-) Incidentally, I should say I appreciate having encountered you both in agreement and in opposition on several issues to date. The tone of several of these recent debates/controversies where we've run across one another could easily have caused the situation to be more adversarial, so I appreciated seeing your independent thought on some of those threads. Take care, OK? ... Kenosis 23:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

If the article is wrong, it can be rewritten. But I admit to a morbid fascination with the peculiarities of European copyright legislation.DGG (talk) 01:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

LOL. Indeed, I'm beginning to think it should be under the German name with redirects from any reasonable translations. ... Kenosis 22:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Trivia sections

Could you please spend a moment to add your 2 cents to Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Sections vs. collections and also Wikipedia:Requested moves#September 12, 2007? There seems to be a continued campaign to remove any mention of Trivia sections, but no real attempt to get alternative viewpoints to the table. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Possible incivility in AfD?

See this edit. The user appears to be calling his fellow editors "wierdos"? Not sure if there's a warning for that. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 15:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but it should be placed by someone without strong personal involvement in defending such articles, which means neither you nor me. Such language does not help that persons position. Relax. Don't look for conflict, even when justified, unless it really is essential.DGG (talk) 15:46, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the reply. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 16:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Saw your note

Hello DGG, saw your note about indicating a person's field of interest in the 'prod' message, and I'll try to do that. All best. --Lockley 16:34, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Deleted userspace page

I'm looking for a copy of the deleted essay User:Eyrian/IPC, which I used to have linked from my User page. I've not asked for one of these before, but can this be recovered? There's some chat on this subject in WT:TRIVIA and WT:NOT.

I am also asking Riana. / edg ☺ ★ 17:45, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

sure , I undeleted it , since it had only been deleted as per your request. But you could have done the same--you're an admin also. The method is like any other undelete. Since it is linked from a number of pages, undeleting it makes good sense. DGG (talk) 17:51, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure you're talking about me? To the best of my knowledge I'm neither an admin nor Eyrian. Also, I don't see the undeleted article. / edg ☺ ★ 17:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

right--for some reason I had thought your were Eyrian, returning to continue he discussion--I actually undeleted it, but then deleted it again, and I suggest asking at the Administrator's Notice board, WP:ANB, since I am unsure--he chose to delete his user pages when he left WP, and he may have had the right to do so. As I had frequently been his opponent in debates on this subject, I do not wish to act alone. But it is a useful essay. DGG (talk) 18:06, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all the same. I've made this request at WP:ANB, and am now insulating myself from optimism. / edg ☺ ★ 18:19, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I see its in your space now. DGG (talk) 15:40, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Thanks for all your help. / edg ☺ ★ 03:13, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites opened

Hello, DGG. The arbitration case in which you commented to has opened. Please provide evidences on the evidence page for the Arbitrators to consider. You may also want to utilize the workshop page for suggestions.

For the Arbitration Committee,
- Penwhale | ^{Blast him / Follow his steps} 21:08, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Robin Wasserman

I spotted the Robin Wasserman article and am looking for an opinion. You have prodded Julia DeVillers who appears to be a similar type writer. Would you prod this one? Thanks in advance! --Stormbay 22:25, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it might. But it really depends on reviews for both of them. I didnt see any in a quick check in Google. they both have hundreds of library holdings in OCLC, but many libraries but all childrens books from major publishers as a matter of course, since there's no telling which will be popular. DGG (talk) 15:39, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the consult! I couldn't find much but have limited internet resources. --Stormbay 03:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Speedies

Thanks for the comments. Firstly, I placed that speedie on a normal article page, however an admin subsequently moved it to their userpage taking my speedie with it. Then I removed it. I actually did know that you can't speedie a user page; that would be rather stupid as it *is* their user page. But nonetheless thank you for the heads up. Phgao 14:08, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok I'll take your second point into account, I've just started tagging, so my mistake, and yes I did think that they had to show WP:Notability. Furthermore, can I offer you a small suggestion? Your user talk is getting really long, and it would be nice if you could archive it. Phgao 14:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is a speedie that has been up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_was_meclenburg_founded Phgao 14:15, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Got it! From now on i'll leave the professors alone. *writes it down on hand* ^_^ Phgao 14:19, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Another random article that makes no sense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bazley Phgao 14:20, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

And another. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Land Phgao 14:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Explanation; with regard to that speedie on userp, I was in the act of putting it on Stephen Leslie (an article), when Sam Blacketer (admin) moved it. (moved Stephen Leslie to User:Steve45: Forced userfication of personal page.) And therefore my speedie landed on the userpage. Phgao 14:26, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:Common outcomes seems to be red link to me. Phgao 15:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: Meclenburg; that article wasn't an article really on the city/town/place, it was a test edit/ nonsense as.. But I'll keep in mind that all inhabited places are notable. I'll try to PROD more often! Phgao 15:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

List of Hindko language writers and experts

I expressed my opinion about notification here. As for the fate of the article, I think that merging the list back into the language article is for the best - with pruning of the massive number of red links down to perhaps a handful of the most likely to be created reds; I think that having some listing is useful due to the small speaker demographic for the tongue. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 20:40, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Physica B

Thanks for looking after the deficiencies in this article. As you saw I did not write it, just inserted it from articles for creation. I appreciated when the articles are improved. It's the first time I heard that there was an academic journals project! Graeme Bartlett 21:05, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of that username at wt:RFCN

User:J.smith gave a word description, but the image is at Image:Sunshine 1.png beside the (talk contribs). -- Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 12:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC). I see, a circle made out of small semicircles. 16:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Please restore

Please restore the article referenced at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Conversation opener for relist as per request at end of AfD page Captain Zyrain 04:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Talk page templates

Howdy, I'll ask here to save cluttering the thread: At Wikipedia_talk:Talk_page_templates#Small_option_as_default? did you mean the small-as-default was a good idea, or the 3rd page was a good idea? Answer/rewrite there :) Ta. --Quiddity 07:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC) Expanded my comment there--thanks- DGG.

Copy and paste move, and poll reopened for viewing deleted pages

Hi DGG, do you know where the impetus for the reopening of that poll is coming from? I've asked Captain Zyrain, but as you have commented on the talk page of that poll, figured you might have some sort of an idea. Also, the Captain has done a copy and paste move of the original poll... - Ta bu shi da yu 08:07, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

the motivation is disappointment at having one's article deleted. Not that this is necessarily a bad motivation for thinking about policy--it's things like that which usually gets a person interested in AfD and policy discussions in the first place. Normally a person gets rebuffed, and then learns enough policy to work more effectively. Personally, I think it would be good to find a way of making deleted items visible that didn't depend on admins, but I am unable to think of a good procedure that meets the objections. I hope someone will eventually be creative enough to accomplish it. In the meantime, all I can do is personally userify or email if requested. It is a bit of trouble, but I consider it an obligation. (Understanding the need to avoid c&p and the way to avoid c&p is a little tricky, & I don't really expect it of beginners. I am not in fact myself altogether sure of GFDL in WP space--everything is after all trackable.) In short, it's an honest effort, but I will give the ed. some advice on working effectively--he seems potentially a very good person to have here. DGG (talk) 08:36, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

general advice

I'm glad to see your interest in policy. There's a lot here that needs improvement, and we depend on new people or returning people who have been away for a while, like yourself, for ideas, as there are so many things--like this--which have stagnated for lack of something really workable that meets the objections. But WP is a complex environments--there are thousands of people interested in these questions on an ongoing basis, and it helps to be familiar with the local techniques and customs of discussion--after all , you've written some articles about things like that. Polls are discouraged here, in favor of trying to evolve something by repeated back and forth that leaves all parties moderately satisfied. (I see your interest in deliberative bodies also, from the articles you work on). What I found works for me is participating in a large number of things without getting overly emotionally involved in them, and thus build up experience--and I'm still trying. It also helps other people have confidence in your work if you avoid trying to shortcut the established methods, as you did with the article I copied to your page. Articles that don't get accepted this month can be improved and accepted though the correct process next month. I hope you will see this as intended--help in your doing what you want to do, and encouragement. DGG (talk) 08:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. So, is there a norm or policy here that says we're supposed to wait a month before bringing back an article? Basically, it wasn't deleted due to non-notability; it was more suspicion of spamming and the how-to tone of the original article (which was poorly slapped together because I was in a hurry). Well, you've seen the discussion about it. I guess we'll see what happens over at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 September 17. The funny thing is, TBSDY doesn't seem to remember me from last time. ;) I was the pet skunk guy (yup, it's me again). Captain Zyrain 09:04, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

No there's no rule, but there is the experience that it very much helps to wait a few days or weeks and improve the article as much as possible. People at DR tend to look for any reason to reject the appeals, and I've seen enough of them to know that a really good article in all possible respects is the way to overcome that tendency. In this case, I'd look for a wider variety of sources, as I said on your talk page. Decisions done in a rush are not always the soundest. My personal practice is to wait for the next day before continuing. Till then... DGG (talk) 09:12, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

GMI

The page spent the prerequisite amount of time on AFD, a process which notably has no quorum. As such, I don't see anything wrong with the closing. >Radiant< 12:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

• I am of the opinion that, since people relist discussions if for whatever reason they feel uncomfortable making a decision based on that, a relisting is not an admin decision but the lack of one. >Radiant< 09:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for making me understand. But he shouldn't remove it completely rather replace it with AfD tag. - Niaz^{(Talk • Contribs)} 17:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

you should not have used the db-afd tag in the first place.; that is not the correct way to list articles for deletion. Please read the full procedure at WP:AFD--I know its overcomplicated, and I've been asking for some time for it to be simplified. I put on the correct notice myself, which is subst:afd 17:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)DGG

Image:НД Антонина Алиса.jpg

Hi, you have (possibly erroneously) speedy deleted the image there (yes, its Cyrillic name had to be changed) and did not reply to the comment asking you for the rationale. In short, this picture carries strong positive information about the mother and her daughter, being aimed at refuting the allegations in murder attempt. It has been a symbol of the campaign in defense of the mother (e.g. see the LiveJournal community). So, I think, G10 is inapplicable here. Should I apply for deletion review? --Yms 23:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

By all means apply if you wish--it is certainly your right, and you do not need my permission--perhaps the consensus will be otherwise, considering the widespread publicity. I shall oppose it, as I would all pictures of living children who have been victims of crimes, or what are alleged to be crimes. I can see why the defense would use it, but the child is (obviously) much too young to consent. My advice is to work on getting a somewhat more condensed and encyclopedic article, and to give a link to the site containing the picture. But that's just my advice. DGG (talk) 23:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I just followed the recommendation "Consider talking to the admin who deleted the article (or otherwise made the decision) first" :) --Yms 02:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 September 18.

I don't think you'll oppose it after watching this video, even you don't know Russian ;) --Yms 04:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I've responded there, and will let other people judge. DGG (talk) 05:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I have restored the image as JReferee suggested for further discussion at Ifd. . DGG (talk) 18:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Hello DGG, thank your for your helpful advice concerning articles on Yiddish and Birobidzhan. And thank you for your constructive comments as well. I do think a more general article could reduce some of the AFD articles. Thanks again. Culturalrevival 00:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

and when Encyclopedia of East European Jewry,YIVO, New-York is available next year... DGG (talk) 02:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Bob Mutch

Could you have another look at this article? It sure looks like a CSD7 candidate to me. The references are all weak. - Jehochman ^Talk 05:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

it just has to assert. I am very reluctant to speedy in that particular industry, because I have made a fool of myself in the past for things that seemed totally unnotable to me. Possibly G11. It was tried before, and the author removed the tag. Why not nom for Afd and get it definitively removed? It will have the advantage of permitting subsequent G4s as re-creation if necessary. considering the edit history, it might be advisable. DGG (talk) 05:56, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Using the 'deletion review' board

I would like to discuss 'deletion review' policy' with you or a similar admin...thanks!Ryoung122 09:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

sure. either ask me here or email me from my user page. DGG (talk) 12:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Greetings,

I think there are times when discussions are needed and instead we get 'process'/delay/obfuscation...or worse.

I'm not sure how to use the 'deletion review' board, but I think the below article should be discussed. It has been deleted FOUR times and recreated FIVE times in the past year. Astoundingly, I haven't even been informed of the article's deletion, and I don't know the reasons for the deletion (neither was I the only one to have created this article). Given what I know about the material, I feel the deletion is in error. This shouldn't even be a 'weak keep' or a 'barely keep' but a 'should keep.' This magazine (porn or no) is the #1, best-selling magazine in its genre in the top 1,000 for all magazines and is 'mainstream' within the gay community. I'd like to see both sides explain their rationale, rather than simply waste time on creating material that is going to be deleted. I have, below, recreated the article with a little more substance than prior manifestations. Please note that I did not create the original article, either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshmen_%28magazine%29

The article exists again, but for how long? Thus, instead of wasting my time, I'd rather pro-actively take this to a discussion board. However, my attempts to post this on the 'deletion review' board were not successful (the edits showed up in the edit history but not on the display). Thus, I'm looking for 'technical support' as well as advice specifically about the article.Ryoung122 12:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that's what I was looking for.Ryoung122 12:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

My RfA

No hard feelings whatsoever. :) I can well imagine that commenting on RfAs must be very tricky, and I appreciate the fact that you took time to ask questions and consider before forming your opinion. You're obviously exactly the kind of contributor that RfAs need. I hope to do my best to prove your doubts unjustified, but if you ever see me flubbing, I sincerely hope you'll let me know. I intend to proceed very carefully as I grow comfortable with these tools. --Moonriddengirl 11:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Could you comment...

The P-L conflict raised its head at Talk:Lithuanian_minority_in_Poland#Lithuanian_Schools. Since in a recent revertt summary I've been accused of Polonization, I'd appreciate an outside party to comment - there seem to be precious enough good faith among some editors.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:43, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It is time to work for the Lord

Hi DGG, thanks for your help with the article. Let me just say why I used phrasing about how the rabbis "shifted" meaning and "re-interpreted." The rabbis are not merely presenting another point of view, they are fully aware that they are shifting from what they call the "plain" (pshat) meaning. They aren't offering simply another reading of the text, they are writing a midrash to alter the meaning for other purposes (here, legal purpose). I'm glad to keep your edits there, just wanted to let you know this background. Thanks for your interest and help. HG | Talk 18:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC) -- agreed, & you may want to add something to that effect, probably best as a short quote. I made some additional comments towards tightening the article. Great to have someone working on these. I've expressed the opinion at AfD that every individual biblical verse is probably notable and can be shown to do so if it is expanded from he commentaries and some work is done on the sourcing. You are doing just that, and doing it well, and I'll keep track of objections to them. DGG (talk) 18:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback, DGG. I missed your note on the article Talk and, now that I see it, will continue there (and copy your reply above, ok?). Be well. HG | Talk 18:45, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Recent CSD's of mine

Greetings,

I appear to have had a bit of a bad streak when it comes to the recent CSD's. Usually when I try to check for notability (even if I have to google for it), encyclopedic content, and general tone (the last is for spam). If I have any question, I usually prod it or watch and wait. I totally blew it on Taylortown store. No excuses. It appears that another editor killed the Health and Diet in Elizabethan England and it was rebuilt by Angel. It appeared to be a school project and nothing really substantative when I originally saw it. The tone was totally wrong and had nothing contextual in it. Anyway, I am rambling and probably will go troll the depths of the dead end tags project a bit more. Thanks for the advice and tips! Spryde 20:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Chaudhuri AfD

I made comments there. Bearian 20:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for the reminder. Bearian 23:46, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Printing Press

Why did you delete my reference. Then you left me a note stating not to put in non-cited material. I'll leave you another reference; http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/printing_3.htm

The museum in France has the oldest metal moveable print, a book which was Korean from the Koryo dynasty. It wasn't wood, it wasn't clay and it wasn't just a moveable print. It was a metal moveable print.

That is why if you look in English or western history books, Gutenberg's printing press invention always has in as a footnote or start off by stating in "the west" the first metal moveable printing press was by Gutenberg. The only possible question to ask about Asian metal moveable printing press which was around 200 years before is why it didn't have the impact in Asia as the printing press had in Europe. Please don't delete things with out reading the references http://www.koreanculture.org/06about_korea/symbols/11printing_heritage.htm --Objectiveye 22:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

published sources please. not web sites. About.com is not considered a Reliable Source, but you will notice that when it qualifies with the word "Western" it qualifies the word "block printing" or "metal plates""--both of which were indeed used first in Asia. --The Printing Heritage site is a really excellent summary--thank you for finding it-- & I will add it to the appropriate article as an external link. Read it again. It does not mention the word press)

Please look in a dictionary for the meaning of the word "press". The metal plate (as in the example you give, which is indeed widely known and of the highest importance) is what is used instead of type, as was the case for specialized printing in Europe and Asia, and later for stereotype in modern times. the press is what pushes the paper against the type or the plate.

The Western books make it clear, as does this and the other relevant articles, that Gutenberg is not the first person to have used movable type, but rather Bi Sheng. Everything you say is essentially correct as applied to the type, and widely known, sourced, accepted, and included in the relevant articles here. There's nothing to quarrel with except that you've gotten fixed on using the wrong word. As I understand it, there is considerable debate for which one of Gutenberg's inventions is the key one--probably the best view is that the combination of the use of metal type, producing the type from punches, paper, a press, oil-based ink (which permitted two-sided printing), was the real innovation.

Personally, I think that the press was the least of it in terms of the fundamental necessity, but yet it was the part that had not at all been applied before and that in conjunction with the others permitted mass production. Yes, the Chinese--and the Koreans--certainly had a highly developed art of printing without it--and were therefore a different tradition.

It's just the word. Think, ask someone else about what it means, understand, and there's lots of excellent work you can do here on this general subject. We'll be delighted to have you join in the subject once you just get the terminology right. No fault in getting it wrong at first. DGG (talk) 22:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the reason why the article is getting edited so much is because, the article is not inclusive of the world and Asian history of prints. It appears to be ethnocentric to the west. The article is using one term the "press" to entirely exclude or relegate as insignificant the print history of East Asia. If you modify the article to be less ethnocentric toward Europe it may get edited less. If you have a section on Print history of the world first, before padding Gutenberg on the back. People might not feel as if this is a silly article.--Objectiveye 23:20, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Please read what i said. "press" is a word with a specific meaning. All the articles here acknowledge the Asian priority with the use of movable type. You've gotten hung up on it, and you are messing up the pages. Please ask someone else if you dont believe me what the noun "press" means, or any dictionary. We would be delighted to expand the sections of East asia for the relevant things, using the right english words in the right meanings. Stop. Ask. think. And continue tomorrow. DGG (talk) 23:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I think if the article included more about the human history of prints especially in the intro section. And not focus on weather or not it is a "press" or press-type, it would be less ethnocentric and others would feel a sense of inclusion. (There would be less edits) Otherwise it seems to be some sort of ethnocentric article, which is excluding the world history of prints by using a narrow definition for the term "press". I'm telling you instead of having a Euro-centric article about the printing press, may be make it a inclusive article about human history of prints and later how it affects the world. I'm sure the article will get less edits if you write it that way. Then if an editor wants to talk about Gutenberg's printing press, that should be added to the Gutenberg article --Objectiveye 23:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Anyways, thats my 2 cents......You guys can edit the article however you want to, I'll leave it alone. I understand your way of categorizing, but I think it is just following the same ethnocentric method that western history books in the US follow. It may make some feel as if the world history of prints is being relegated as less significant to the west. I was hoping for a more inclusive version in Wiki. Thanks for the entertaining discussion. I hope more people think about what I said, if they get frustrated with the constant edits by other users. --Objectiveye 23:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

take at look at Movable type and you will see how we have been editing to give proper credit to the East Asian contributions to this group of inventions. That's the place for it--there, and History of typography in East Asia. I intend to add more material there when I have time. DGG (talk) 18:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I have Philip Megg's History of Graphic Design in my lap, opened to the printing press section and want to edit this article; can you allow this to happen? —Parhamr 06:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC) Done. Is everything OK now. DGG (talk) 18:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

my talk page comment

Hi, I noticed your comment on my talk page re. my blog which struck me as odd as I take you're suggesting that my blog is some commercial advertising portal for my practice with an inappropriate ref. to wikipedia. the blog, Plastic Surgery 101 is the antithesis of commercial and was something that I started precisely because I was so turned off with the nature of "blogs" about my specialty which were crass self-promotional ad copy. I think if you actually read both it and what's editorialized on a day to day basis that you'd come to a little different conclusion. The mention of wikipedia was in the context of an oncology article in that day's NYT focusing on an area (outside of my specialty these days)that I had written a fairly detailed wikipedia entry on from scratch on just the day before. I though that was ironic (as is the fact that my brother is an oncologist at the institution she's being treated at). Anyway, just wanted to set the record straight. Cheers! Rob03:03, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I drew no conclusions. It is your blog, after all, and you are a practicing physician. It is an extremely good blog, too, as far as I can tell, and serves very well to add to your prominence in the field. DGG (talk) 03:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Marad massacre and 2002 Marad massacre

An edit warring user moved the title to Marad killings and has since stopped editing the page. I needed the two aforementioned titles deleted so I can move Marad killings (the less common title), to one of the variations of "Marad massacre" which is what the Official Thomas P. Joseph commission investigating the incident uses. Hope this clears things up.Bakaman 17:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I am not completely sure there is consensus on the title--judging by the talk page. You may well be right about what the title should be, but I think it needs to be shown. You should follow the full procedure at WP:RM. And when there is consensus, then use the template {{db-move}} designed for the purpose. DGG (talk) 17:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

World Public Speaking Championship

As I've explained on the page, the assumptions underlying your weak keep are not accurate, nor has anyone been willing to mount a defence that I am wrong. Therefore I feel you should withdraw your weak keep, particularly as Roi has claimed that is the basis for his Keep. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JJJ999 (talk • contribs) 23:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC) Continued there. I may be right or wrong, but I am not responsible for whether others agree with me. DGG (talk) 00:06, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that DGG makes many persuasive arguments, his post was not the sole reason why I thought the article should be kept. I will gladly elaborate further on why I think the article has merits in the AfD. Please do not hold DGG accountable for my arguments. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 00:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: On Wikistress

Thanks for your helpful comments, DGG. I've been deliberately trying to balance the things that give me pleasure (discovering DYK has been a real encouragement) with the things that can be stressful, and in particular trying to avoid long bouts of work at AfD which can be a touch dispiriting at times. In retrospect, I think the original stress I mentioned was at least partly generated by the back problem -- it's certainly easier to keep things in proportion now that I can sit up again! Espresso Addict 05:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

AfD's staling and flames

Hi again. I am afraid we might both be targets of the same User:JJJ999. Bearian 21:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Please see also this discussion. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 02:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Goodbye

I'm retireing, but not because of save the trivia. Is it still news? --Alien joe 22:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Possibly suspicious prods

Dear DGG, please look at the contribs of User:131.94.55.77. This IP is apparently, or claims to be, recently "retired" admin Jaranda. Anyway, the ip prodded a few articles that I checked over. Now, admittedly in their original condition the articles were of a so-so nature, but I did a quick search and they seem legitimate. Ann Moray for example has a large number of items for sale on amazon.com and appeared in at least one Harper's Magazine article in the 1960s. She is also mentioned on official government website on the USO for her service during World War II (link added to article). Average cost pricing appears to be a genuine term that is the titular subject of an article in a scholarly journal (American Economic Review) and that appears on other online encyclopedias like Investopedia. We have articles on Harper's and the AER, so these seem like reliable sources. So, these prods could be made by an upset editor, although I am not entirely sure if that is the case or if it was just their prior case. Now that I cleaned them up some and added references, I think they're okay, but I wanted to defer to a more experienced editor and admin rather than remove the prods myself. If you feel the articles need further work, I'd be happy to add more references if possible. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 05:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I fixed the sources so they show in references, not external links. Go see how I did it. And see the article talk pages for what they still need. Then , as they are at least minimally sourced, I removed the tags. DGG (talk) 06:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Rewrited articles

Thanks so much! Elmao 07:35, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for help

Hello David,

In February you removed the tag from my article about Stephen Cohn. For whatever reason it was re-tagged.

Since that time, I have made many additions to the article as per suggestions I have received and the article has been labled as qualifying as a Wiki Biography. It has been given a Start Class rating and has received the support of the Wiki Musicians Project.

Is it now possible to remove the tags which question whether it is a valid biography? It would seem that the tag is contradticting the other tags which have been placed more recently.

Will you remove tha tag and/or give me some clarification?

Thank you -Stephen 18:50, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I removed a proposed deletion as Non notable tag in February because Emmy winners are always considered notable; the present tag is "autobiography," placed by a very respected editor. We do not delete articles because of WP:COI, but it is reasonable cause for looking at them carefully, and for alerting readers. But you are to be commended for not trying to disguise the fact, and for writing it in what appears to be an objective manner.DGG (talk) 19:02, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

American Family Insurance

All I can say is thank you :) Timmccloud 03:58, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Update: Now the Wzergens have moved to a sock. I've added a firm warning on their sock talk page (for all the good I expect it will do) and once again removed the non-npov content. This is just an FYI - let's see if the warning works (so I'm an optimst, what can I say), and thanks for your help! Timmccloud 14:41, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing to apologise for!

Thanks for the feedback, but seriously, you have nothing to apologise for. If my comment had the potential to be misread - which it clearly did - then that's down to insufficient clarity and forethought on my part (one of the perils of text-only communication!). I've seen enough of you on other AfDs and elsewhere to know that you have nothing but the best interests of WP at heart; your comments are invariably well-reasoned and civil, and even if I don't always agree, I respect your judgement and trust your motivation. You're one of the 'good guys' ;) EyeSerene^TALK 09:52, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

thanks

Thanks for that favour a while back (my laptop's death lost me the results, but I remember enough to know that my suspicions were wrong). Cheers, Pete.Hurd 17:15, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Editing the front page news

Who writes the front page news? The Sept 23 2007 'on this day' citation below has issues:

1846 – The planet Neptune (pictured) was discovered by astronomers Urbain Le Verrier, Johann Gottfried Galle and John Couch Adams using mathematical prediction, leading to an international dispute over who had priority and deserved credit among the three.

Actually, the Le Verrier-Galle team discovered the planet Neptune on Sept 23, not John Couch Adams. Since the point of the 'on this day' is that today is Sept 23, and Sept 23 was the day that Galle made the observation (suing Le Verrier's data), it smacks of historic revisionism to include Adams...or at least, this should be reworded. For example, if one said:

1846 - The planet Neptune (pictured) was first knowingly observed by astronomer Johann Galle, using data from Urbain Le Verrier. The discovery was noted for using mathematical prediction. John Couch Adams had also predicted the planet's location using mathematical prediction, leading to an international dispute over who had priority and deserved credit among the three.

Still, it's like saying that Alfred Wallace should be given credit for the theory of evolution.Ryoung122 05:45, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

go to Talk:Main Page to make the error report.DGG (talk) 05:52, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

AfD as academic probation for articles

Hi DGG. I've come to enjoy reading your comments in many places and have developed considerable respect for your thoughtfulness, insight, and experience. So I have a question.

The policy on AfD criteria seems clear. It is not supposed to be used for articles in which the subject is intrinsically notable, but needs improvement in sourcing, POV removal, and other cleanup issues than can and should be done within the normal editing process. It should be used only for articles that clearly can't be improved to satisfy the non-negotiable requirements such as WP:NOTE, WP:NPOV, WP:RS, and so on. In other words, deletion should be a last resort, not a first resort.

However, I also see articles that clearly need improvement (sometimes a lot of improvement), get nominated for AfD and during the discussion process, receive the sourcing they need to establish notability and the consensus becomes keep (or no consensus defaulting to keep).

My problem in understanding this whole deletion process is that the AfD seems to act as a rallying flag (due to higher visibility of the AfD process) and articles get cleaned up sufficiently by "all night study sessions" (so to speak) to pass probation. So is this result a good byproduct of AfD, or not. I mean good in the sense that WP gets more articles, rather than less. And better than they were. Should AfD be construed as academic probation for articles, in addition to a pruning process for articles that shouldn't be in WP? Improve or expulsion? This collateral result seems to be more useful for those articles that otherwise just don't get the attention they really need. I suspect that sometimes due to the mix of editors that happen to participate, some articles just get deleted, rather than fixed. And I haven't really touched on articles that seem to be nominated for deletion mostly because someone doesn't like them, for whatever reasons. Any thoughts? Or is there a place this philosophical concept can be discussed in greater detail? — Becksguy 08:46, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

As I see it, the problem is that AfD is the only effective process for any problem with articles--we have no equivalent process for dealing with problematic content. If you examine Dispute resolution, and look at the fate of disputed articles, you will find that WP is helpless against pressure groups, and has no mechanism for assuring neutrality and adequate sourcing. There is only one kind of articles where quality can be consistently ensured--relatively non controversial topics with very high interest. Articles on major athletes, for example, are generally sourced, accurate, and readable. Even major politicians though controversial get good articles, because a wide range of people contribute, and the prejudices balance. But for everything else the article is dependent on the people who work on it. WP:OWN is a major problem, and can only be countered by trying to form an equivalently strong cabal. It is not quality which wins, but persistence, working friendships, and a skill at getting one's opponent to commit blockable offenses. Negligence too is a major problem, and so is lack of competence in research and writing.

I and most others have dozens--or hundreds--of articles in mind that are very poor or very biased, but where it would be a major effort to do anything. I've responded to RfCs, but I no longer do, for the article is invariably destroyed afterwards. There are some good areas--for instance chemistry, where fortunately the need to learn how to handle chemical formulas to do any writing at all serves as a barrier against degradation--similar considerations hold with programming languages, much of biology, and a good deal of linguistics.

The only solution I see is a parallel process for compulsory arbitration or binding group decision on content. I do not think it likely--but I don't want to go into the reasons right now.

Is there anything to be done? Yes, the increased participation of editors at AfD, and not just on the few of personal interest to them, in order to deal properly with more articles. Can anything be done to improve AfD? Certainly: agreement on following precedent and aiming at consistency instead of rejecting it; acceptance of reasonable compromises to remove definable classes of material like high schools from AfD; sanctions for disruptive nominations; extended period for discussion; limits on renomination of articles; follow-ups to see that merge does not equal destroy; a realisation that redirect is equivalent to delete, not keep; a requirement that anyone nominating an article show a reasonable attempt to find references; an easier and more frequent use of deletion review with sanctions against those who repeated make bad closes; improved visibility of deleted articles when needed for discussion--every one of them things that have been proposed, but rejected many times by those accustomed to working within the present system.

Can anything bring them about? Yes, a participation of new people in policy discussions as well as at individual AfDs. And a general change in attitude to realise that the best end to an AfD is an improved article, and that articles that are improvable should never get deleted in frustration at the difficulty of improving them. But it will take not just the recognition of problems and the proposing of reforms, but the actual work on rescuing articles. Commit yourself to doing one a week, or even one a month. There are many thousands of good editors here. If you do one a week, and so do 1000 other people, every rescuable article proposed for deletion at AfD or prod can be rescued, and most of the rewritable copyvios from CSD. One article at a time, as I say at the top of this talk page. DGG (talk)

In-popular-culture notability guideline proposal

Hey, I've been told you would have a lot to say about Wikipedia:Notability (in popular culture). Please take a look at that page and give us your thoughts. MessedRocker (talk) 14:28, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

New proposal: Wikipedia is not a trivia collection

This proposed guideline is so that WP:NOT#TRIVIA can be returned to Wikipedia. It is distinct from Wikipedia:Trivia sections in that it is a content policy, not a style policy. This guideline states that trivia may be removed.

I know in advance this is not your point of view, and this proposal may be seen as in competition with the Wikipedia:Relevance of content guideline, which I think is mostly your work. However, I'm hoping you can find elements of my proposal that might help your proposal, and I'm hoping I can receive some feedback from you about what is needed to make my proposal better.

As I've stated at WP:VPP, it doesn't help my proposal for contradictory philosophies to be introduced — this is, after all, a proposed guideline and does not need to contradict itself. However, I would also be interested in feedback from people have problems with excluding trivia, and you are an experienced editor who I trust can collaborate in good faith. I'm hoping you might have a few specific suggestions on how this guideline can be made better, preferably on a relevant Talk page, either mine or Wikipedia talk:Avoid trivia.

If you are not interested in supporting this proposal in any way, I won't hold it against you, but I think I can only benefit from your suggestions. / edg ☺ ★ 14:37, 23 September 2007 (UTC).

I have replied at the VP discussion--I do have some suggestions. I do think we need a guideline--I don't wantto be aguing this in 10 different places forwver. But it should reflect the factors that do seem to matter and still be flexible enough so people of all tendencies can support it. The Relevance of content section is, however, not my work. It was written almost entirely by User:Father Goose, and the history will show I made one single edit only. [31]. Even on the talk page I only made two comments-- [32] and then [33] Maybe they have influenced the subsequent discussion. But my interest in that guideline page is about something else: balance and proportion in general. DGG (talk) 18:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

But where do you want to centralize the discussion--I'll copy it there. DGG (talk) 20:01, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

No one seems to think Wikipedia:Avoid trivia was useful in its current form, so I'm retiring it as an unneeded distraction. At least now I know.

As to where this discussion should continue, I dunno. I'll follow it wherever, but it seems deadlocked in 2 or 3 places. And "deadlocked" is optimistic on my part; really it's moving toward abandoning trivia exclusion of any kind. / edg ☺ ★ 01:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

There is an immense amount of article content labeled trivia ( or not labeled trivia) which is inconsequential or infantile and should be removed. How to do it fairly I do not know--see my long comment above to Becksguy. But it's interesting we see the trend differently--I think I am fighting against all odds to try to retain notable content. T reason this problem is so difficult is, in my view,the over-zealous actions of those who tried and are still trying to delete everything resembling popular culture. If there had been a reasonable effort at removing clearly inappropriate content, it would have gone much more smoothly. But anything that appears to be a concerted effort to remove wholesale any sort of article or content that is not liked, tends not surprisingly, to arouse opposition. DGG (talk) 01:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

article content labeled trivia (or not labeled trivia) which is inconsequential or infantile ... should be removed.

I don't see how a consensus can form around any means of doing this. The current environment is hostile to content restrictions of this sort, and there is considerable momentum for removing what already exists. At a later time when things have cooled down, there will be considerable precedent for retaining such content. Already plenty of editors think In popular culture and Trivia sections are standard features. / edg ☺ ★ 03:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

as for popular culture, I do think it should be a standard feature whenever there is enough material. As for the content of trivia sections, I think the consensus is that the usable material should be distributed in the article in a more appropriate way. I don't support inadequate articles or weak content & I think we can find a way by which reasonable people can work together for a reasonable compromise goal. One in which there may be articles that perhaps not everyone agrees are justified, but where the content is as good as possible. That's my goal in general on a number of topics--to stop disputing borderline cases of notability and work on content. And in getting the real junk out and keeping it out. DGG (talk) 04:57, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry to badger you with attention requests, but you may want to take a look at Wikipedia:Notability (in popular culture) which started yesterday. Not sure if discussion there would be redundant with other forums; your input is welcome. Best, — xDanielx ^T/_C 05:49, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Luen Ming Fat

Hello. I just want to have back the text that is deleted. Thank you for your cooperation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Melimited-luenmingfat (talk • contribs) 19:42, 23 September 2007 (UTC) Replied on your p--DGG

Re:Question for you

I believe he is notable. He is mentioned in Polish Biographical Dictionary, and according to the entry at talk (Talk:Rodryg Dunin) he was "one of the chief pioneers of agriculture in Wielkopolska" and social activist.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:14, 23 September 2007 (UTC) thanks--DGG

LaRue County High School

I'm a bit new to the AfD process. I saw that you declined speedy on the article, is it poor style for me to AfD it? Mbisanz 23:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC) replied on your p. --DGG

duplicate at DRV

Hello DGG. Just letting you know you opined twice on the Bend over Boyfriend DRV. Not that I think it matters much but you may want to delete the redundant opinion. Cheers, Pascal.Tesson 00:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC) fixed--DGG

re: Bennett; thanks!

Thanks for reinstating the Bennett Elementary article for the moment. Honestly, I don't understand why there is this zeal to delete articles around here. Let's see what happens next. Thmoore 02:17, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

re: Ann Moray

I do not know what the word "prod" means in the phrase "remove the prod." I have read all of Ann Moray's books. They are readily available. Likewise reviews of her books are readily available (New York Times). If necessary, I will post references to the book reviews. --RD —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard E. Davies (talk • contribs) 15:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

re: Christian Bartolf

Is there a chance to move the sandbox of "Christian Bartolf" to his userpage? Christian Bartolf —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrbartolf (talk • contribs) 15:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

What about blacklisted URLs?

DGG: You asked me to cite an example of a web site that confused Ann Moray with Anne Murray, so I attempted to do so, but received a Wikipedia message that the web site I was attempting to cite is "blacklisted." Even though I cannot verify within the article that the assertion is correct, I feel that it is an important contribution, because readers interested in Ann Moray will waste time chasing Anne Murray (as I have done). -- RD