Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 05:57, 26 May 2009

Reminders
Topical Archives:
Deletion reform, Speedies, Notability , IPC, Fiction,WP:Academic things & people, Journals, Sourcing, BLP
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Please post messages at the bottom of the page - I will reply on this page, unless you ask otherwise

If your article is in danger of deletion, possibly some of the following messages may be of help to you:

• If you can fix the article, I'd advise you to do so very quickly, before it gets nominated for regular deletion
• We're an encyclopedia, not a social networking site. You have to become famous first, then someone will write an article about you. In the meantime, there's lots of things to do here -- so welcome.
• An article must have 3rd party independent reliable published sources, print or online (but not blogs or press releases)
• To use material from your web site, you must release the content under a GFDL license, which permits reuse and modification of the material by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and is not revokable.
• For articles about an organization, see our Organizations FAQ (a wonderful page written by Durova, from whom I learned my approach to people writing articles with COI.

User:DGG/LG

In December I gave a presentation to librarians in Pittsburgh area. Would you like me to send you my presentation slides? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

After a day of fighting with my email and then Wikimedia, I finally gave up and uploaded a file to rapidshare. At least it works :) Download. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

magazines...and speedy

...and creative works in general cannot be deleted under speedy A7, per WP:CSD In any case, I think Railfan and Railroad might be one of the two leading magazines in its subject. did you check that? Please do not use speedy when not strictly within the specifications.'

Magazines are businesses, not creative works, and therefore fall squarely under {{db-corp}} guidelines -- which also explicitly refer to articles which make no assertion of notability, which this article doesn't. Your vague recollection doesn't qualify either as an assertion of notability nor a reliable source. Please do not wikilawyer about obvious failures of speedy standards and specifications. --Calton | Talk 16:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree it will quite possibly be deleted at afd, unless I or someone finds more material. Relative rank is capable of objective determination via Ulrich's. But as for speedy, WP:CSD: "A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. " if you want to change the rules, discuss it there. I think you will find the consensus is clear about magazines. A book publisher is a company. A book is not. A record distributor is a company. A recording is not. A series of recordings is not. A boxed set of recordings is not. A magazine publisher is a company. A magazine is not. Speedy is not stretchable. What you call wikilawering I call following the rules. " There is no consensus to speedily delete articles of types not specifically listed in A7 under that criterion." DGG (talk) 16:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Noticeboards, noticeboards, noticeboards!

I think I remember you chiming in when the No Original Research noticeboard was created as it being just an extra page to watch. We've now got the Fringe Theories, Fiction, NOR, and NPOV. I'm wondering if we're not spreading ourselves too thin over too many boards. Any ideas? MBisanz 03:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

We also have COI, and BLP, and RS, and the duplicative pair (ANB and AN/I), and BONB, and a number of similarly functioning pages, such as WT:SPAM, CP and its family, the various VPs and RfCs, WQA if it survives, the widely ignored RM and PM, and those I dont even know about). And the XfDs, the Ref Desks and the Help Desks, and AIV, 3RR and their relatives. And the talk pages for every policy and guideline prominent and obscure. And user talk pages where interesting stuff tends to be found. I organize what I do with bookmarks: I've got a group I call WPck (wikipedia check), and how far I get down the list of 30 or so 51, now that I've actually counted-- each day is variable--but I've never gotten to the bottom. Some in my opinion in practice tend to serve for POV pushing, such as BLP and FRINGE. (At some I agree more with the trend--like RS, so I don't call it POV pushing)

I forgot the talklists and IRC. I prefer to forget about IRC, and I wish I could really forget about the talklists.

But look at it in a positive way--it's forum shopping which keeps there from being any one WP:LOC.DGG (talk) 04:43, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Def going on my best of list. MBisanz 17:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Deletion reform study group

Moved to User talk:DGG/Deletion reform -- please continue there. DGG (talk) 05:51, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: User:Jbmurray/Madness

(Copied over from my talk page:) DGG, many thanks for your comment. I'm glad that my text may be useful for the NYC meet. I'd be pleased to have any feedback or reactions that come out of that. And I do now indeed intend to publish a version of the essay somewhere. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 00:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

A3 to Prod ?

Do you really think it is necessary to {{Prod}} for process? Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 17:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I think it necessary to follow the speedy criteria as written. Anything else leads to chaos Some people will delete appropriately, others not. The purpose of process is to prevent misuse, at the cost of going slightly slower. Of all WP process, I think PROD is the cleverest compromise. DGG (talk) 18:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Category:Flagged articles

Hello again ...

Would you please take a look at User talk:Matthewedwards#Category:Flagged articles, and then add your comments on the cats I have created to compliment the templates?

Happy Editing! — 151.200.237.53 (talk · contribs) _{07:58, 3 June 2008 (UTC)}

Category:Flagged editors

Hello again ... {{Flag-editor}} now has an optional assist parameter that makes a friendly offer to help, for those thus inclined, instead of defaulting with making the offer. :-) — 151.200.237.53 (talk) 15:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

getting there! I'll check the details later. Next goal, perhaps: making it shorter while still making it friendly. and maybe copyvio should be different --if it's clear it should be db-copyvio, if not, suspected copyvio already has the template "copypaste". DGG (talk) 17:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I realized that, but the point is, "I don't have time to check right now, but it's suspicious, so I'll flag it with this generic tag" ... maybe Some Other Editor will check it out in the mean time, and decide that it's {{Db-copyvio}}-able. :-) — 151.200.237.53 (talk) 04:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

For example, Liliam Cuenca González (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) was part of a WP:COI/N and WP:COPYVIO that led to a site being blocked and removed by a bot as WP:LINKSPAM ... it's all the sins in one (unfortunately repeated) case, but it certainly can be improved if editors are aware of the situation ... hence Category:Flagged articles. — 151.200.237.53 (talk) 04:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

)

Current project

Your third suggestion: I like. :) --Moonriddengirl 00:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC) P.S. As this is out of the blue, I am referring to the section on your userpage. "A good faith request by any established editor is sufficient for any administrator, whether or not the deleting administrator, to undelete an article deleted under speedy, except for BLP and copyvio. This should be automatic, and need not involve Deletion Review. it is polite to ask the original administrator first, but not necessary, and, even if s/he refuses, any administrator can undelete it without it being considered wheel warring. The article would normally be immediately sent for AfD. By definition, if an established editor disagrees, it is not uncontroversial and needs community involvement. "

Yes, that's the one. I think it would actually save a lot of drama and free up some wasted time for creators, onlookers & DRV contributors. It might increase the load at AfD, but I'm inclined to think not that much. --Moonriddengirl 02:09, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

)

WP:Lectures

Hiya David, I see you were scheduled to give a lecture on sourcing in mid-May...did you give the lecture, and is there a "transcript" somewhere, or perhaps you've done an essay on the topic? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 11:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I dont think it has been transcribed yet, but the outline is at User:DGG/LR DGG (talk) 14:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

H.O.P.E. speech

Hey, DGG. This is volt4ire from the NYC meetup. Pharos mentioned that you would be a good person to help (or at least steer me in the right direction) in doing a pro-inclusionist speech. Any suggestions for speakers, arguments, debating-points, etc.? Thanks! volt4ire 02:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

do you think they will want to hear about specific details at Misplaced Pages? rather, I would aim it at the general roles of web 2.0 information sources, then specialize it to encyclopedias, then us, then to specific problems if people want to hear about them. DGG (talk) 03:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I think volt4ire's original idea was for some sort of inclusionist vs. deletionist "debate", and I had recommended you an an inclusionist (I couldn't think of a New York-area deletionist at that moment). Which is an interesting idea, because of all the inside baseball at Misplaced Pages, the notability issue seems to attract the most outside interest (several articles in Slate, for example).

Which is not to say that this is necessarily what we should do. But I do imagine at a conference like H.O.P.E., we should avoid basic explanations of web 2.0, and focus somewhat more on the issues that are particular to us.--Pharos (talk) 01:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

BTW, see Misplaced Pages talk:Meetup/NYC#H.O.P.E. Conference panel (maybe we should shift this conversation there).--Pharos (talk) 01:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Fringe

In Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee, you wrote but situations of a single person with a completely far fringe view are dealt with fairly well already. There are cases where a real-world minority- or fringe-view is overrepresented on Misplaced Pages. There are also cases where a majority- or wikipedia-majority-view silences a minority view or reduces their weight well below their real-world due weight. This can happen by one side outmaneuvering the other into a behavior violation or by simply driving them away from the project in frustration. I don't think there is a good solution, other than to have affected articles watched by people who are informed about the article's subject matter but with no emotional stake in the article. This tends to happen more on articles on political or social topics, where way too many editors have a personal agenda, and on articles about people, places, or groups, where fanboys may succeed in turning the article into a virtual press release. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:07, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

as I said there, I think that dueling by taunting each other into unacceptable actions is not a really rational approach. . Perhaps it survives because the people who have been here a while tend to know just how far they can safely go & some of them have gotten quite good at it. But perhaps also it works because the people who are for good or less good reasons committed to an agenda with a zeal and devotion and purpose which transcend rational argument tend to be rather easy to lose proportion and descend into unacceptable actions. There is nothing wrong with zealotry when one is right, but it has to be pursued elsewhere--those who care more about their cause than objective editing encyclopedia are a danger to the encyclopedia.

Unfortunately, the attempt to deal with it otherwise tend to amount to an appeal to authority, which does not do much better--one can find authorities for almost anything. And so one argues about the relative merits of the authorities. People both in the right and wrong of it (as if w could tell) are equally likely to what to prevent their opponents from making a fair case. What is necessary is a way to determine what objective editing is, and enforce it. My current thoughts are mandatory mediation with enforceable remedies--not by subject experts necessarily, but by people with common sense and proven impartiality.DGG (talk) 03:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

AfD essay

Greetings, David. I have been playing around recently with the idea of writing an essay on an aspect of AfD you might be interested in. The idea behind the essay (stub version here) is that it would be admirable for inclusionists/eventualists who argue that articles could be improved to an acceptable level to take immediate steps in bringing that article up to scratch. Per this comment, I imagine that you are sympathetic to the notion. Would you be interested in collaborating on the essay or throwing around a few ideas on the subject? Sincerely, Skomorokh 11:20, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I hope you do not mean "immediate"--I dont see it in your proposal. --it is many times easier to nominate for deletion than to fix. I fix articles at Afd, yes, but i can only do 1 or 2 a week or so properly (I usually do another 2 or 3, but some of those fixes are minimal & dont really meet my standards for a decent article.) In that week, usually 1000 are nominated, of which probably 200 of the deleted ones could be fixed, and perhaps the same number of the ones that get kept need majpr improvements. But Misplaced Pages is too large to require fixing to save articles--many articles will not be worked on for long periods,--this is very unfortunate, but until we have more people prepared to work on the less widely interesting topics, it will remain the case. One thing we'll need to get them, is to not delete articles that they might be interested in. them. Incomplete articles are inevitable in a wiki like this.

Lets try to generalize this--that people who nominate for deletion must demonstrate they did at least a minimal search, documenting where they looked.

Maybe it should be a how-to, not an exhortation.

Try a longer draft & I'll look in more detail. DGG (talk) 02:43, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Consistency

BIO has become very nebulous, especially because one can interpret "significant coverage" and NOT NEWS to produce any result whatsoever for many of the articles you have in mind. We need to make up our mind abut what depth of local figures we intend to cover. We need to make up our mind about whether to cover the central figures of human interest stories. And then stick to it, whatever the decision is. You and I would probably disagree on one or both of these in general, I at least would much rather accept almost any stable compromise rather than fight each of them from over-general principles. DGG (talk) 16:09, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

We'd probably be closer together than you might think. Yes, the community as a whole does need to thrash out local notability-- something that a narrow constructionist can rely on but which would allow some flexibility. Any standard, even one I loathe, would be better than none. As you say, any result is possible the way things are. A dice roll would be less stressful and do as well. This is why I avoid AFD. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 14:09, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Stress

as with any democratic type of process, it works better if the good people stay in. The way I avoid stress is by commenting once or twice, and then not looking back--either my arguments is accepted, or not,and then on to the next. I generally do not look back to see what the result is, or I would get too often angry, or at least disappointed. Not that it's a game for me, but that I can be effective only by keeping detached. DGG (talk) 16:36, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

CSD vs. AfD

The articles in question don't fall under "local chapters" - that was a slightly different yet related item. The articles concerned consisted of two lines, (name and address), and external link to a page where the name appears in a list of related groups, and/or a link to a dead or non-informative homepage. That does indeed give no indication of importance (no sources), unless something being called "Grand" implies importance (which it shouldn't). I am certain that I had to start 4 AfDs that I really didn't need to because of baseless claims of supposed notability "because of the name" or "because this other thing (which also had no independent sources and thus didn't assert its notability) was important."

I also discovered that some of the articles were informationally wrong, and referred to entirely different groups than what the sources were pointed at. Yet I'm the one supposedly "gaming the system" and with a "personal bias" because I don't think we should have articles that remain unsourced for months at a time with no editorial changes and no reliable sources. MSJapan (talk) 17:31, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

MSJ - the CSD system is not meant for questionable cases, which is what you've been doing. JASpencer (talk) 18:02, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

If an article is wrong, fix it.

If it is downright vandalism, and the vandalism would be unquestionably clear to anyone even if they knew nothing whatever about the subject, tag it for speedy

If it is downright vandalism, but the vandalism would not be immediately clear to anyone ignorant of the subject ,list it at Prod or AfD

if the article is unsourced, try to source it. The proposal that articles that remain unsourced can be deleted for that reason alone, even at AfD, has been repeatedly and decisively rejected by the community. If you want to challenge it , try the Village Pump. If you nominate for speedy on that reason it is disruptive, because you are deliberately going against established policy and instead following what you think the policy ought to be.

If for a particular article, you think either the facts or the notability is unsourcable, nominated for Prod or AfD. It helps to have a good reason, like the result of a search, because if others can source it, they will probably consider that you have made a careless nomination.

For the minimum requirements to keep an incomplete article, see WP:STUB. Again, by repeated decision of the community , it does not have to be sourced.

It is considered unsuitable and a violation of WP:BITE to nominate within a few minutes after it has been written an incomplete article for not indicating any nobility -- instead place a notability tag. If after a few days it indicates no notability whatever, then place a speedy tag. If it indicated anything that any reasonable person could think might possibly indicate notability, use Prod or AfD--se below for the advantages of doing it that way.

If however, it contains too little content to tell what the subject is even about, it can be nominated for speedy as empty.

The amount of work involved in trying to recover from an improper deletion , or argue about a questionable speedy, is even worse than the tedious mechanism of Afd. Therefore, if you think there will be any opposition, use AfD. It has the additional advantage that the article can be prevented from re-creation. This is especially valuable if someone is deliberately creating bad articles. DGG (talk) 19:53, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

(This does not imply any view of mine on any of the articles or on the topic. I !vote to delete a lot of things at AfD, and I might well !vote to delete the articles in question. And I do a lot of speedy. We need speedy, and I have no hesitation in using it when it is unquestionable.) But there's no point arguing individual article deletions on personal talk pages. that's what Afd is for. DGG (talk) 20:18, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

yes, I understood that. DGG (talk) 20:55, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Question as to your comment at JASpencer's talk page... that "If there is any reason to think the article's deletion would be challenged, even for inappropriate reasons, it is necessary to use AfD."... doesn't that negate the entire concept of speedy deletes? Your approach would allow one disruptive editor to "exempt" an entire topic area from speedy deletes... all because he thinks that anything to do with the topic is notable. Blueboar (talk) 21:52, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I misworded it there, and have corrected it to even for reasons which would not save the article at AfD. Objectiions that are clearly disruptive should of course be ignored, objections based on good faith are another mater entirely. When I encounter disruptive addition of articles I have no hesitation to warn or even block the person involved. But some of the afd criteria are matters of judgment, and if in any reasonable doubt, I prefer the community's judgment to my own. DGG (talk) 22:02, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you... that does clarify things significantly. Blueboar (talk) 23:32, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

And thanks, I am always grateful when people point out if I've gotten something wrong, or worded it too broadly. I know I will make mistakes, and I must rely on others to correct them.. DGG (talk) 04:30, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Michael Birawer

We edit conflicted on this speedy delete, saying exactly the same thing (both declining the speedy). Good to know I'm still in line with your thinking every once and a while :-). I'll get in contact with the article creator shortly and see if I can't help him/her out. Keeper ǀ 76 21:43, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I think we'd agree with each other 95% of the time, with almost all the others being matters that we both would consider equivocal. Obviously the remaining few are the ones that stick out. All we can really do there is stay polite and let other people judge. If I've pushed you too hard on any of them I apologize, and I certainly never intend to let an argument on one thing carry over onto another. You might be interested in some of my recent comments today at WT:CSD. DGG (talk) 22:05, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I was hoping we agreed more like 99% of the time :-). I read your comments at wt:csd, very well worded. I support them. I personally, with rare exception anyway, have never "speedy deleted" something that was untagged. Probably because I don't do "new page patrol" and rely on others to patrol properly. I wish there was an easy tool to see my ratio of "agree with patroller" versus "remove tag". I think I'm about 1 of 5 that I "decline" for one reason or another, maybe but hopefully not more like 1 of 10 (I spend a lot of time at C:CSD). In the last few months, I think the "speedy taggers" have gotten more careful and less bold, which is a good thing. I attribute it to this: Many "speedy taggers" are doing NPP because they foresee an RFA in their near future. It is well known (and appropriate) that if an editor is sloppy as a speedy tagger, they will be sloppy as a speedy deleter, therefore those taggers with "aspirations" of "finishing the job", which seems to be all of them, are reluctant to tag borderline articles. Encouraging, in an ironic sense. Anyway, I'm not an article builder, never pretended to be one, I'm no good at it. I've asked another editor, who I know to be an excellent article rescuer, to take a look at this specific article that you and I both agree isn't speediable. Seeing as this particular artist lives (purportedly) about 5 miles from my home, I don't quite feel right about doing much more than copyediting myself. Thanks for your input and insight. See you 'round, Keeper ǀ 76 22:19, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Ecclesiastes 12:12

"the assertion that someone has written a non-self published book book in any subject is a clear assertion of importance" - oh, dear Lord, that makes my heart break just to read! I'm an author, book reviewer, bookseller and long-time member of the National Writers Union; do you have any idea how many new books come out every year, even when you screen out the self-publishers? Most of us harmless Grub Street hacks will never be notable; and certainly most of my one- to three-book friends are not, nor would they assert themselves to be. This concept, if accepted, would open up the gates to endless floods of vanispamcruftisement! I cannot accede to your request. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:54, 21 August 2008 (UTC) (yes, Dave, I know you're a librarian ; but librarians aren't subjected to as much of the petty end of the spectrum as booksellers and reviewers are, and see less of the dross and more of the substance)

I never said it was enough to be notable, just avoid speedy, at least in the case of an apparently significant book, and certainly in this case when supported also by published articles. Speedy is deliberately worded very loosely to permit any good faith assertion of notability to pass and be judged by the community. I agree most of the people who have written a single book wouldn't pass notability, but the point is that this is most of the people -- some would, and no one admin should be able to judge that for the same reason we don't speedy books themselves at afd. someone in the field at least should have the opportunity to check for reviews and citations and library holdings and sport things by recognition that need further checking. As for librarians, we get junk enough but of a different sort. I'm not sure I catch the reference to wombats? I invite you to find a suitable wording for what counts as passing speedy, but in this case, since there was material besides the book, I am probably going to Deletion Review, not to support the article particularly, but to establish that your standard of "indication of importance" is too high. DGG (talk) 18:10, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Obviously we disagree. Ah, well; certainly not the first time! (As to the wombats, that's a Stumpers-L reference.) --Orange Mike | Talk 18:52, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

DGG - I completely support your position. The point here is not to have an exercise in the use of rhetorics but to operate on the basis of evidence and community feedback to make sure Misplaced Pages remains true to its purpose of providing useful information written by open and transparent consensus . I'm disappointed to see Orange Mike continue to ignore the feedback from the community. I hope it's not the case for other articles he's been reviewing. Were you able to take the "Deletion Review" action you mentioned?

Alex Omelchenko (talk) 04:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

PSTS Policy & Guidelines Proposal

Since you have been actively involved in past discussion, please review, contribute, or comment on this proposed PSTS Policy & Guidelines--SaraNoon (talk) 19:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

archiving

I no longer remember how it was done but if someone knows or wants to talk to the bot operator, look at what's done for the museums project. In archiving it creates an index which includes topic and which archive it's in. I don't know if it can be done retroactively. TravellingCari 12:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Looking at documentation, though I can change the names of the archives, the indexing is done as it makes the archive. I would have to remerge everything. What happened of course, is that a/I never imagined at the first they would get so large b/I started with topical archives, and this takes more maintenance than Ive actually done, and , of course 3/ there have been some very long postings here, not all by me,some interesting enough that I want to keep visible. Expect slow improvement. till and maybe a new normal system in January 09 DGG (talk) 14:51, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

1. Indexes, what indexes?
2. At User:MiszaBot/Archive HowTo there is a pointer to User:HBC Archive Indexerbot. I think this is the bot alluded to above by Travellingcari, currently used by WP:MUSEUM. EdJohnston (talk) 17:39, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Fictional (?) book

One of the good example showing how this project is failing is that instead of trying to find out the truth about the book (as you've tried), involved editors are using it to prove bad faith on part of others (see second para). Sad, isn't it? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:21, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

well, all students learn that it's asking for trouble to add refs relying only on listings on the web but without seeing them. But I'm not perfect here myself.  :) DGG (talk) 03:18, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Back in 2005 and earlier, it was fairly common to see editors misunderstand what the reference section is for and add stuff that now we all know should be under external links of further reading there. Inline cites helped a lot; before I - just like many, many others - used to lump everything under references, whether we used it or not... it's nice to see how our standards of quality improved. If only that improvement would involve civility and good faith... :( --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:43, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

User:TTN

I understand your frustration, but you really need to stop your ad hominem attacks on him on every AfD he does. It doesn't make you look any better than him, and it also makes you as viable as engaging in WP:POINT as much as he is. If you have a clear problem, initiate a request for comment; maybe ArbCom (you probably know there was already a second look at his conduct, in which they decided no action needed to be taken) will take a third look at his conduct or change Misplaced Pages's policy on AfDs.

I'm not trying to oppose your takes on things or ride you or like that; we have certainly both agreed on some articles from time to time. I also certainly agree that he is a tad heavy on bringing articles to AfD without exercising other options, but there are other venues for that — AfD, I believe, is not one of them. However, fighting fire with fire doesn't help the situation, either. That's all I want to say. Thank you, MuZemike (talk) 23:31, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

You are probably right that it's overkill, and that I have called sufficient attention to it, and could advantageously use less detail. (My reason for repeating something on every article is that in the past, those articles on which people have not bothered to add keep comments have gotten deleted). Additionally, I have refrained from the temptation to respond with an identical rationale to his identical rationales, and have reworked each one specifically for the particular situation. I havent even given the same !vote -- some keep, some merge, some redirect. One even delete. They are not ad hominem. I consider what he is doing disruptive, and I am talking about that, not him. I have said nothing about motivation except repeating what he has said himself. I am willing to work with him or anyone in effecting merges and other improvements in these articles.

And I thank you for letting me know the bad effect I am apparently having. It's good to have outside critiques. DGG (talk) 23:47, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion

Articles must establish their notability and verifiability clearly and objectively. If someone is creating an article, it is just as in adequate to write the first paragraph of what may become a ten paragraph article as it is to create an article containing nothing more than the reiteration of its title and then reject claims that the subject is not notable. Editors who cannot or will not create articles with substantiating references from the start must be ready to have these articles deleted, or they should create them as userfied articles. Patrollers of the new articles page cannot be expected to check the HTML of all the nonsense articles they see to verify whether or not references were indeed placed and it is only the lack of a reflist markup that keeps them from being revealed. While your intentions may be excellent, your position is essentially defenseless. I therefore respectfully reject your your comments and ask that you instead direct your efforts at informing new editors that new articles must establish their own merit prior to them figuring out how to use Misplaced Pages, or they risk speedy deletion of what appears to be nonsense, unverified un-notable refuse, hoaxes and vandalism. DRosenbach 13:58, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, articles must establish their notability and verifiability clearly and objectively to be kept, but they merely have to give some indication of it to pass speedy. Please reread WP:CSD and WP:STUB The first policy that you suggest, that an article must have references to be kept at speedy,. has been suggested from time to time, but repeatedly rejected. If you want to propose it, try the WT:CSD page But first read it's very long archives. That an article must be complete or even tenable at the first edit is also not policy, though I do warn people that they would do well not to make too fragmentary a start, because some admins are a little trigger-happy. What I said on your talk page, that it is not appropriate to speedy an in process article the first few minutes of its existence, is standard practice. You are not currently prevented from placing such a tag, but if you do, be aware that I and others will criticize you for it. What I am saying is not my eccentric way of doing things, but standard here. Please read or reread WP:BITE and WP:Deletion Policy.If an article can be improved by normal editing, it is not a candidate for speedy.

However, we do have a way to accomplish the sort of challenge to an article you have in mind. That is the WP:PROD process. You might want to consider it in the cases of patently incomplete articles.

I know you've been here about one year longer than I have, but I don't think what you have been suggesting has ever been the policy. And I notice your top userbox, so I think we might have some common ground after all. We do have common interests. Perhaps we will meet at one of the NYC meetups. DGG (talk) 16:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Your Comments on my Talk Page

Originally, I started deleting comments on my talk page from rude people that disagreed with some of my outspoken positions. Just don't need to keep reading negative nonsense from people that can't take alturnative or unpopular views.

But with respect to AfD comments, I generally don't see the point of repeating what the nominator has written if it is the same as my thoughts on the issue, which is what "as per nom" means. Do you disagree? Which AfD that I've voted on are you interested in? Perhaps I can expand my comments. But again, if my thoughts are the same as the nominator's, what's the point in a word-for-word copy since "as per nom" says the same thing?

prod

"unreferenced" is not a reason for deletion. Unreferenced and unnotable, maybe."tried but could not find any sources for notability" much more convincing--when you say something like that, I'd probably accept your view. But of the 2 you marked unreferenced, one seems to have had a ref . tho not a good one Blaqstarr--I didnt check further, and the other Esa Maldita Costilla, is probably notable given the performers involved. DGG (talk) 07:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess our standards differ. Stifle (talk) 08:18, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Your instincts were right on this one, DGG. I know this is kind of necro-bumping, but better late than never... Chubbles (talk) 21:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2008 October 19#Comparison_of_web_based_file_managers

You raise an excellent point there. I seem to be averaging a DRV on one of my closures every second day (although the majority are being endorsed). The recent phenomenon of DRVs when one isn't satisfied with the result, but dressed up as "certain arguments weren't addressed, so the admin should have closed it my way" is worrisome, not least because a DRV would have been even more certain if the debate had been closed the other way. This is liable to put good admins off closing AFDs because of a perceived stigma in having your decision posted at DRV, especially when users decline to discuss matters with the closer first as the DRV instructions twice require (a matter about which we have repeatedly butted heads). Where can we go from here? Stifle (talk) 13:43, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I've moved this down, in case you missed it. Stifle (talk) 08:12, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

still working on an adequate response.DGG (talk) 12:48, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Refining AfD outcomes

Hi. I read your comments at the AfD and DRV of List of Who Framed Roger Rabbit characters. In particular, I noticed your suggestion to alter AfD/DPR. I started a discussion WT:AFD#Merge outcome, based in part on my interpretation of your comments and concerns. Flatscan (talk) 23:59, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for responding at the discussion. Flatscan (talk) 04:48, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

54]] (T C) 12:00, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Loves Art

I will be in Brooklyn on 2/7/09. Bearian (talk) 18:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

we should make sure to find each other.DGG (talk) 02:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

User:TTN

Since you have had repeated experience with this user's AFDs like, I thought I'd contact you. This user's AFD behavior is appaling especially how he refuses to bundle nominations in the same universe for which he uses identical reasonings. He also continually fails to consider the option to merge or redirect without intervention of deletion and makes no evident efforts to look for sources himself (there's a difference between unverified and unverifiable), instead preferring to force the issue by nominating for AFD (which causes a 5-day deadline for improvement) and which is specifically considered to be improper.

The articles in question might well require care, merging or even deletion, but the way he goes about it is unneccesarily terse and bitey.

I think it's time to launch an RFC. Would you consider helping gather evidence and supporting it? - Mgm| 15:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Before you start, you might consider seeing how the RfC/U on Gavin.collins goes first, since different facets of the same issue are involved.DGG (talk) 17:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

An offer of help, other inclusionists, and suggestions

Your name came up prominently at Talk:Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia#Prominent inclusionists? I was wondering:

1. How I can help?
2. If there are other inclusionists you can suggest I talk to, or if there are any groups you belong too.
3. Any suggestions about how I can help form policy to be more inclusive.

Thank you, Inclusionist (talk) 00:31, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

the best way of helping attain a better and more inclusive encyclopedia is by finding sources for worthy articles that do not have them, especially those immediately under attack. I see you are already a member of the WP:Article Rescue Squadron. You can also look for articles in areas of interest to you that might be challenged in Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Unreferenced Article Cleanup or at Misplaced Pages:Unreferenced articles. This can be done most effectively after learning carefully the rules for proper sourcing given at WP:Reliable sources and the talk page and noticeboard associated with it. We already have a considerable amount of discussion, and it is practical work that is needed more. It is easier to talk about why articles should be kept, than to do the work to keep them. And when you do participate in Afds, never do so without a good argument that the majority of people will accept; weak arguments are counterproductive. Remember that by any rational standard most of the articles there should indeed be deleted. I find a good way to keep perspective is to a do a little WP:New page patrol, and to see and identify all the junk that really must be kept out of the encyclopedia. If you want to help policy become more inclusive, first think carefully about just what you want to have included and why it would enhance rather than diminish the encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 01:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Speedy keep

Hi DGG. You may be surprised to see me championing anything regarding "keep" !votes, but you might find this discussion about this AfD discussion interesting. My conclusion is that WP:Speedy keep might do well to have at least one non-bad faith / non-nominator-generated reason, such as WP:SNOW. Thoughts? Bongomatic 18:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I have elsewhere commented just now that the reason for speedy keep should be a "clearly mistaken nomination": or something of the sort, without implying anything about good faith. Except in extreme circumstances, we can't really judge people's motivations, and they are not necessarily relevant. for example, I readily admit that the motivation of one of my principal opponents in some recent discussions is their good faith and honest and forthright desire to reduce the Misplaced Pages coverage of fiction, which they in all honesty think excessive. That they are totally wrong and will destroy one of the key positive features of Misplaced Pages does not affect their good faith.

SNOW is a different matter, and I think we use it altogether too rapidly, because we should give a chance for people to say things that we might not have thought of at first. I think it would be a good idea if almost all afds ran a full 5 days =120 hours.

As for engadget, it closed before I had a chance to comment. I think the nomination was about was wrong as a nomination can be, and showed some inability to understand either the article, or a temporary lapse in understanding our guidelines. I think the nominator sometimes does interpret our guidelins in a way that i would not, but that at most is a persistent error, or non-standard viewpoint. Bad faith in a deletion nomination would be if someone wanted to delete the article of a competitor, or about an organisation that espoused a different ideology, or an article written by an opponent here or in the RW, or to make a POINT irrelevant to the merits of the article, or to do deliberate harm to the encyclopedia, or out of purely reckless vandalism. None of these were present here that i know of. DGG (talk) 20:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to reach a consensus (or at least spark further discussion) at Misplaced Pages talk:Guide to deletion#Summary up to now. Feel like weighing in? Bongomatic 02:15, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

A true CSD survey

Well, I've gone through a number of CSD nominations from the past month and found about 40 that I thought might pose interesting questions on how people perform CSD's. Basically, I'm asking people to review the article in question and answering the question, "how would you handle this" with one of four options:

1. Agree with criteria for deletion. 2. Disagree with criteria for deletion, but would delete the article under another criteria. 3. Disagree with the criteria for deletion, but this is a situation where IAR applies. 4. Disagree with speedily deleting the article.

Alexander Dictionary of English Idioms

Alexander Dictionary of English Idioms has been tagged for speedy deletion as promotional. It may have been deleted by the time you read this message. I can't find references for it, but perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places. --Eastmain (talk) 23:11, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I think its a minor publication of their language school, unknown otherwise, and accordingly I've speedy deleted it as promotional for the school. DGG (talk) 00:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Something else to consider

What do you think about IC 5357 and the half dozen or so stubs like it? Are all galaxies notable - there's likely to be "billions and billions" of them per Carl Sagan - even if we can never write more thant what's in that article - which is basically where to look for the place from the Earth? Are all stars- "billions and billions" of them in each galaxy, most likewise without much more than their location to be said for them? Are all asteroids or other balls of ice and rock out there (or down here)? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 21:41, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

What do I think? i think we should add the same information for each of the few million others that have been catalogued. Though for convenience, we ought to group them together in articles. The notability=article equation is part of the problem. There are 2 qys: should Misplaced Pages cover something, and, separately, how should it be arranged. I have, for example, no objection in the least to group episodes together, as long as a reasonable amount of information is included for each, including the actors, timing, and main plot lines from beginning to end. I think we could have coverage on every street in a city; most of them would be in groups. It would be easier to do than to argue about which ones to include.

The real reason to restrict notability is to main the encyclopedia free from promotion and advertising. As this doesn't affect galaxies, we don't have the problem there. the real point is to stop arguing about arrangement and subdivision, and start writing content.

Personally, i think it would be a good idea to build a stub on every possible notable subject, and encourage people to fill them in. Where would I start? every noun and verb in wiktionary, that there is more than one reference for. DGG (talk) 22:02, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This made me chuckle - we worry about both ends of the scale don't we? "are hamlets notable?" at the one and then "are galaxies notable" at the other. :-) --Cameron Scott (talk) 14:02, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

request for input

here when you have some time (concerns a proposal to Verifiability policy) Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 16:32, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

verifiability and context

I appreciate your recent comment - would you mind proposing wording you would find acceptable? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:31, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

useful general remark

::if anyone wishes to fight with me, this page is the place; if anyone wishes to fight with someone else, please do it elsewhere. DGG (talk) 19:25, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The notability problem in a nutshell

Though it remains in the policy, there are now many exceptions to: If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Misplaced Pages should not have an article on it. - quoted from WP:V (There are a number of areas where this is true, but primary among the one that concerns us here is fiction.) There are several ambiguities: the first is the meaning of the plural of sources, for it is accepted and elswhere stated that ones sufficiently reliable third party source is sufficient. Second, there are many cases where it is clear that first party sources such as official documents from government sources are sufficient to show the notability of the agencies concerned. Third, we routinely accept the probability that there will be such sources. Fourth, the sources for writing an article are not in the least limited to third party sources, for the primary source of the work itself is accepted as sufficient and in fact usually the best source for content. Fifth, and crucial here, is the distinction between "topic" and "article"-- a key argument above is whether a spin offarticle on a character is to be judged as a separate article. The sixth is the lack of a requirement that the third party source be substantial. DGG (talk)

and we see how notability is used as an excuse to delete secrets that are merely hard to source like DCEETA. we have the spectacle of people saying that the NYTimes is not reliable, and it's just synthesis. thanks for the kind comments Dogue (talk) 20:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

there seems to be a recent trend to be as perverse in nominating as possible. See today's nominations for the chairman of AOL, and.a major dam. I think they may be intended as a POINTy demonstration that common sense is an unreliable criterion, or a proof by example that WPedians can be shown to be lacking in that mental quality. DGG (talk) 23:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

What else? Thanks, Aymatth2 (talk) 03:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Spreadin the word.....

From this discussion, we get the box on the right - cool eh? Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:54, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Good work indeed from the two of you! This is the sort of thing that can make a practical positive difference to the encyclopedia! DGG (talk) 22:52, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

You are me

Sorry David, but you are apparently me. --David Shankbone 05:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

all David's are actually clones; we use disguises to conceal the fact, but they don't work 100%. DGG (talk) 09:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I think Shankbone is the cabal. --KP Botany (talk) 09:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

the person who does the photos can control the world. DGG (talk) 09:34, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

You're awesome by me! I originally thought the page was about me, but apparently it is about you. Jeez, if you're going to have haters hating on you, at least get your name right! I'm guessing they put as much thought and research into their self-promotion as they did into that Facebook group. --David Shankbone 14:08, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Prods

You have lost me when you say that "unresolved issues is not a good enough reason to delete". Taking Manhunt (urban game) for example, the issues raised are as follows:

It does not cite any references or sources.

t needs sources or references that appear in third-party publications.
It may contain original research or unverifiable claims.
Its factual accuracy is disputed.
It may need copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling.
It may require general cleanup to meet Misplaced Pages's quality standards.

Its lead section requires expansion.

In other words, it is an extremely poor article that is almost certainly providing misinformation to the readers. So why keep it? Are you perhaps being pedantic and trying to insist that I duplicate all of the above as the prod reason instead of merely referring to the loud and clear issues that appear immediately below the prod box?

We are supposed to be providing the readers with a credible encyclopaedia, not preserving patent rubbish. --Orrelly Man (talk) 19:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• In the case of the above article the prod wasn't correct as the article had previously had a prod removed, AfD therefore is the only way to go. RMHED. 19:57, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

As for your question though,since it applies equally to Prod and AfD:
You should not nominate an article for deletion if it can be rescued: see WP:BEFORE and WP:Deletion Policy. It is an excellent idea to remove rubbish, but only if it cannot be improved. The mere failure to have improved an article is not a reason for deletion by itself, no matter how long it has been unimproved. Let's look at those reasons:

1. We do not remove articles for being unsourced. We remove them for being unsourceable. You need to do a proper search. For games of this sort, I think this should include printed books on children's games. Atthe very least before nominating, you should check Google Books.
2. The second reason is just like the one above; it does need them, & the thing to do is to look for them. It's not a reason for deletion unless there are none to be found. (t
3. If the factual accuracy is disputed, then it should be edited, not deleted. The disputes about accuracy should be discussed on the talk page and resolved. It would only be a reason for deletion if you were prepared to show it did not exist at all, or that there was so much dispute that it was impossible to write even a brief article.
4. If copy editing is needed, then it should be done. The need for this is never a reason for deletion.
5. Ditto for general cleanup. If it needs it, do it. This too is never a reason for deletion.
6. If the lead section needs expansion, expand it. This again is never a reason for deletion.

Thus, none of the unresolved issues were a good enough reason for deletion, just as I said. I hope this explanation helps, more than my edit summary did. As a general rule, what we do with poor articles is improve them. What we do with misinformation is correct it, if we can show it incorrect. If you know enough about the game to make these statements, you know enough to help the article. Articles of this sort do tend to attract dubious material, and need proper attention. Then Misplaced Pages will be a more credible encyclopedia and not provide patent rubbish. I see you are interested in these games, so I look forward to seeing your improvements in this set of articles. DGG (talk) 20:34, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I can see you mean well but you are being very unrealistic. If the original editor will not make the effort to provide proper sources, why should anyone else? You have to remember that other editors don't have the time to do "proper searches" or expand the lead or edit factual inaccuracies and original research. Quite often, when you find a bad article, it has been created by some redlink userid who has made no other "contributions". Best thing to do is get rid of it or you end up wasting valuable time. If the creator is a genuine editor, he can always come back and recreate it. --Orrelly Man (talk) 21:58, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

why? because of our Deletion policy, as clearest expressed at WP:BEFORE, our need to encourage new contributors, and WP:BITE. It is you who unrealistically expect perfection at the first edit. It is every bit as valuable and necessary to fix articles as contribute new ones. DGG (talk) 22:02, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Deletions over concensus

Greetings. You seem like a very smart and level-headed admin, which is why I have come to you for advice. Admin David_Fuchs has been going around ignoring concensus at AfD and deleting things based on his own "research and conclusions", as one person puts it. I thought it was an isolated incident with the "Space Ghost" episodes AfD I participated in, but apparently it's not. Please have a look at the last several entries on the bottom of his talk page. This needs to stop! I'm not really sure what the best move is at this point, please advise. AfD hero (talk) 21:13, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I somewhat agree with AfD hero. The problem in that discussion is that not all of those episodes are of the same "notability". Whereas the others on the list can arguably be considered in the same context, Baffler Meal is absolutely not in the same league as the others, because it is the first appearance of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force and even appears on additional DVD releases than the Space Coast episodes (i.e. on the Auqa Teen DVDs). That episode thus is notable in comparison to other Space Goast episodes because it is perhaps the lone Space Ghost episode to appear not just on the Space Ghost DVD release, but also on the Aqua Teen DVD release as a special feature, for being the first appeareance of characters in a franchise that spawned a video game and theatrically released movie, and as such is covered in a variety of secondary sources as a result. Thus, no real opinion on the merges for the other episodes; however, "Baffler Meal" absolutely is a stand out episode that merits its own article and that does indeed have real potential for further improvement. Sincerely, --A Nobody 22:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Err, we can debate the merits of each AfD all day, but the bigger problem is that we have an admin unrepentantly running around ignoring concensus and deleting stuff. AfD hero (talk) 22:16, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried WP:DRV? It is a great place to get the community to review the deletions an admin has done. Chillum 22:18, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing I can do personally to stop him, you know. The only practical way is first deletion review, to show the closes were in fact wrong, and then if it continues after that, then there are ways to proceed. I watch for the deletion reviews, but start first with the one that makes the best argument. Remember that you will need to show not just that he ignored the consensus, but that he ignored the consensus of good arguments from established editors, and his choice of a rule was unreasonable. The situation which Deletion Review can not currently handle is one like Camberwell Baptist Church, where he made an argument in the closure he should not have made there, and possibly did close contrary to consensus, but there is no real chance the article would actually stand if enough attention were paid. I didn't participate in that one because I thought my !delete wasn't needed. Although I myself think such deletions should be redone, it is very rare for deletion review to overturn a close which actually reaches the acceptable conclusion about the article--that's wrong, but that's what generally does happen here. DGG (talk) 00:50, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The proper course of action in all of these cases is to relist the articles at AfD, and transplant David_Fuchs' arguments from the top down to the comments, then let someone else close. People at DRV usually fail to realize these sort of subtle points and instead treat the DRV as a 2nd AfD, except with a higher barrier for keeping. So I don't think I will bother going to DRV at this point, though if someone else did I would support them. For now I will just wait and keep a watchful eye. AfD hero (talk) 07:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Your AfD statement

In regards to this: I spent three hours before nominating the individual looking through various databases and news sources to find reliable secondary information to prove his notability. I found hits for the two other Robert Prices, but not for this one. Your statement seems to say the opposite but provides no evidence. Your statement also seems to fail criteria under WP:AUTHOR, as having a lot of works is meaningless. Please back up your statement with reliable secondary sources or strike it. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:21, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I would have helped to indicate the search you had made at the nomination, but I do not see I said that you had not done so (as I sometimes have with some other editors)--I assumed you had searched, for I know you are generally careful. As for what I did say, I stand by it: having several books with hundreds of copies in libraries and being published by major publishers in the field=some degree of popularity. DGG (talk) 19:47, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:V doesn't say that an author is notable by sales, nor does having books in a few hundred libraries mean that he is even close to a best seller. Your radical take on inclusion would now include almost every single obscure journal out there. The mere fact that this "cult favorite" and "best seller" is forced to work at an unaccredited school because no one respects his scholarship or what he says in a serious academic way, let alone is willing to report on him in credible news, shows that he fails BLP inclusion. The whole page is heresay from Lovecraft blogs. The page is a coatrack. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:55, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

You raise several issues

1. I have !voted to delete a number of journals, some in the last few days. There are some people who would include every peer-reviewed journal, but I am not sure I accept that. As for obscure journals, and other obscure topics in the humanities, I am certainly as inclusionist as reasonably possible. I came to Misplaced Pages in the first place in good part for that very purpose--and to improve the quality of the ones it already had. our content in that area. Surely you know that some other people here tend to regard much of what all academics in the humanities do as obscure?
2. As for what counts as cult literature, opinions differ. What is one person's serious profession is another person's cult interest. The history of scholarship in the humanities has shown the progressively broadening the sphere of genres to which serious attention is paid. I see 24 academct heses on Lovecraft , including 4 for a Ph.d. I see MA theses from Brown and Columbia and OSU.

The AfD is the place for discussion on the notability of the subject. DGG (talk) 20:35, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

DGG, my point is simply this - BLP requires us to be careful about notability. We need third party reliable sources. I searched. I tried to find them. I couldn't. If there are some sources about the books, then sure, the books can be included. But for a BLP we need biographical information from reliable sources that prove notability. The books were not ground breaking enough for the scholar, professor, or author criteria. There is not enough third party sources about his life. He did very little beside write some controversial books that didn't even get much show outside of a few blogs, some dedicated propagandist groups, and the such. Please find reliable third party sources if you truly feel this page needs to be here. Right now, its just a coatrack for a large group of IPs. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:58, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

since the article is primarily about what he can certainly be proven to have done, which is to write certain published works over the span of his career, I do not see how BLP comes into it. One's books being controversial does not make them less notable. this being my talk p., I end the discussion here. The AfD is the place where you can continue if you like, but I've said I think I need to say, both there and here. DGG (talk) 22:10, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

DGG, if the article is about what he has "done", i.e. summaries of what his books state as fact, isn't that the very definition of coatrack? This is a named page. Thus, it has to be a biography. On that very basis alone, it should be deleted. If you think that information on the books should be saved, then please state "create a new page for the books". This is a biography, not a page for the books. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:18, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

You could not be more wrong. Articles about people are primarily about their accomplishments, and so the consensus is--unanimous except for you-- the afd has closed as a SNOW Keep. this topic is now closed here also. DGG (talk) 02:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Re: The American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education

and the related Joseph T. Dipiro article: an IP editor commented that one was very similar to content on another website, and a quick google search revealed that they both appear to be copyright violations. I agree that the journal could be made into a good article, but it may be better to start from scratch. I've tagged the articles, but if you could review and do what you feel is right I'd be grateful. Verbal chat 20:31, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

yes, I can rewrite them. DGG (talk) 20:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll help if needed - hopefully tomorrow. Yours, Verbal chat 22:25, 21 February 2009 (UTC)(good god I nearly put "xxx" rather than ~~~~ by mistake)

Question from power corrupts

• User_talk:Ikip#no_real-world_notability_established Maybe you could help answer? I know you are considered the intellectual giant on these issues. Ikip (talk) 21:53, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

AMAB may have convinced you, but he did not convince me., i commented there. DGG (talk) 23:37, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I am not convinced, I just respect him writing a long answer to someone elses question on my talk page.

I am thankful that you wrote a long answer too. Thank you. Ikip (talk) 23:39, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Open Access Blog

Is not Open Access News. http://openaccessblog.com/ is a well-meaning but not notable blog. Fences and windows (talk) 23:55, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

New York Public Library classes

Hi David, I've started something at Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages at the Library‎. Hopefully this can be a space for us to work out our ideas, and I look forward to your contributions.--Pharos (talk) 16:13, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Threshold knowledge

I'm not interested. If other users want to keep this kind of article, that's up to them. Presumably you looked at it and made your decision; I looked at it and made mine.

If you look at my talk page, you'll see lots of examples of people moaning about their articles being deleted and lots of other examples of me having a proper discussion with them, restoring articles and helping contributors to improve them. I stand by everything I've said on the subject. Deb (talk) 12:49, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Dear DGG, thank you for your input in this case. I hope I was able to proceed through procedures in a level-headed manner. I would appreciate it if you could take a look at User talk:Deb#Threshold knowledge and, if you feel it would be of value, offer a second opinion. Although perhaps nothing more really should be said... Bondegezou (talk) 19:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Good Germans DRV

Hi DGG, Would you be good enough to review my comment (and the rest of) the DRV for Good Germans. The whole situation is one of the crazier things I've run into, and I trust you to give it a fair hearing. Regards, Cgingold (talk) 17:31, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

yes. an editor first mistakenly converted it to Wiktionary format and now complains it was transwikified. The admin should ideally have spotted it, but I am not sure i would have. DGG (talk) 18:53, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful (as usual) input in the DRV discussion, DGG. As long as the outcome doesn't bar re-creation of the article, I'll be happy. Cgingold (talk) 00:31, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

PS - Thanks also for your remarks re adminship on my talk page -- much appreciated. I'll respond there later -- but I am really curious to know how you even spotted that section in the first place, seeing as it's pretty well hidden, nowhere near the bottom of the page. In fact, I had to look in the edit history to figure out why I had one of those orange "new messages" banners! Cgingold (talk) 00:31, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

seeing your work at DelRev, I checked if you were an admin, & seeing you were not, I considered you might be a good candidate. Before I go ahead with something like that, I read the talk p. history to see if there will be problems. For example, you might have consistently said no to other nominations. BTW, If you click on the "last change" in the banner, you get the history open to the latest change.) DGG (talk) 00:46, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

True enough - but I've gotten in the habit of clicking on the "my talk" link at the top of the page. Anyway, thanks for the bit of explanation, now I don't have to puzzle over it. :) Cgingold (talk) 04:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Asteroids

Hi, The Great Asteroid Stub debate has started again here, and input from someone with awareness of the administrative problems of swarms of minimal stubs might be helpful. Alai (who carried the aministrative flag previously) seems inactive of late, so I saw your note in Archive 9, and thought you might join in, or perhaps you could alert some others with useful insight? I believe we can provide the essential information in a table format (with thousands of entries, NB), with links out to serious articles. But I hate to trash their creator's (Captain Panda) efforts by mass deletion, beyond what is really necessary to alleviate the problems these stubs actually create. I would really like to bring this discussion to a satisfactory actionable conclusion this time.

Thanks, Wwheaton (talk) 23:54, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Declined speedy on Joseph Haslag

In declining the speedy did you note that the author did PR for the subject of the article? User talk:Jacknaudi/Joseph Haslag, Talk:Joseph Haslag It's your call, I'm not going to AfD, I'm not even going to watch anymore, but I do hope wp doesn't get clagged up with PR dross. Bazj (talk) 00:15, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

writing bios with COI is discouraged but not forbidden. Good PR people can be an asset, if they follow the rules-- see our FAQ (on businesses and other organisations). Many people write such articles poorly--professors & their helpers tend about 50:50 to omit the stuff that shows their notability (presumably thinking it obvious), or to enter a lot of spam and irrelevancies including every book review they ever wrote. If they do it OK, good. If not, and they meet WP:PROF, we add or subtract, as needed. COI is a warning that some editing is likely to be necessary. The chairmanship and the publications almost certainly show him as a major figure in his field, and meet the requirements at WP:PROF. Thearticle does need some improvements, & I will follow up and make sure that they are made. Nominate for speedy as promotional when there is no core for an acceptable article. See WP:CSD for the formal standard. If you're dubious about an article and it does not meet the standards for CSD, consider using PROD.DGG (talk) 01:09, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Library types by subject

Category:Library types by subject, which you created, has been nominated for deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you.

I haven't formulated an opinion on this yet, so I'll be interested to see what you have to say. Cgingold (talk) 04:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

• Thought you'd like to know, I've made a renaming proposal for this category. Cgingold (talk) 10:46, 27 February 2009 (UTC)= Merge discussion at Talk:Tom Tucker (Family Guy) ==

I've opened a merge discussion at the above-mentioned location. Please consider participating if you are interested. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 20:32, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Mentioned you on AN.

Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#Request_administrative_assistance_with_whitelist_request_for_Lyrikline.org_page_for_Chirikure_Chirikure The copyright bugaboo is persistent. --Abd (talk) 00:14, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

commented there. DGG (talk) 05:53, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Boy, did you! Thanks. Beetstra, who had unintentionally derailed the process, made up for it by realizing he'd made a mistake by linking the specific whitelisting to the global and site-total whitelisting issue. I.e., he wanted to deal with the whole site, not a pile of individual whitelisting requests. Understandable. Perhaps there was a method to my madness.

However, a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. If I couldn't get one poet link whitelisted, how likely would it be that I could succeed in a site-wide whitelisting. Now, the existing situation may still require some attention here. He whitelisted the English language pages, and I'm not sure that will be sufficient. However, one step at a time! He did, in the end, much more than I'd asked for, and we can clean up details later.

Plus I think I now have a suggested process that will avoid most contention over whitelisting caused by blacklisting admins circling the wagons and routinely confirming their original actions by denying whitelisting requests based on propriety of blacklisting, which is a totally different issue than single-link whitelistings. Because only blacklisters and antispam volunteers routinely watch the blacklist/whitelist pages, however, the issues get linked, quite naturally. It is as if DRV consisted only of a panel of admins who had speedy-deleted articles!

I made almost-specific proposals along these lines on my Talk in response to comment from Beetstra announcing his whitelisting.

Beetstra, while becoming difficult at times, has overall been very helpful, he seems to have recognized that I'm not out to wreck the place, that I'm simply standing up to represent the other side of the equation, that little detail: in the end, it's about content, not about killing all the spam. I believe that we can do both, efficiently, making the anti-spam volunteer's job easier and more efficient. It involves separating the whitelisting process from blacklisting, and establishing a guideline that active blacklist admins (and active volunteers) abstain from denying requests for whitelisting. No harm of one of them accepts such a request, because they are, from my experience, quite unlikely to do so abusively. It's just the denials that sometimes are a problem. It's a product of battlefield mentality that is natural, as you know, when dealing with mountains of spam. WP:WikiProject Spam actually suggests that WP:AGF be set aside in dealing with spam, and I'd say, sure, but that's not complete. Stop spam, intercept it, suspending AGF, on "probable cause." Arrest the linkspam (i.e, blacklist). But then don't have the same people making content decisions on the same links. Use the tools or don't. Don't do both. Normally we talk about, with admin abuse (and I'm making no accusations of impropriety in saying this, admins are following existing practice, usually) involvement in an article and then use of tools. Here there is the use of tools, to protect the project, then content involvement. I.e., an admin then asserts a decline, typically, based on, not clear content criteria, but defense of the original blacklisting. Normally, with content, any editor may assert content that is reasonable (not necessarily acceptable) by making the edit, and it's a problem only if there is clear violation, like vandalism or BLP violation or clear copyvio, there are no rules requiring that all edits be "acceptable." But when it comes to reviewing whitelist requests, suddenly, extremely stringent requirements are set up, and the proposed link must be "necessary." Why? The whitelist doesn't make more work for the linkspam volunteers, as long as there are not a torrent of such, and if the linkspam volunteers pay practically no attention to the whitelist, they simply have less distraction. If an inappropriate link is whitelisted because some spammer pulled the wool over the eyes of a user who closed, it is very, very easy to delete the whitelist regex.

The whitelist page could be mostly managed by non-admin users, who would review whitelist requests, and would routinely approve those which are reasonable edit proposals on the face. Any autoconfirmed user who wants to add a link to a blacklisted site would simply propose it there, perhaps with a link to an article talk page notice about the proposed edit. If an IP or site-owner, etc., wants to ask for a link, fine. On the whitelist talk page. So by the time a whitelist link is approved, there are at least two (and in the presence of contention, three at a minimum) autoconfirmed editors in favor of allowing it. And then implementation can be done by any admin who knows regex, or the blacklist volunteers could be requested to review approvals and add them en masse. (for many links, the regex is pretty simple, and I'm sure there are lots of regular editors who know regex and who would consult.) As I see it, the page could recommend delisting or total-site whitelisting (with global blacklisting), but that request, if it is approved on the whitelist page by other than an acting admin, might go to the blacklist page for review regarding risk of continued linkspam. Before a judge releases the prisoner, the judge might ask the police if there seems to be some immediate and continued danger from the prisoner. --Abd (talk) 18:25, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that there is a possible pool of volunteers who might watch a whitelisting page if it gives them some responsibility, some level of authority to help others make edits. The risk of damage from a bad decision is small, compared to the torrent of linkspam that exists. If there isn't enough help, a backlog would develop, but, now, it wouldn't be the fault of the blacklist volunteers! It would be up to the community to fix it, or not. --Abd (talk) 18:25, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I look at it from another aspect: the same admins who tend to overdelete spam also tend to overdelete articles. You cannot get a set of rules that will limit the damage, without a very elaborate set of controls. There is great concern at the moment about the existing procedural overhead. The best approach I think is to gently adjust the rules, and attempt to persuade the people. There is no possible rule that will replace general watchfulness and a willingness to speak up. All questionable admin actions should be challenged, and I am not speaking of this issue only. Even people too stubborn to back down after making a mistake on a specific issue can still learn eventually. DGG (talk) 19:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello

Congratulations on your chess set post, you got it right. I know you are an Admin, but with respect, most people that are Hall Monitors and Admins are more likely to be Essjay types than say a professional person with a real job. Anyway, I will try to return the favour for you some day. Happy editing and my best regards. Green Squares (talk) 16:42, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but there's a very wide variety between admins, in both quality and background, and I'm not sure how well the two correlate. Some of the admins who tend to support me the most frequently are undergraduates or (I think) high school students. One tends to notice the nastier people more, because nastiness is prominent. I think the general prevalence of it is overrated, and that much of it is due to a few individuals. And they aren't all of them admins,either. DGG (talk) 16:54, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The hall monitor that deleted the articles states that they can be recreated, but he is refusing to it, do you have the sysop tools to put the incorrectly deleted articles back, or the authority to force the hall monitor to put them back? Green Squares (talk) 18:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Some of the admins who tend to support me the most frequently are undergraduates or (I think) high school students. LOL, a few of us are older :) StarM 02:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, as of my final reading, there is certainly enough support for an "Overturn" yet I do not see the articles going back up?! Thanks Green Squares (talk) 12:16, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

NAS

I believe I used this utility to convert a CSV list into a wiki table. — BRIAN0918 • 2009-02-26 17:50Z

Hemispherectomy Foundation

Hi DGG- I'm not here to complain, just want to explain my actions. On Hemispherectomy Foundation I removed the proposed deletion tag, based on the fact that I feel it is just as notable as Vitamin C Foundation or Victor Pinchuk Foundation, which have been hanging around for a while and are lacking in quality. I did add another reference source to Hemispherectomy Foundation and do intend to expand it as time allows. Acceptable? Thanks, Paxsimius (talk) 17:35, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

those other two are dubious as well in their present state & I've marked them. The articles (all 3 or them, actually) must have substantial coverage in 3rd party independent reliable published sources, print or online (but not blogs or press releases, or material based on press releases) to show their importance . Andsome financial data helps also. I'll check back eventually. DGG (talk) 19:20, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Pretzel

This article existed with a timeline as is reproduced on the talk page. This has been converted to plain text consistent with standard encyclopedia formatting. One editor, and I tend to agree, thinks the timeline was a more useful and accesible format for the information. What do you think? Is there a way to have the cake and eat it too? Have you had any experiences with timelines in the past? Clearly it's not standard formatting, but they can be useful and encyclopedic devices me thinks. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:54, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

commented there. DGG (talk) 01:27, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Eleazar (painter)

Hi, thanks for your opinion and for giving me the chance to recreate my article. Because of the recommendation of Chick Bowen, I want to ask you if it's possible to rewrite my article because I'm not allowed to do it; this is what Chick Bowen said about the recreation: "Recreation permitted, but will have to be a sourced, neutral article. If the subject wishes to proceed with recreation, he is urged to seek help from other editors to ensure that conflict of interest is avoided. It would be much better if someone other than the subject wrote it; perhaps someone commenting below would like to do so?" Thanks again. A greeting from Barcelona, Spain.--Eleazar1954 (talk) 16:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I have re-created the article in my user space as User:DGG/Eleazar (painter). First step is to add specific references to reviews of his shows or specific paintings in published sources-- please do this--you can edit that page. For now, have removed the paragraphs discussing the general features of the oeuvre, but they will appear in the edit view between a <!-- and a --> mark as comments; they must be supported by specific references and rewritten as quotations from those references. The items in the references section must be moved to the places in the text that they support. I recognize you are in a sense uniquely qualified to comment on this--but it can't be written that way. I've also cleaned up a little. See what you can do with references & I will take a look in a few days.. DGG (talk) 22:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi, many thanks for the re-creation of the article. I think it’s OK. I have add a Curriculum Vitae reference for supporting what the article explains about exhibitions and collections of Eleazar. Finally, I haven’t put any more specific references or reviews because all are write in paper (not Internet references apart from those that you write and the reviews in the Website of the artist). I hope that everything it’s OK for you.Really thanks again and a greeting.--Eleazar1954 (talk) 14:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Notability of books

I've noticed you quote WorldCat in AfD discussions when referring to books (i.e., Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Patricia Volonakis Davis). I was wondering how this works. For example, I came across Something Borrowed (novel) when doing NPP and I went to worldcat.org and of course the book is there, but I'm not sure how to use that tool to come to the oh, this book must be notable conclusion? Thanks :) §FreeRangeFrog 01:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

You have to consider the type of the book, its date, and the country it's published in. WorldCat includes about 90% of US & Canadian academic libraries, about half to one quarter the US & Canadian public libraries, most academic libraries in the UK, & scattered libraries elsewhere, To find only 4 or 5 library with a book implies either that it has not been published yet, or that essentially no public libraries bought it. If it were in Bulgarian or even Spanish, this wouldn't have any relevance. If its the sort of book few libraries buy, such as pornography, it wouldn't be relevant. You see if something is notable by comparing it with other similar books. "Gone with the Wind", to take an example, is in over 4000 libraries. This book is in 1100. That's about normal for notable current fiction. What would I conclude if it were 200? I'd have my doubts. But if it has been published 10 years ago, that might means something. You need to allow for time after publication: for fiction most public libraries buy the book right after publication, but dispose of it in 5 or 10 years if it isn't read any more, though academic libraries normally buy more slowly, but keep whatever fiction they buy. If, on the other, hand, it were a nonfiction work on medieval history, 200 is pretty good. If it is poetry, sometimes 100 is good. For this -particular book, there's another strong indication -- I see translation into 7 other languages.

Now, the article is worthless as it stands. The first step is to add some data about the publisher and the date of publication & the library holdings and the translations, referencing it to WorldCat. Next step is to find reviews. For popular works, the easiest way now is to use Google News Archive. (for academic books, Google Scholar) . I see hundreds, including, on the first page ones from USA today, SF Chronicle, Atlanta Constitution, Library Journal, Booklist, etc. i also see a hint that its been made into a film. It's announced for 2011,, but not even cast yet, so we can't do an article on the film, but we can mention it if we can find a better source. I suspect the plot summary is copied from somewhere, & probably more should be said--if you can find a decent summary in a review, you can use it as a basis if you rewrite it. People often put in naïve articles about their favorite books. About half the time, they're a lot of other people's favorites also. This is why we don;t speedy them. Good job spotting it as having potential. DGG (talk) 03:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Checking the article on the author, that too needs some sources.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I always felt a little bit on shaky ground when looking at books, but this will help enormously. I had a feeling this particular book was notable based on a cursory search, but I was concerned I was running into some pop culture mirrors and smoke so I decided not to touch it at all. It certainly should be expanded, based on this information. Thanks again. Cheers! §FreeRangeFrog 04:19, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

yes, avoiding the fan stuff and Misplaced Pages mirrors is the key advantage of using Google News Archive instead of Google. It's made all this sort of topic much easier to work on. DGG (talk) 04:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Jews and Scots

Hi DGG, thanks for your note. I think you do tons of great work, but when I suggested putting you to work I didn't mean on that article, so to speak, since I don't think the title is right. Does that make sense? I think the topic is important, but not in this form. Oh, I see now that it's gone. You know, maybe I should put my money where my mouth is: if I have a moment, I'll see about adding a note (or a paragraph) with those references you found to the Anti-Scottish sentiment article. Thanks again, Drmies (talk) 02:40, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree the title is not right-- but it's more specific than anti-scottish sentiment--there is a true overlap. I have not yet thought of a better title, or I would have suggested it The material I picked was from the first 20 gbook hits, there seemd to be thousands of others. I wonder what's is the 19th c. novelists.... DGG (talk) 02:57, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I've consulted an expert. The actual best source was already in the article as written: David Daiches, "Two Worlds: an Edinburgh Jewish childhood." Shows how wrong it was for it to be deleted. I rarely use the term political correctness, but it applies here. DGG (talk) 04:53, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Were you able...

...to read the article? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

thanks for asking, still not yet. I'd appreciate a copy directly.DGG (talk) 09:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Johnny Bravo

Yes, I agree - I apologise if my comment seemed unnecessarily combative, it certainly wasn't meant to sound that way. Black Kite 21:55, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

so the question then, we ought to approach from first principles is the proper handling of disputed merges and redirects, at least for articles that come to afd. too many conflicts have arisen from this. and the results have been inconsistent, and not always rational. Here more than anything else regarding fiction articles, is the need to find proper compromise--and it isnt just fiction articles, though those presently are the biggest problems. this needs to be considered more generally. I don;t really want to start this tonight--it will get in the way of the RW. Essentially the question is the alternative virtues of a widely-seen and very open discussion at a centralized place, subject sometimes to overbalance with people with general views and to over rapid argument with disputed consensus, and more lengthy discussions at article talk pages, less visible to the general community, and subject to ownership by those with concern for a particular group of articles. For dedicated inclusionists or deletionists, there are advantage in either venue, if one works accordingly. We want something where any advantages will be for those who wish to compromise. A key feature of encouraging compromise is to discourage those who oppose compromise, either in a particular case or for a broad class, from overthrowing such solutions. I have no pre-built solution--any process can be used wrongly & devising new is not likely to work without extensive adjustments. DGG (talk) 22:16, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Libraries & the Cultural Record

I thought this new article might interest you. Cheers. Thanks for all your help. ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Eleazar

Hello, I want to ask you if there has been any problem with the re-creation of the article that you rewrote about Eleazar (painter)User:DGG/Eleazar (painter). In any case, I want you to know that I already did (added) what you said to me. See you,--Eleazar1954 (talk) 15:01, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Clickety click

DGG, I thought you might have something worthwhile to say about this AfD and also a relevant part of "WP:CREATIVE" (on which see also my comment). -- Hoary (talk) 00:27, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Heh heh, I'm enjoying this: DGG (ever the inclusionist) tending toward deletion of what's unenthusiastically backed by Hoary (ever the deletionist). Your comment on the meaninglessness of those particular library holdings is spot on: this says less about Powell than it does about the inadequacy of critical thinking behind "WP:CREATIVE". Um, anyway, could you revisit your comment in the AfD? As of a few seconds ago, it needed formatting and other attention. -- Hoary (talk)

I think I've said delete more often than keep today & the last few days. I think that's because fewer articles have been nominated for deletion the last week or so- by and large only the worst stuff is still being nominated, the passable stuff isn't. As for WP:Creative, where it does seem to work is that visual artists in conventional media who have works in the permanent collection of two or more museums does seem to indicate notability. It's easy to delineate things that certainly do indicate certain notability. It's easy to find careers that don't. The question is whether there's a concept of "notable, but not very notable," & what to do with such. DGG (talk) 03:12, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

mediawikiblacklist

I ask you because you're active there--am I correct that any enWP admin can deal with things also? DGG (talk) 05:35, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, although you need at least some knowledge of regular expressions. Stifle (talk) 09:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

David Yermack (finance professor)

Not really sure what to do with this. I saw you removed a PROD in June 2008. It does demonstrate some notability, but the article is problematic in its current state. Also, if it is to remain, shouldn't it be at David Yermack? Currently, that link is a redirect to this article. Enigma 22:21, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

thanks for noticing this. It was originally entered as the right name, and had been (incorrectly) moved. I moved it back. A full professor at NYU Business School, one of the most distinguished in the world, is almost certainly notable by WP:PROF, though the things that show it need to be added--mainly in this case, his major publications and their citation record. I see no reason for a notability tag, as the article has a 99% chance of passing AfD. Though only editors-in-chief of major journals are automatically notable, being an Associate Editor of major journals is a non-trivial accomplishment, and we usually add this material--though we remove lists of where people have merely reviewed for,which is a trivial accomplishment. Similarly, being a visiting professor at distinguished universities is also a significant contributing factor to notability. so I added this back. I'll watch the article. DGG (talk) 04:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages Students' Guide

I noticed your involvement with Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages at the Library. I've got a draft of what is called the Misplaced Pages Student's Guide, which isn't a perfect fit for those getting instruction at the library, but might be useful. In any case, if you have any suggestions, they would be welcomed. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

DRV process, restoration and system

Heya, your recreations of DRV pages are a great help for us non-admins helping out in DRV and majorly appreciated. I was wondering, would you back up a proposal for a change to the DRV process to include restoration of the article as deleted to DRVPAGE/PAGENAME instead of mainspace? That would still allow non-admins to see the page while avoiding any confusion or frustration that may arise from the temporary restoration and would keep deleted articles out of mainspace (and thus main search index) until a decision is made to recreate them... For example, the recreation of TurnKey Linux (DRV at Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2009 March 29) could then be done to Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2009 March 29/TurnKey Linux instead of the mainspace location. Obviously recreation would not be mandatory (as this would be difficult to enforce/support without placing further strain on an already low population of admins) and wuld not be possible if the page contained attacks, copyvios or similar but could be requested and serviced exactly the way it works now. Just a thought. ] (talk · contribs) 14:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I would support any procedure which gets the articles routinely visible during DRV. The proposed one has some disadvantages: The work involved for the admin would be slightly greater in moving it to a sub page, because after the DRV the page would have to be moved back even if deleted, so it can later be found where one would expect it. It will also be a burden on the servers for long pages, as all the links would need to be changed, and then changed back; for pages with a few thousand revisions, the load is significant. But it does have the great merit of keeping it out of mainspace & the index; personally, I dont think it normally does any harm to have it there for 5 days or so, especially if it was originally in mainspace for a long period; however, many people do think this harmful,and the proposal would eliminate their objections,and probably be easier to pass than a plan for routinely using mainspace. We are not the least bit short of administrators: what we are short of is fully active administrators. Too many use it as a trophy, but don't do much of the work. But a script could probably be written do do the move, and the move back. It can't be literally required, because we cannot do this for copyvio and many BLPs, and there's no real point in doing it for obviously meritless reviews. I think it should be required otherwise, just as I think notification of all significant editors should be, and all who commented at the previous XfDs. But there is no reason I can see not to use it boldly as a trial.DGG (talk) 16:11, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and suggested this change at the end of WT:DRV. ] (talk · contribs) 08:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Notifying of featured article review of William Monahan

I have nominated William Monahan for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. -- OlEnglish 21:14, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

commented. the problems are quite radical. With the socks gone, we can see some rationality about this. DGG (talk) 22:47, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Chancing my arm on NOT PLOT

See what you think of this, it might fly. , Hiding T 22:34, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Why shouldnt plot be the dominant element in our articles on fiction? Frankly, I think it often should be. Give me an argument to the contrary. I decided to express this there boldly. DGG (talk) 23:31, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Copyright, scope and consensus. But you know the arguments as well as I do. If you've come to a different conclusion that's your call. I don't think that plot can dominate an article if we are to remain within the law, and I also do not feel it is within our scope for plot summary to dominate our coverage of fiction. I also don't think the consensus is that plot summaries are the dominant reason we cover fiction. But the wind seems to have caught it for the minute. I feel like Charlie Brown, wary of that kite-eating tree. Hiding T 08:10, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Copyright is irrelevant in small summaries (it is indeed a factor for some of the naive contributors who lift them from program guides or other published works, true, it could be done so much to excess as to violate fair use.) Scope, now, I'm asking you why it should not be within our scope. And as for consensus, that's circular: I'm asking you what should be our consensus. At the moment, I would hesitate before claiming real consensus for anything in this area. DGG (talk) 04:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Copyright is not irrelevant, because copyright applies to substantiality as well as length. Copyright is always relevant. Regarding scope, I can't think why retelling plot would be the dominant reason to include an article in an encyclopedia. As to what I think consensus should be, I think what's emerging at WP:PLOT and WT:NOT is good for now. No? Hiding T 13:53, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

reply from Ched on recent AfD (Supermarket tabloids)

Hey DGG, how you doing today? Regarding your recent comment at this AfD. While many editor would like to see a simple "Keep" or "Delete" !vote on the XfDs, and in theory perhaps it is preferable to stick to one or the other, in practice I've seen many articles go through quite a change throughout the 5 day (soon to be 7 day?) process. Being an administrator, I'm sure you've seen even more bizarre discussions. I'm not sure how you're hoping to differentiate between "Tabloid" and "Supermarket Tabloid", but I don't have a problem with it either way. I do think that the "Supermarket tabloids in the United States" is a bit pretentious in title, but that's just a passing note on my part.

Getting back to my Merge !vote: While you may prefer a cut-and-dried "Keep-or-Delete" situation in XfD, the changes that articles are able to go through during the process does lend some credence to the possibility that suggestive !votes can accomplish some positive input. At this point in time, neither Supermarket tabloids in the United States nor Tabloid are particularly well along in development. The former is not much more than a list and some trivia, but the later could be brought up to C or B class without too much difficulty I would think. I agree that the former should not have been tagged, but I'm not going to comment on specific editors, but rather the articles and items in general. It simply seems to me, that at this particular time and in their current states, it would benefit the wiki to merge the articles, get Tabloid up to snuff, and then if one finds enough RS to split out a notable "in supermarkets" fork, or a "in particular countries/cultures" fork - that's fine. Well, that's just my thoughts on the matter, and all previous comments are simply IMHO. Best of luck with the article(s). — Ched : Yes?  © 06:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and I left a note on the AfD that the closing editor is free to consider my !vote in the "Keep" category ;) — Ched : Yes?  © 06:21, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Commented there—in short, the idea that AfD's are not the place to opine about mergers is contradicted by (extremely longstanding) WP process. Bongomatic 07:02, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

and pretty nonsensical practice it is too--see below:

how to differentiate a straight keep close from a merge is an unsolved question. Officially, there is no difference, merge is a form of keep, and technically a merge close is a keep, with a recommendation to merge. All this is,as you seem to realize, a little artificial, and there are two separate problems, whether to keep content at all, and how to arrange it. Obviously, we could have a Misplaced Pages with a few large articles, or we could have one with many short articles, and it would be essentially just the same,except for such matters as the prominence of topics in Google, and the ability to link & organize: we do not have the technical capability at present to link securely to article sections, and we cannot list article sections in categories. I look forward to the time when the contents of Misplaced Pages will be rewritten as a proper database, with discrete units of data, and the appearance and arrangement of the content adjustable according to the readers preference and needs--technically, this is attainable now. In dividing things up, I think it is a good idea to follow the literature. The existence of a separate book on a subject usually indicates the advisability of a separate article--it's an indication that there is quite a lot to say. That standard journalism texts differentiate them tends to confirm this. I'm not about to expand it, but it seems to me that the contents and purpose of the typical US supermarket tabloid is very different to that of the US news-stand tabloid--one aims at sensationalism mixed with a little human interest, the other at human interest mixed with a little sensationalism and perhaps a little news. The UK tabloid is another type altogether. In terms of writing articles, sometimes separating out a small subject can lead to easier improvement in an article--many editors here do much better with topics of more limited scope. But i do know that 5 or 7 or 10 days is a very short time to expand an article properly if done by cooperative editing--most articles here grow slowly over time. If, however, one person takes it in hand, then I think the best principle is to let an ambitious and competent writer do pretty much whatever organization they want, and submit it to criticism. There are many ways to build good encyclopedia articles. There are also many ways to avoid doing so, among which is disputing too long over the proper merging at AfD. As my favorite author Samuel Johnson said, you may stand there disputing over which leg to put in your breeches first, but meanwhile your breech is bare. DGG (talk) 07:14, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Possibly nonsensical, although if an actual consensus occurs to merge in an AfD it seems as valid a conclusion as if it had occurred anywhere else. In any event, my point was simply that your statement that "AfD is not for merge discussions, in any case" is (possibly valid) opinion, and shouldn't be confused with or stated as policy / established and fully documented practice. Bongomatic 08:23, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

←OK, I'll be the first to admit that I probably should be contributing to articles, rather than socializing on your talk page. Now comes the "but" part. Several things come to mind here, and I've read and re-read the items of topic. Several items spark my desire to reply; one would be that great quote you mention of Mr. Johnson, wonderful quote; our (US) forefathers did have an enjoyable flair for the language. The other, and more relevant, topic would be my choice of Merge as my !vote on this AfD. I'll admit that I'll most likely never become a prolific contributor to any of the XfD sections, but I do wish to conduct my posts in with proper insight. In fact, it appears that you, (DGG), and I actually share many common intents. Be they the expansion, or organization of material on Misplaced Pages, or more "real life" related items such as politics. I also have no desire to play "let's gang up on the admin" ;). Now looking back, two statements come to my attention, which indicates that it was wrong for me to post the "Merge" portion of my comments. At the AfD and here, I'm drawn to 2 statements:

1. "AfD is not for merge discussions, in any case." (from the AfD)
2. "...and pretty nonsensical practice it is too--see below:" (from posting above)

That indicated (to me at least) that you felt it was wrong to post "Merge" on the AfD topics. Then I came across this post by you, and now I'm really confused. I do want to understand what is proper, but I often find that actual practice doesn't always see intent in an eye-to-eye fashion. — Ched : Yes?  © 09:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

• Full disclosure: It will be very rare that you'll see a "Delete" from me in any of the XfD sections. Short of NPA, NLT, or an article on what somebodies grandmother had for breakfast - I'm all for including any info we can at Misplaced Pages. ;) — Ched ~ /_© 12:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Essentially, how to handle these is an unsettled question, and there is no consistent practice. This is because of a very basic discontinuity:

AfD is about whether articles should be kept, not what the content of them should be

A merge or a redirect does not actually keep an article, though it may sometimes keeps the content--but not always. What it does depends on what happens after the AfD.

The problem arises because of our focus on articles and notability , rather than on content , appropriate extent and detail of coverage, and "suitable arrangement." I see no solution within the current framework. The first step to a real solution would be to delete WP:N, but this does not have sufficient support yet. The reason is doesn't is because it would force us to decide what we actually wanted to include in Misplaced Pages--about which there is no agreement, so people prefer to take their chances with ever more complicated rules on sourcing, and the presence of principles such as NOT NEWS. The current policies are such as to permit a plausible argument for keeping or deleting almost anything. One extreme solution is to say that we we should keep in whatever a sufficient number of established Wikipedians want to keep in--but a glance at some of the articles that actually get some support at AfD indicates this might not work too well. The opposite, to keep out whatever enough people want to keep out, gives equally bad results. Why we think that establishing the balance of those who come to a discussion by chance gives better results is not clear to me, except that it has some rough resemblance to popular democracy. It might even give a reasonable result a little more than half the time. (more seriously,i think for those that are actually disputable rather than obvious, the figure might be as high as 66%) . And it might be that having the arguments as a !vote on content would be even more chaotic and inconsistent.

In the meantime, we can only use whatever manner of argument that will give a reasonable solution case by case, under the framework at hand, for how else are we to proceed? I make no claim to perfect consistency. When I participate in AfD I speak as an advocate to get what I think should be done, either for the particular article at hand, or sometimes in hope to influence the decision on future articles also. When I close, which is rare, I try to judge what others think should be reasonably done. There is no way a community as large as this will actually have consistent consensus on details. DGG (talk) 14:22, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Extinct editors

this must be one of the funniest AfD comments I ever came across! Owen× ☎ 16:35, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

thanks!DGG (talk) 19:33, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts

Thanks for your participation in my recent Request for adminship. As an editor I've come to respect in our limited interactions, I doubly appreciate your concerns. Perhaps if you would care to mentor me in any areas in which I would seem to be lacking, I would appreciate that; otherwise, just dropping by to give advice from time to time would be enough to help keep me on the right track. :)

Anyway, I don't know if any of this holds your interest, but if you ever wanted to check out the GA drives on either the D&D project (Gary Gygax, Wizards of the Coast, Dragons of Despair, Drizzt Do'Urden, Forgotten Realms, Tomb of Horrors, Dwellers of the Forbidden City, White Plume Mountain, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Planescape: Torment, Dragonlance, and Against the Giants so far), or the comics project (Spider-Man, Spider-Man: One More Day, Silver Age of Comic Books, Alex Raymond, Winnie Winkle, LGBT themes in comics, Hergé, and Pride & Joy (comics) so far), discussion should be rather easy to find, and join in if you like. Either way, happy editing. :) BOZ (talk) 13:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really good on GA drives for articles on subjects I basically know nothing about except what I read in Misplaced Pages. I have no personal interest in most of the fiction I defend. I defend it because the attacks on fiction, as Jack M.'s comment a few sections up shows, are a deliberate attempt to reduce coverage of all popular culture. This is destroying one of the two high points of our encyclopedia (the other is computer technology), and a basic dispute over the nature of the encyclopedia. I too want more coverage of other topics, but this does not require destruction of what is already being done well. The approach you are taking is completely right--to improve the quality of the articles, because many people will understandably not defend low-quality articles.

As for adminship, go slow, and work on inconspicuous places first. We all make mistakes, especially at first, and better they be in the less seen regions. Feel free to ask, here or email, but I see this more frequently. DGG (talk) 15:20, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I certainly appreciate you for what you do around here; if more people did it with your level-headed style, a lot of the drama going on could be avoided. I'm acquainted well enough with Jack from past experience to know all too well what his attitudes towards pop culture are. I've noticed there are basically two types of editors who often seek to delete articles on fiction and pop culture. One sees the notability guidelines as a shield, and the other as a sword. The first group is committed first and foremost to quality of the material presented, and want to see the material improved, and when this seems implausable, they want it to be gone. The second group doesn't like the material in the first place, and will look for any means to denigrate and destroy what others have worked for. It's often hard to tell one from the other, but the first group can actually be quite reasonable. The first group can respect that this material, when done well, is worth showing off and attracts people to the encylopedia; the second group is embarrassed that it's covered at all. I've also seen the argument that people working too much on "non-serious" topics means that people don't work enough on "serious" topics, but then don't people work on what they want to do? If I was here to work on articles about politicians, or science, or geography, or animals, or opera, or whatever, then I would be doing so. If people want serious topics to get better coverage and quality, then they need to get people who are interested in working on those subjects interested in Misplaced Pages. If hundreds of active editors want to work on pop culture stuff and not "serious" topics, then what are you going to get? But anyway, I digress - I wanted to rant during my RfA but left the topic alone since no one asked about it first. ;) BOZ (talk) 19:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Count me in the "sword" group. I supported you despite your stance on fiction, and as far as I'm concerned you're still dead wrong on it (as is DGG). I'd fight you all the way on it if I hadn't decided that it weren't for the good of my health; I'm now left in the rather unpleasant position of having to watch thin-ice-skating editors like JM do that work, in light of the continual failure of the pro-fiction camp to adequately police itself against its worst elements. I've never understood why it is that pro-fiction editors can't see the bright line between what TVTropes can cover and what we can cover; nor between how Memory Alpha can cover a subject and how we can do it. I am tragically addicted to both sites, and very, very appreciative that they're there for what we can't include. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

But that's just it Chris, why can't we include it? And how is shoddy fiction content a dramatically worse danger than shoddy medical or political content, which has a far greater possible impact on people's views. I hate the hiving off and compartmentalisation of knowledge more than anything. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

But, why fight? :) Life's too short for fighting over things not worth fighting over. BOZ (talk) 22:24, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

actually, getting a good free comprehensive encyclopedia is worth the fighting. I'm certainly willing to fight if necessary for each of the concepts of good, free, and comprehensive. Free, I think we've gotten there, and I'm not going to quibble about details of licenses; good, everyone here agrees on the concepts of accuracy, sourcing, freedom from promotional material, and fairness--but improving and maintaining this is a continual struggle & always will be, but the only fight is against outsiders who try to subvert these principles; comprehensive--that's the current fight. By comprehensive I mean everything that a moderately educated person with a functional reading command of English could possibly expect to find in something that calls itself an encyclopedia. (not to denigrate the the non-English readers, but all of this holds also for the Wikipedias in their languages). Moderately educated, means the range of beginning high school students, though US college graduates--the place on the scale depending on the topic. The view that we should not cover fiction throughly is as alien to the idea of comprehensive as the view that we should not cover sports thoroughly, or botany, or the Bible, or ancient Greek history. But I don't want to fight with people like Chris, because I'm not all that likely to convince them; better to explain to Wikipedians in general, those here now and those we hope to recruit. Given the inescapable continuing need to struggle for quality, we need to recruit as many good people as possible, no matter what they intend at first to work on. DGG (talk) 22:44, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, you've got that right - there are definitely things worth fighting for, and I agree with where're you're coming from - just don't think some things are worth fighting over (as in quibbling, bickering, quarreling, that sort of thing). One could spend the rest of one's life on the WP:FICT talk page... but, why? :) BOZ (talk) 01:41, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not even on my watchlist, and I usually wait a week or two between visits, because the status of things will be much the same. DGG (talk) 02:29, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

That would be my point. ;) BOZ (talk) 13:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

We can't include it because it is (in general) impossible to do so while maintaining the same perspective as the rest of the encyclopedia. I have absolutely no problem with us having an article on Donatello (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) in principle, but if that is to be the case then I expect that article to present the subject from a real-world perspective and not a fictional one. DGG's "everything that a moderately educated person with a functional reading command of English could possibly expect to find in something that calls itself an encyclopedia" only covers real-world material. To do otherwise is to fail our readers, who should be able to expect that any article is presented from a global viewpoint which concentrates on the important real-world aspects of the subject. In practice, it has been shown that this simply doesn't happen by itself in articles which are predominantly fiction-based. For fictional content to flourish it must be possible to present it from a fictional perspective, which is what Memory Alpha allows. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:35, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

You're probably more in the "shield" camp than you think; the "swordies" would prefer not to even have an article on TMNT itself (not the characters, but the whole thing, because it is pop culture), but have to suffer it because it's notable enough that they can't do anything to get rid of it completely. Now, they can pick it apart all they like, but they know they are stuck with some minimal amount of properly sourced coverage, so they know they have to live with that. I'm implying an actual dislike or disdain for the material itself, not just a feeling that it can't be properly covered and all that encyclotalk about sources and POV and OR. At least, that's how it works in the made up world in my mind. ;) BOZ (talk) 13:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I realise that the deletionist boogieman who AfDs articles which are well-sourced just because he thinks there's too much anime on Misplaced Pages is a much-loved stereotype, but having been on speaking terms with a number of arch-deletionists I can't say that I've ever seen an example of this. It is certainly the case that some deletionists will consider taking an article which has at least potential for improvement to AfD because in its current state it is simply fanboy flypaper which will get worse rather than better if left alone, but this isn't the same as deleting an article just because it's about a fictional character or whatever. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:11, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I wish you were right. I will take it as an optimistic prediction for the future. DGG (talk) 20:16, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Lists of fictional things

I'm curious. Why should lists of fictional things have a lower bar for inclusion than individual fictional things? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 09:16, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

How are we to handle somewhat less than notable subjects? we give them a subarticle. And the next step down: a paragraph on a list. And then: a mention in an article. This goes for fiction and everything else as well. Consider for example the battles and skirmishes in a war: some of them are worth articles by themselves; some paragraphs in a more general article. Some a mention. If you accept this, then it is the same whether the war is real life or fictional.

The reason for this is that it lets us proportion content to importance. Otherwise we have some things that have full articles, and some things with no mention at all. And nothing in between. This is wrong on both sides, and if they are the only alternative, will lead to an argument of arbitrary decision for every one of them. There is an alternative view: that everything that can be individually identified is worth an article, and the only distinction is long or short. There are two critical problems with this: first, the overhead of managing the several hundred million articles that would result, and the artificial importance it would give to what isn't worth it, which for many things in the RW, would amount to promotion and spam. The only other view is that nothing that isn't very important should be mentioned at all--or if mentioned, not explained. That's not an encyclopedia.

This basically makes me not an inclusionist, but a mergist. Inclusionist and exclusionist lead to conflict, because there's no room to compromise. Between compromise and conflict, I know my choice. DGG (talk) 12:02, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered that there may be other ways to cover not-individually-notable subtopics in ways other than lists or individual articles? Have any satisfactory or unsatisfactory alternatives been proposed to you? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:17, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Certain there are, and that's exactly what I am advocating. I mentioned them above: formal subarticles, or less formally, as paragraphs. But to do this, we need the article in which the subarticles are to be merged. For simple subjects, the main article will do, but beyond it it makes for confusion, especially if the sections are more than single paragraphs.: it's essentially a matter of style. The serious question is how much content they should get. This is what I am basically fighting for. i would support a great many more merges if there were some way of guarding against loss of content. But, as you know, controlling the content of an articles and handling disputes over this is one of the things Misplaced Pages does not do that well for anything but heavily watched articles. DGG (talk) 12:23, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

What is a subtopic? What is not a subtopic? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I call them sub-articles, by which I mean a named section in an article, with a redirect, and with the redirect included in the appropriate categories. I'm not sure of what to call mention without a named section, and I'm not sure what to do about redirects for them. We can do them, through the use of anchors, but this is not currently a routine technique here--partly because we seem to have no automatic way to mange changes. The question of what deserves what is a matter of degree. DGG (talk) 12:36, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Could you expand on what you mean by "it's a matter of degree"? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:51, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

In the case of a character, the more important the character and the more important the work, the greater likelihood of an article. There's usually a clear distinction between principal leading character, secondary named characters, background characters, and un-named ones. How important a work is will always be a matter of judgment, except at the extremes. If it won an Emmy, say, at least some of the principal characters are likely to be worth separate articles, and so on down. At the other end, if it is barely notable as a work, we just need to mention the principal characters in the article, and have no need to even mention the rest. We could draw up a table, but it will always involve a little judgment where to put things, and will also depend asa third factor on the amount of usable material and complexity, keeping in mind that primary sources are sufficient for basic description. How far down to go and for which works can be settled by compromise. If consensus changes either way about how much depth to give to fiction, we can modify the arrangement. Frankly, it seems obvious to me. I am not the one who suggested this--I think MAXEM did. DGG (talk) 13:04, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Why does importance matter? Why does the main character of an important series moreso than the main character of a less important series? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 14:33, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Because that's what users are likely to want information on, & we write an encyclopedia for providing information to users. By importance, I mean other things than just popularity, such as historic or artistic importance, though such importance of the show must of course be shown by the usual second references. There is a place for WP:N, about the show. Are you saying that you =would give just as much coverage to an character from an unimportant show, or that you would give just as little to a character from an unimportant one? In either case, it violates NOT INDISCRIMINATE. In the first, we get an encyclopedia oftrivia, in the 2nd we don't get a comprehensive encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 14:37, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Not all of my questions were necessarily because I held an opposing position. I appreciate the food for thought. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 21:23, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I understood that from the first. We were cooperating in trying to get a clear statement of the position. DGG (talk) 22:23, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

well-worded AfD.

Nicely said! tedder (talk) 02:50, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I might have said keep a year ago in order to establish the principle, but the principle is firmly enough established, that we can be a little flexible in interpreting it. DGG (talk) 02:56, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I wish we could get WP:SCH to be policy. It would make things like this much easier to deal with. (I thought you'd already commented on that AfD- you haven't) tedder (talk) 03:05, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Well said AfD

Put absolutely perfectly. Incidentally, if you haven't seen it in the morass of my talkpage I replied on the Oo7565 matter. I'm still not sure a ban would be the way to go – I suspect he'd come straight back under another name, and at least this way someone can keep an eye on him. On an unrelated matter, you might want to take a second look at AFD/Brindle family; I've still to find a single reliable source for this article, and every one of the "sources" provided in the AFD is the complete opposite of the article. (The article is about the family being a crime family; not a single source mentions any member of this family ever having been convicted of any crime.) – iridescent 17:37, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

What's the connection between Alan16 and Oo7565? tedder (talk) 17:50, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

none that I know of--Iridescent was giving a single comment on 3 separate issues. DGG (talk) 18:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Wealthy fictional characters-- opinion?

List of wealthy fictional characters looks hopeless to me—what do you think? Bongomatic 07:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

add references with quotations from the works, and it wont look so hopeless at all. DGG (talk) 08:46, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I added an item (no references), but someone else nominated it for deletion— have to say, that upon further reflection, I think it has to go (despite its cuteness). Please add your views at the AfD. Bongomatic 00:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

yes, its not a good job, but the topic is a possible one. Some day, if I am never needed at afd, and people accept a compromise at WP:FICT, .... DGG (talk) 00:50, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Happy DGG's Day!

DGG has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as DGG's day! For being one of our more sensible, clueful users, enjoy being the Star of the day, DGG! Cheers, bibliomaniac15 03:36, 25 April 2009 (UTC) If you'd like to show off your awesomeness, you can use this userbox.

It's about time! ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:53, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Edwin Osgood Grover

If you have a moment and feel like it, would you mind a look here? I *think* the subject is probably notable but given when he lived, finding sources is a challenge. Some of the scholar results seem to fit, but others seem entirely unrelated. There are also a number of news hits, but they're behind pay gates. Know that they're not required to be publicly accessible to use, I just can't judge content to establish notability from what I can't see -- but thinking that quantity here might get past WP:PROF more so than quality. Thoughts? StarM 00:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

There's enough to tell. The NYT isnt substantial, 51 words, butt he very fact they gave it an article at all is significant. That he then published a long essay in the NYT Bk review is significant. The LA Times article is a signif ref. also. But the most useful general approach is something fairly new: WorldCat identities; best technique is to find a book by him in the regular WorldCat, then click on the author's name.: . Significant author & lecturer. Meets WP:BIO. DGG (talk) 01:49, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, didn't know about WC IDentities, will have a look at it when I have a few moments. I had a feeling he was probably notable. ThanksStarM 03:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

It's new, technically still experimental. I love it--the info was always there, but this saves a great deal of work compiling it from the individual book entries. DGG (talk) 03:22, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:FICT

I just wanted to mention that you had a pretty solid idea for how to obtain a compromise, and I really want to explore it. But I think it would be much easier to explore if a starting point came from you, instead of just trying to put words in your mouth. You mentioned the idea of accepting some level of strictness on what is permissible for a stand-alone article, but in exchange for a liberal concept of what we write about. This struck me as something that would focus on merging certain kinds of content, let alone making use of lists.

If you don't have a firm idea of what this might look like, there are other ways forward than to just try to push a new idea at WP:FICT. We could discuss it here and now you want. I'd even be willing to help you draft a proposal in your userspace, even if we left a few blanks. I just think you have too many good ideas to let your comments be lost in the whirlwind. Randomran (talk) 19:00, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, but first of all I think we should work on my proposal yesterday at WP:NOT. In the past the relationship between that and WP:FICT has proved a sticking point, because in principle NOT puts a limit on everything. There's a current discussion there where considerable confusion is being shown. If we can't have separate articles per WP NOT, then there's no point discussing them. DGG (talk) 19:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a good point. I don't think we're going to build a consensus to remove it. Even if people insist that a straw poll shows the policy lacks consensus, they're not going to be able to remove it if they haven't persuaded the other half to let them remove it. That's unfortunately how Misplaced Pages works, and what consensus means: whether people will let you do something. If you're referring to your suggestion here, then I think you're onto something. I'm going to reply there. But I think the best thing to do is to stop people from making huge proposals, and focus more on incremental improvements. "Here is a slightly softer version of WP:PLOT. Do you think it's an improvement on what we have now?" Repeat that process until we hit something that most people can live with. Randomran (talk) 21:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

The main thing I'm aiming for is to get full content. I want an agreement to have substantial but not excessive plot summaries. I don't actually care very much where they go., except that for episodes it's clearer outside the main article. I want substantial information of characters; for major fictions, I think it's best to organize that as a separate group of articles. I want some information on background elements, not the wiki wookipedia does it, with an article for everything. but in reasonable proportion; again, I think its best organized as a separate article or group of articles if there's a lot to say. I don't want the sort of summaries that appear in TV guide, but encyclopedic ones, that say what happened in the plot lines, in detail proportional to the importance and complexity.

The only real reason I've defended most of the individual articles is because its the only way to keep content from being destroyed. I would really rather work from the content end, but at the moment it's impractical, because most of the people who oppose separate articles also oppose full content. They really think an encyclopedia should not cover fiction in detail. I think it should. The answer is to cover it in moderate detail, but they have so far not been willing to compromise, because thy think its a point of principle. They're using the sort of argument that opposed fiction in public libraries in the 19th century.: Misplaced Pages has a serious job to do, & that's incompatible with coverage of trivial matters. But fiction of various sorts is one the major preoccupations of mankind,, and has always been.

I'm certainly open to a compromise on NOT that would prevent articles being 100% plot. DGG (talk) 21:33, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the "point of principle" goes both ways. I see principled inclusionists and deletionists as a problem, not people to be admired for their "convictions". Consensus-building calls us to a higher principle than our own viewpoints. For every deletionist who tries to demolish an entire section of plot, there is an inclusionist at WP:ARS who sees the rescue tag as an invitation to spam the AFD rather than improve the article. For every deletionist who wouldn't so much as consider a merge of some episodes, there's an inclusionist who would defend even the worst WP:GAMEGUIDE. I honestly believe that if we could exclude these belligerent editors from any discussion, we would already have a compromise. But the fact remains that disrupting an effort to build consensus is not the same as disrupting Misplaced Pages, even if I sometimes wish that it was. So we don't just need a proposal that will appeal to the people in the middle... but we need a proposal that will be attractive enough that the *reasonable* inclusionists and deletionists won't be swayed by the disruptive efforts of their "principled" allies who actively filibuster any consensus.

I think full content is a totally attainable goal, if there are standards of quality and importance. I think the episode issue will require its own solution, if only because their serial nature requires a distinct solution from other elements of fiction. But as for elements such as characters, I think it's possible to include them on four different levels:

1. The highest tier of characters each get their own article.
2. The second tier of characters are combined into a list.
3. The middle tier of characters are covered in a list within an article on/across the whole fictional series.
4. The low tier of characters are covered in a list within an article on the individual fictional work.
5. The bottom tier of characters are considered trivial, and get at most a one-sentence mention in the article's plot summary.

Ranking content into tiers would have to be based on both quality and importance, which are the two things that WP:N tries to accomplish. If there isn't enough verifiable information to write about that character, then it doesn't need a huge article, and it's not really fair to game that by suddenly throwing in scene-by-scene factoids. Beyond that, there would also have to be some measure of importance, because not every webcomic should be entitled to a whole stand-alone list of characters, let alone individual character articles. But I think a compromise would roughly take the form that I'm talking about above. Randomran (talk) 22:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

That's one axis. The other one is the importance of the work. I do not defend elaborate articles for unimportant works. It makes the encyclopedia disproportionate, and gives an excessively amateur look--like at present. Importance is measured within their genre, and is not necessarily the same as popularity. I will not defend an article , long or short, on each Barbara Cartland heroine.

But I would still like to do it not as article, or combined article being the difference, but rather that the highest tier of characters in the highest tier of works gets extensive coverage, and so on down. Whether in a separate of combined article is secondary, and will depend on multiple factors. DGG (talk) 22:19, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we're largely on the same page so far. I think that you're right that we should decide how much coverage first, and then decide where to include it. I think that points towards a two-step test of some kind.

1. First, we ask "how much good coverage can we find on this character?" By good, we mean some amount of information on its reception, but also a solid plot summary. By implication, that excludes a certain amount of detail, like detailed physical descriptions, a detailed scene-by-scene recap, or an exhaustive list of strengths and weaknesses. The idea I'm getting at is that just because you *can* write 100k about a character, it doesn't mean that you *should*. The level of detail has to be proportional to the amount of verifiable good content, however we define "good".
2. Once we have enough of the right kind of content to make a spinout of decent quality, we then go to the question of importance. Important characters from important works will get their own article. Less important ones will be part of a list, let alone a list within an existing article, and thus a tighter summary may be necessary. This is basically a question of slotting it into the five different categories above. To some extent, I agree with you that the importance of the work itself is part of determining whether the character is important. But I wouldn't want to get too complicated here, either. So even though I'm saying "important" as a stand-in for "in-universe importance AND out-of-universe importance", I also don't want this to turn the guideline into multivariable calculus.

Does that make sense so far? Randomran (talk) 23:02, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Closer to Decision tree learning--and rather than avoid it, that is exactly the way I think of it. DGG (talk) 23:56, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

So I take it that you think this is the good basis for a decision tree? (e.g.: 1, do we have enough good content, and 2, is that good content important enough for an article / list / embedded list?) In which case, we'd just need to discuss how we'd distinguish good content from unnecessary detail, and how we'd distinguish the different levels of importance. Randomran (talk) 00:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but in more detail. The decision on whether we have enough content to write "something", and then the decision how much to write, and then the decision about where to put it. Each of which have multiple stages. But for almost all fictional elements we will have something to write, t because primary source in the fiction is good enough for obvious description of what is there. It isn't necessarily binary. (Actually I would probably express it as a table in the end.) A separate question is how to discriminate: whether numerically, and if so the ranges to use. The virtue of expressing things this way is to be able to consider the factors one at a time, not holistically. Holistic judgements tend to be affected by overall feelings about the material, not objective decisions. You know: I like this game, or its a lousy book, or this looks ridiculous, or too poorly written to be worth reading. Similarly with whether the sources are significant and reliable--there are many factors, and often the decision is not binary: e.g. just good enough till something better comes along. The usual method for doing this is to suggest factors, and discuss their significance, and try to trank them in importance. But not today. DGG (talk) 00:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I think we agree in principle. The only thing I'd add is I'd rather err on the side of simplicity, even if that means we sacrifice some accuracy. I worry about having too many factors to look at. But you're also right that if we try to collapse it all together into one holistic measure, it quickly becomes a subjective value judgment rather than an objective test. I think it's fair to leave it there for today. We can pick it up again in a day or so, and try to discuss where to go. Probably a good place to start would be the first aspect: what kinds of information we want or don't want... and then leave where to put it (and, thus, how to limit it based on importance) for a later time. Randomran (talk) 00:59, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• Did you want to try making something in your userspace, just so we have a more tangible way to work out some of our ideas? I think we have essentially a two-step test evolving here. Randomran (talk) 17:01, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

(I would prefer if this discussion be continued here for the moment between just Randomran and myself. Please use a separate section otherwise.)

Relations

See User:Aymatth2/Relations. Don't know whether to laugh or cry. Don't know what action if any is needed. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:26, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

since 10% (e.g., Swiss-German, Israel-Ukraine, Latvia-Poland) , and another 20% clearly defensible (e.g. Denmark-Estonia, Israel-Italy, Argentina-Peru), its a pity he did the others. It looks like he understood geography and history just as little as the people who are attacking all of them indiscriminately DGG (talk) 14:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I can't see any pattern, but maybe there is one. He put some work into making the maps, tracking down the embassy sites, adding the internal links. Not a lot, but a start - if there were any plan to expand the stubs. Quite a lot probably are defensible, not all obvious. I tried to recover a few: Canada/Haiti amazing there was not an article already; Nicaragua/South Ossetia not so obvious until you find out about the furor over recognition, then clear; Greece/Nigeria also not so obvious until you focus on trade & investment, then clear; Estonia/Mongolia - well, nice try but no banana. Some of them really don't make much sense. It bothers me that these stubs are going to keep popping up in AfD, each generating much more collective energy in the discussion than it would take for one editor to do a reasonable first expansion. Oh well, not much that can be done, I suppose. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

a/ We can ask for a motion at AfD Talk that there be a 4 week moratorium on deleting them. Try it. b/ people like you & me can nominate the weaker ones, & only the weaker ones c/people can systematically source them . As for c, I unfortunately have another priority, which is fiction. DGG (talk) 18:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I checked AfD talk and someone is already suggesting a change - but I don't know if that will help much. Just slowing the process down is not particularly useful. I am reluctant to work through the list nominating the weaker ones, because I don't know which they are without checking a bit - I am sure there are surprises like Nicaragua/South Ossetia. And my attention span is way to short to work through country X/Y articles for the next two or three years. No. These tadpoles are going to have to survive or not survive on their own, with a bit of help from the Rescue Squad. Aymatth2 (talk) 02:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

you are saying in essence, that it is so much easier to delete than to save, that the deleters can usually overwhelm those who want to improve articles. You're right. The solution then, is the more general one of requiring the nominee to search, and present the results of the search. DGG (talk) 02:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Now that is something I entirely and fully support! Brilliant concept. Before nominating an article for deletion, check to see if it can be improved. An amazing and original suggestion. I would like the following policy for AfD nominations:

• Add an "==External links==" section to the article if not already present
• Search for sources that may be relevant
• Create * {{cite web |url=|title=|publisher=}} entries in the external links section for the sources found
• In the nomination for deletion, state the search terms used.

I think that simple rule would save a huge amount of effort for reviewers. See Man Shield for an example of the result on a 1-line stub with no references. Great idea. This should be policy. Where is it being discussed? Aymatth2 (talk) 13:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

several points

first, any style of referencing will do, there is no need to use the cite templates; if you put them in wrong, somebody will fix them. The point is to get them in somehow

second, when you do use them, by far the best way is with the "cite gadget" User:Mr.Z-man/refToolbar, added to your monobook JS page in user preferences.

the full details for using thecite templates, which are very powerful but correspondingly complicated, are at WP:Citation templates

third, we need references, not External links, third party published reliable sources which support the notability of the article. Some will be on the web, others not (and anyway cite web is not what one uses for newspaper articles, etc found on the web but rather the more specific templates.) If you find a book that supports the notability, it can be added as a reference to a general statement about the article. WorldCat is a good way to find them. A general web site that does not meet the requirements a reliable source can often be used as an external link, though, and it helps a little.

fourth, we want good references--material that actually supports the article. andyou sare really supposedto have read them, though that step is often skipped in practice here.

For a refresher on this: One way is to start with WP:V,followed by WP:CITE andthe details in WP:Footnotes But the very clearest information for how to do this is the section on "Researching Articles" in How Misplaced Pages Works by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates, available free online at . Everyone working here could useful read the whole book. I have, twice--I think it's better in print: see

BUT this has been discussed several times, and rejected. The discussions are mainly at the AfD talk page, WT:AFD. I'll check for where the latest one is at the archive. DGG (talk) 17:08, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your feedback. I am starting to get more confident but still have a lot to learn about policies and guidelines, etiquette, mechanics etc. I will read the book.

I prefer using cite templates, and have the parameters for the web, news and book variants stuck on my wall - but that is just personal preference: makes it more likely to get the format right. I am o.k. with external links sometimes, but agree that all the content needs inline citations so it can be verified. But I will sometimes go through a research mode where I hunt down sources, read them, decide there is useful material and put the reference in as an external link (memo to myself). Then when I have sorted the subject out in my head, go back and write the article content, moving the external links up into references in the body. Just an approach. Man Shield is an example - started it, got distracted, have to get back to it. As it stands, it would qualify for deletion. This is just mechanics.

I was too explicit. The main idea was that nominators should check to see if there are readily-accessible, good sources, and should say what their search turned up in the nomination - some do, many do not. Also, I would prefer that both nominators and editors contributing to the debate would put any newly-found sources into the article itself than into the debate, simply because that makes it easier to expand the article. But I suppose an AfD discussion is about whether an article is good enough to be kept as it is now, rather than whether it has potential. So I suppose the AfD nominator is not obliged to consider whether it has potential, and certainly is not obliged to try and fix it. I just wish they were not so quick off the mark sometimes. Recreating an article that has been deleted after extensive debate takes a very confident and determined editor. Once killed, a small but useful article is very unlikely to be recreated.

Can the rules be changed now? I am coming to feel that, after massive debate, the framework of policies, guidelines and processes for Misplaced Pages is becoming cast in stone. Sometimes I see an effect of the process that is a bit irritating, and raise the subject. Generally in the end I am convinced that there is nothing much that can be done, probably nothing that should be done. The framework works very well. The job now is more about improving the content itself. Aymatth2 (talk) 19:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

not stone, very stiff mud. After two years of trying, Afd was changed to seven days, though not without opposition. DGG (talk) 21:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Horror film genre-specifc reliable sources

If you have time, I'd appreciate your looking in at Horror film genre-specifc reliable sources and either advise or contribute. Schmidt, 21:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Contribute new ones I can not, but I suggest that you need an explanation of why you consider each source reliable. possible a sentence or two for each, especially the ones without articles, or perhaps even on the talk p. I made a change to give direct access for the first two as an example. . Revert if you don't like them. I know it violates the usual rule for external links, but this is a special case--the point of a p. like this is to be convenient & it probably won't be in mainspace. . Where are you thinking of putting it, and under what title: I suggest: "Reliable sources for horror films" in WT space, and then I and others could do some similar and then we could have a list -- and of course a category. DGG (talk) 22:06, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I do much appreciate your looking in. I have just given the page a few more tweaks to gently address ongoing mis-interpretations of WP:RS and WP:NF by well-meaning editors. Or maybe I am simply too liberal (chuckle), but guideline IS guideline. I like your suggested title, as my own is simply a descriptive of the work-in-process. I decided to "source" back to the relevent page of each various site's pages that explains their rationale, editing practices, and editorial staff... rather than having a linkfarm... in order to allow editors wondering about their sources to have a direct link to the page. And pardon my innocence, but what is "WT Space"? Schmidt, 22:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

at the simple end, I meant WP space -- the pages where guidelines are put as in WP:N. WT was a typo, it does exist, as a functional abbreviation for the WP space talk pages--the abbreviation for the talk page of WP:N, is WT:N. Next, the reference to articles would do for the ones that have articles. At least a word or two must be said about the others, or else you're just asserting they're ok on your say-so. And for the ones that have articles, the articles must indicate why they're not only notable, but reliable sources. My view is that it still helps to have a guide of some sort on the proposed page, not just a listing. DGG (talk) 23:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Just got in from a shoot. Will do as advised and give a brief description of each (not already with wiki articles) and then use the current refs to cite the description and assertion of RS. I want the reader to be able to follow the refs to the same information I have found. And if I find other sources, I will add them as well. Any suggestions for my preliminary sections describing why the article exists? Schmidt, 03:27, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

That's tricker, because this should be crafted as a precedent. Tomorrow. (Question: might be be well to discuss some places that are not good sources?) DGG (talk) 03:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

from a recent deletion review: how to close XfDs

judging consensus is trying to evaluate what the other responsible people there think should be done. One can evaluate arguments, but only to see which ones are not in conformity with policy. I completely disagree one can choose which policy of competing ones applies, or how to interpret policy: both are for the community to decide (or whatever small fraction is paying attention). I do not argue to convince the closer in particular of the merits of my argument, but to convince others who may come and look at the discussion and give an opinion. The closer should follow whatever policy-based argument a clear majority agrees with, unless it's totally irrational. DGG (talk) 02:06, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Sources about journalists

Hi DGG

Calling on you in your capacity as librarian, not admin. Do you know any good places to find information about journalists, rather than articles by them? I have just started a stub article on Michael Theodoulou who is an extremely prolific and I think well-regarded journalist. Any thoughts on how to find citations relevant to an article on him?

Thank you, Bongomatic 06:06, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

this has always been a problem. It would be much easier --as in almost all professions--to find non-directory information about historical than current figures. There are two fairly comprehensive specialized indexes: Communication and Mass Media Complete from Ebsco and "Communication Abstracts" from Sage, if you can find them. Lacking them, the best is probably the type of general database one finds in a library: (multiple exact titles of each, with different degrees of coverage): Proquest (ABI Inform, Periodical Abstracts) ) or Ebsco (Academic Search, Business Search) or Thompson Gale (Academic ASAP) , or Wilson (Business Periodicals Index , OmniFile). All public libraries have at least a truncated version of one or another, usually available outside the library to residents with a library card. All college libraries have a relatively full version of at least one. Key magazines covering the field include: "American Journalism Review" and "Columbia Journalism Review" There are also a large number of regional newsletter type publications, but almost always everything in them will be of the nature of press releases. General newspaper indexes sometimes work, if you can sort out the articles they themselves have written. DGG (talk) 15:43, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Managed to get some access but wasn't able to find anything other than by the journalist. Maybe something will turn up eventually. Bongomatic 16:13, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

if you let me know by email what your library facilities are I can make some more precise suggestions. DGG (talk) 16:14, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Re: Onyx Pharmaceuticals

Hi DGG,

Thank you so much for the revisions and edits of the Onyx Pharmaceuticals page! I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out with article. I removed the dead links on analyst coverage and instead linked to Onyx's Yahoo!Finance Analyst Coverage page. In addition, I added Onyx's Hoover's profile page under notability.

When you have a chance to look over again, can you let me know if it looks like it is ready to be posted?

Thanks again for your help! - EG
EGagnon7224 (talk) 13:55, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

you still need to write the basic description of the company. and insert the references for it, and add the appropriate infobox. Please learn how to do it yourself. See our |guide to writing Misplaced Pages articles and, for further details, the appropriate chapters of , How Misplaced Pages Works by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates (also available in print). Factors that count towards notability for a company include gross revenue, number of employees, and date of establishment.--these are expected as part of an article. Get the info, and link to Hoovers etc as the source, I touched up the product part. For the scientific references, you need to find the p. numbers for Cancer Research, and the PMIDs for all three articles. The AP and DJ articles need web links. And do what I said for establishing stable links to changeable pages. Then, make the links to Misplaced Pages articles for the various enzymes and medical conditions. Yes, I could do all this for you. But it's your article. DGG (talk) 18:01, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Bilateral relations task force welcome

Hi, DGG, and welcome to WikiProject Bilateral relations! We are a growing community of Misplaced Pages editors dedicated to identifying, categorizing, and improving articles relevant to the relations between two countries. If you have any questions, feel free to ask on the talk page, and we will be happy to help you. Again, welcome! We hope you enjoy working on this project. Ikip (talk) 05:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to the project DGG :) Thanks for all your help. Ikip (talk) 05:07, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Pirate ships

Hi DGG. Here's an interesting case. Dai Hong Dan is clearly a candidate for deletion as WP:ONEVENT (see all-date Google news archive search—not perfect, but gives you an idea). But it seems that individual ships that were the objects of piracy are somewhat like episodes in a serial. Any thoughts on how to deal with them? Bongomatic 15:20, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

all large ships are notable. This one especially. Even if one doubts the first part of the corollary, being taken over by pirates is sufficiently important, whether in the 16th or the 21st century. The problem article is that yacht they took over. Yachts are not necessarily notable, otherwise. DGG (talk) 16:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. What guideline or logic gives rise to the intrinsic notability of every large ship, regardless of coverage? Bongomatic 22:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

95% consistent practice of AfD for the last 2.5 years, since i first came--and---very soon after--questioned some such articles. I questioned a number of such practices at first, but the longer I'm here, the more impatient I get with AfDs & the more I think that such blanket acceptances are the way to avoid conflict and return to article writing. If it seems reasonable that we should have an article, that's good enough. What we want to keep out is the tabloid fodder and the junk and the spam. Not merely things that people think not quite important enough. DGG (talk) 23:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Texas A&M Foundation

I left a comment in response to your comment at the AfD for Texas A&M Foundation; I don't know whether you saw it or not. —Emufarmers 19:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

responded there DGG (talk) 19:22, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

from an afd

"It was asked above what the inclusion criteria should be for material like this. the answer, is they can be whatever we want them to be. We make the rules, and we can make whatever exceptions are indicated. It's not as if we were working on someone else's project." DGG (talk)

WP:FICT part 2

Haven't heard from you in a while. I figure you're busy. But I think we may as well start with a basic outline for a guideline on fiction inclusion. We can always fill in the blanks later, when we've discussed the nitty gritty. Want to try something in your userspace? Randomran (talk) 19:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

My current views on at . There is no productive way of working within the present system. There is no useful way of even discussing this in isolation from discussing the removal of WP:N, an approach that has unfortunately been rejected. There is no actual solution within an article-based structure. I will continue to argue case by case until the times comes when Misplaced Pages is revised or replaced by a proper database-structured encyclopedia, instead of one designed to mimic familiar print encyclopedias people knew as children. DGG (talk) 20:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

However, that doesn't mean I won't try, as a challenge to my virtuosity. But it's discouraging to know it advance that there are not enough people prepared to actually listen to something that might not get them everything they want. . DGG (talk) 20:46, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

• I hope that you will try. I agree that we need a better process for these kinds of issues, because it affects far too many people to use the normal consensus-gathering mechanisms. If nothing else, I wish someone like ArbCom could kind of fudge the line between policy and conduct by saying "okay, you guys need to stop expecting the moon, and stop hoping that the policy will just go away". But they haven't shown any sign that they will. In the meantime, I think we have a duty to press onward. If nothing else, one more failed attempt will reveal a fundamental process issue.
• But I'm more optimistic. I honestly think that an approach that goes beyond articles (e.g.: including stuff in lists and sections) would be palatable to a lot of reasonable inclusionists and deletionists. Give it a shot. Create something in your user space, and we'll pick away at it slowly, at your leisure. We've got nothing to lose. Randomran (talk) 22:11, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

See below for the attitude that we're up against. It's not a question of writing good rules, it's trying to prevent the use of the rules for obstruction. DGG (talk) 14:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Fictional elements

Could you discuss your recent change to WP:FICT on the talk page? My understanding is that fictional elements can't be dumped into so called "combination article", also known as aggregates - see an earlier discussion for details. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:04, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

there is no can't because we can make whatever rules we need to make, if we want to accomplish something. We can change that rule also. We are already in a situation where we cannot change WP:PLOT because we'd need to change WP:FICT first, and vice versa. Now this makes a third element to keep us from making progress, the guidelines about just when to split into subarticles. So if we can change nothing, because we have to change something else first, how do we proceed? The answer is simple, we change that also. it was a really stupid rule in the first place: if there's too much to say in one article, don't say anything but let some other Wiki handle it. Question, Gavin: do you want a compromise? If so, let's change whatever guidelines necessary to get one. It's our encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 14:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

If you want a quick way to deal with WP:AVOIDSPLIT, it's easy: our new guideline will be the notability guideline for fiction. I have yet to see a unnecessarily restrictive rule here that can't be dealt with for good ends by proper interpretation. DGG (talk) 14:39, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Notability guideline for News Organizations/Publications

Hi, DGG, could you comment here about the proposal of a new notability guideline for news organizations and publications by OlYeller21? Thanks, Cunard (talk) 22:00, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you Once again, thanks for your insightful words DGG. I have to admit that I had to read what you wrote twice to fully grasp what you were saying, because your posting tend to be a little bit deeper and more thoughtful than the average editor.

I admit, I was a little flustered today with your first typically neautral posting on ARS. But then I thought about what you said, and I realized this is exactly what I had been saying all along, that anyone should be welcome to post on any wikiproject (as long as they are not disruptive), you just said it in a more neutral, diplomatic way. Ikip (talk) 01:59, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Deletion

You deleted "Buzz Off Insect Shield" today with the code G11. Can you tell me what areas need to be edited to make the article ambiguous and acceptable under Misplaced Pages guidelines? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ownzered (talk • contribs) 18:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Historical notability

". Fifth century people are notable per se just by having their names remembered fourteen centuries later. Even if their actual record is scanty, and you can sum up all that's knowable about them in a single paragraph, print encyclopedias brim with stubs of exactly this type. - " . good comment by Smerdis of Tlön, for reuse as needed. DGG (talk) 04:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Human Sexuality Barnstar
		message Pluginaiden (talk) 10:58, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

For your relentless works in the homosexual community.

I have reason to think this was intended as a personal attack for deleting a (non-sexuality related) nonsense article; nonetheless i am pleased to receive it on its own intrinsic merits, though it considerably exaggerates my contribution to articles in this area. . DGG (talk) 03:20, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

merge/move

why not then do as you suggested, restore it and change the title, and then improve it to better NPOV. I'll look here for a reply. DGG (talk) 16:18, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I thought it would be better if the two different histories were merged first, so they could be refactored. That might change the length of the History section which would affect the need for a separate article, especially if the rest of "Open access (publishing)" were cleaned up. But I don't really have time for a major rewrite at the moment. -- Beland (talk) 18:18, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

if I do it, I;'d have to do it from the separate articles. DGG (talk) 19:34, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

American Engineering Group

Dear Sir,

One of my article about American Engineering Group company is deleted a little while ago. Can you please give me suggestions on how I can make the article more suitable for wikipedia. Please respond.

Thank you very much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abraham70 (talk • contribs) 18:11, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

There are two problems, first the article gives nothing to indicate thatt he company is notable. The standards from this are at WP:CORP. Basically, you need to show that you have references providing substantial coverage about the company from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases. You need to show that you are recognized as a leader in the field. Typically, independent substantial reviews of products in professional magazines will help; routine announcements of new products or financial results or executive appointments will not. Having army contracts by itself is not enough--if they are for major products that have been discussed, that might help. Some of your products for them seem the sort that might well have been discussed in news reports if you are a major supplier.

The second problem is the promotional nature of the article: it is mainly a list of products. That belongs on your website, not in an encyclopedia. the basic description of the company also is essentially pr material, with more adjectives than specifics. Figures for turnover and employee numbers help, if they are substantial--they need to be sourced, however & most financial results will not be easily available, since you re not a public company.

I notice also that you have put information about your fuel cells in the article on Proton exchange membrane fuel cell. Thjisneeds to be sourced as well, to third party sources, to show that its significant.

A good guide to what is needed is our FAQ about businesses, & other organisations. DGG (talk) 19:08, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Dear Sir,

Please go through these links and see if they could serve as possible references. Our Company is also listed in design magazines for various products. http://www.governmentcontractswon.com/department/defense/american-engineering-group-ll-114164234.asp?yr=06 http://www.rubberdivision.org/expos/mini/techprogram.htm http://www.thecityofakron.com/engineering/ http://rubber.org/expos/exhibitors.pdf http://www.edmtodaymagazine.com/Job%20Shop%20Directory.html http://www.americantire.us/Sponsorship/ATC-Sponsors-ITEC-2008.pdf

Please suggest if there is any possibility of getting listed in Wiki. I really appreciate your help.

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abraham70 (talk • contribs) 12:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

these are listings. They list that one of your people spoke at a conference, or that you have a contracts. They do not provide any indication that you are important. The one financial figure listed available to me was a very small contract for $40,000. What is needed is that other people publish substantial information about you. if the material in the design magazines is just a list of supplier's, its irrelevant also. If its a discussion of the company or one of its products, then it's relevant. I see from your web site "* 2007 SAE tech award for a unique fuel cell sealing concept featuring the Nanocomposite Double-lip seal.' * 2008 SAE tech award for the Carbon fiber Elastomer Composite Bipolar plate for PEM Fuel Cells."; such awards can be proof of notability, depending on the nature of the award; they might show that the prize committee of a major professional association thought you notable. That's the sort of stuff that belongs in the article (and, if I may give you the advice, more prominently on your web site; were I looking for a fabricator, that's the sort of thing I'd hope to see). There must have been something published in the trade press at the time. Find it. Some of your products are such that they might receive formal product reviews; some of your military products might have been written about in general news reports. That's the sort of material needed also. We also need some information about the business size: employees, gross sales, DGG (talk) 17:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi David,

Attached file contains some of the magazines over where American Engineering Group (AEG) LLC's products are published. Please see if this could meet what you are looking for. Please let me know your suggestions.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/AEG_Published_Articles.pdf

SAE tech Award 2008: http://www.engineering-group.com/AEGCurrentNews/News/download/download.php?id=11

Thank you very much —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abraham70 (talk • contribs) 17:38, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Levi's article

Some of the posts over at the AfD for Johnston are rather scary. It seems that people don't understand notability, or even read the one links that they provide. The one event says that if its a really big event, even minor figures can be notable from it. Then someone put forth an idea that the rest of his life isn't notable so it shouldn't be mentioned. Bah, do they not realize that encyclopedias don't have only "notable" information, or most pages would be empty? The fact that so many people have heard about him and there being over 8 months of coverage, scandal, interviews and the rest makes it all rather mind boggling. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I managed to get Nicolo Giraud up to GA, and I think the current state of the page validates quite a few of your arguments over the years. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 00:36, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

people will say anything if they don't like an article In this case, there's the added factor of the reasons why some people of various political persuasions don't want the article--as they cannot admit it, they are forced to use other reasons. DGG (talk) 00:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

as for Giraud, magnificent work you did there. People who don't know research sometimes do not realize that for any historical figure connected in any substantial way with a famous person or event, there's a web of connections, and there will always be sources. The art of a librarian is not to do research, but to know (by a skill that is not explicitly teachable) where there is, and is not, likely to be material. But at least people here should understand about knowledge networks. The reason Misplaced Pages is such a good place to work is that we can build our net on top of the pre-existing ones. DGG (talk) 02:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Homestead Bicycles

Told you it was a G11. :-P Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 02:07, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

thanks for the news that another admin reverted me in effect. You put back a G11 that I had removed. Nobody is entitled to do that, admin or not. I'll be discussing it with him. He should have let the AfD proceed. But the article is too weak to be worthwhiel following it up properly DGG (talk) 02:21, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

My $0.02, TPH, is that abusing the speedy process—even on an obviously meritless article (not saying this was one, as I didn't see it before it was deleted)—provides evidence to those who oppose speedy deletion. Since I think speedy deletion is an important tool in encyclopedia hygiene, I wish even well-intentioned editors would strictly abide by the prescribed procedures (I was grateful when an editor pointed out the invalidity of a recent speedy nomination of mine). Bongomatic 02:34, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Others were saying G11 so I just re-tagged it. If there are three other people saying it's a G11, what makes it not a G11? Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 02:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

the lede paragraph of WP:CSD says: "These criteria are worded narrowly, so that in most cases reasonable editors will agree what does and does not meet a given criterion. Where reasonable doubt exists, discussion using another method under the deletion policy should occur instead. " One good faith editor is enough to block speedy. The remedy is AfD, and that;'s where the article was. My guess, looking at it again, is that I would have made another try to improve it, given up, and !voted delete. DGG (talk) 03:01, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy#Speedy deletion suggests that renomination via the speedy process (as opposed to prod or AfD) is not appropriate. This is certainly the way the vast majority of editors and administrators interpret the policy. Bongomatic 03:06, 14 May 2009 (UTC)'

As I said below, I'm not quixotic enough to make a fuss over this rather unlikely article, so perhaps we can close this thread here. Thanks. DGG (talk) 03:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

A couple questions for you...

What are the benefits of a tree structure?

The article doesn't say.

I'm interested, because I need to explain the benefits in the guideline on outlines I'm writing. (Outlines are a type of tree structure).

I've also asked the question at various reference desks, and these threads may help to jump start your brain on this question.  :)

• Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Science#What are the benefits of a tree structure?
• Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Mathematics#What are the benefits to humans of using a tree structure?
• Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Humanities#In the humanities, what are the applications and benefits of a tree structure?
• Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Language#What are the benefits of using tree structures in linguistic communications?
• Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Miscellaneous#With respect to the fields covered by this refdesk, what are the applications and benefits of a tree structure?

What are the benefits of outlines, over and above regular articles?

What benefits have you noticed?

How are Misplaced Pages's outlines useful to you?

I look forward to your answers on my talk page.

The Transhumanist    04:47, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Lostpedia

One nom was a troll nom, and the other was speedy closed only a couple days after a previous one. Those two shouldn't count, in my opinion. And if it's so notable, where the heck are the sources? That's the big one for me. I see six secondary sources (hardly any of which seem to mention it in more than passing) and nearly twice as many primary ones. Everyone keeps saying it's notable, so why aren't they proving it?! Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 02:48, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

give up. A case can be made that major fan sites are intrinsically notable. You may not agree, but see that picture of a windmill up above that somebody left me? DGG (talk) 03:13, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Dear Dad

I'm tempted to say "all MASH episodes are notable," but not sure enough of my ground. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 03:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

• • Please don't. They are not that clearly notable enough for individual articles. They are clearly important enough for good substantial sections of combination articles. Even if you think they might possibly be made into adequate separate articles, the present ones are by and large so bad as to not present a good case for defending. Making an encyclopedia is a practical process & takes compromise. Keeping content is a matter of principle--keeping them in separate articles isn't. DGG (talk) 03:10, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

That's 'bout what I figured. Redirects seem perfectly reasonable to me. Dlohcierekim 03:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Eli Whitney Program at Yale

Think the idea of deleting this page is gratuitous. The Eli Whitney Students Program at Yale is one of the more unique undergraduate experiences for non-traditional students available in the USA, providing a superb education at one of the world's best universities that is normally reserved for students coming directly out of high school. The page has been used as an informational resource for many potential Eli Whitney Program Students--I am one of them and I know of others who have found out about the program through Misplaced Pages rather than through Yale's own site. If Misplaced Pages is about sharing information, I can't see why anyone would want to delete this page. Eli-whitney-yale (talk) 15:13, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

any references from published sources outside Yale?DGG (talk) 17:53, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

None I could find. Cheers Dlohcierekim 20:55, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, AfDwill decide.DGG (talk) 21:27, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Lordship Lane, Haringey

As it was yourself I had a huge argument with about the notability of roads two years ago, can I ask for your opinion of what should be done with Lordship Lane, Haringey? Despite the considerable amount of work that's obviously gone into it, it seems to me to be a patently unviable article. While I know from experience that it is possible to write a valid article on a relatively insignificant road, this really doesn't seem appropriate; the road in question is just a short named section of the longer A109 road, but merging this into the existing stub on the longer road would grossly unbalance it. There are only four notable (by WP standards) institutions on the road (Bruce Castle, Broadwater Farm, Noel Park and Wood Green Animal Shelter), on three of which I wrote the articles, so I'm probably too involved to make any significant pruning or AFD nomination without it being instantly challenged.

Do you have any thoughts on this one? It's a sensitive one; despite it's virtual invisibility, it's obviously someone's pet project about which they feel very protective, and when User:Mattisse tagged it for cleanup in the past they responded quite defensively, so it seems quite likely that any deletion or massive pruning would cause the author to leave in disgust. (I'd be fuming if someone deleted a 50kb article I'd been working on for two years!) Do you think it's better to turn a blind eye to this one, or can you think of any obvious way to rescue it which doesn't involve slash-and-burn removal? – iridescent 15:35, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

fascinating implications in a variety of directions. beautiful though the article is, it needs some basic improvements, like saying which district of Haringey, so I can find it on a modern map (finally did). I think it can be perhaps regarded as an article on a neighborhood, though I am still trying to figure out if it is a significant commercial street. If it is, that justifies it, though obviously not in such detail. That it's part of a major road also doesn't detract--most highways when they go through towns are renamed for that portion Possible combination article: Streets in Haringey? What I want to do right now is to fix up my own neighborhood's article, Boerum Hill, now that I seethe possibilities--it needs work--somewhere along the line, it was missed that most of it is a registered historic district. The availability of Google Street views has some interesting possibilities. For London, I understand there is also , though it does have this particular street yet.'

the fascination implications are that now we could do this level of detail anywhere in at least the US and the UK, and I suppose many other countries. Though the US does not have the VCH and the Ordnance Survey, it does have the Sanborn maps with their almost year to year revisions. There's no PD source for them all, though there is for NYC about about 5 year intervals. Then, the question is , why ought we not? Not what in the existing rules says we shouldn't for WP:LOCAL takes care of that, but what we should ideally do. The amount of available detail was not fully comprehended when Wp was founded, and each year i see new things that would make much more possible that anyone would have guess, visionaries though they thought they were. the main problem is that if we did coverage would be very irregular--but so it is anyway. Of course, there's Wikia. Is there a suitable project? If not, should we start one? DGG (talk) 05:59, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding whether it's a notable street, if one uses WP:50k as a general guideline I'd say it's right on the borderline. It's certainly a relatively old street – it's the yellow one running east-west on this map from 1619 marked "Berry Lane", but doesn't seem to have had (or to have) much significance. It runs east-west between two of the major north-south arteries into London Green Lanes and Ermine Street, but doesn't have any particular commercial significance; the big commercial developments are on the north-south roads. I'd say the four places I mention above ([[Noel Park, Wood Green Animal Shelter, Broadwater Farm, Bruce Castle) are the only points of interest (there are also two court buildings which one could probably wring a stub out of, but neither is architecturally distinguished). Personally I think it warrants the level of detail I gave to the individual named sections of A1 road – a comparator I regularly use for "relatively non-notable part of a notable longer highway" articles – but as I said above, this would involve a massive slash-and-burn operation. (The even marginally notable buildings could be kept, but the "Numbers 467 to 483 - Sila Ocakbasi Restaurant, Lordship Lane Internet Cafe, Cross Chemist, Bushey Car Spares, Flower Creations (Florist), Zeming Chinese Takeaway, Posh Pets (Pet Supplies & Dog Grooming Studio), Sinan Kuafor (Ladies Hair Salon)" phone-book style listings would still have to go.

As you know, we have and always will have a problem, in that we're handling 2 million plus articles with rules drawn up for a project with a few thousand articles. My general thinking is still, two years on, the opinion that was forged in the flare-up of Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Portland Road and eventually led to the merge-and-redirect into A215 road; that stand-alone articles on marginal-notability topics make the project unmaintainable, and work better as subsections of larger articles in which the assorted sections provide context for each other – and that, since very few people read these articles and those that do are likely to want a lot of detail, the normal arguments against very long articles don't apply. This "enhanced list" approach would, IMO, work as well for any marginal-notability field – discographies of unsuccessful bands, the obscure cricketers who will never expand beyond three line stubs etc – but any attempt to put it into place has (ahem) caused controversy in the past – see the talkpage of Railway stations in Cromer for all the arguments laid out in full. 10,000 active users makes for a lot of inertia.

At some point (probably not until I'm done with the current series on bridges) I might try doing a "massive merge" in one particular topic. Even if it gets reverted, it might at least prompt a debate on how we're going to handle the flood of data we're currently being bombarded with in a more nuanced way than "keep"/"delete". It's a shame WikiProject Integration and Association of Mergist Wikipedians have effectively died, as this kind of initiative is something that's really needed now more than ever. – iridescent 16:36, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Errol Sawyer at WP:BLPN

Please see this notice at WP:BLPN; you may wish to comment there. -- Hoary (talk) 02:48, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Lessie Wei

Yo, is there chance that the article you left on this AfD was supposed to be for another AfD? I may be totally off, just checking. OlYeller 15:41, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

oops. As I have been saying, there are too many noms for episodes & its hard to keep track. I've put it where it goes. Thanks.DGG (talk) 15:44, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Ya, it seems like there's a big toss up over episodes right now. I wish some conclusion could be reached at an inclusion guideline for notability. I feel like half the AfDs out there are for episodes. OlYeller 15:47, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The other half of the AfDs are bilateral relations, and again there's various compromises that those placing the afds prefer not to even consider. There are several good compromise solutions for both, and in each case the large number of afds up there now seems designed to prevent any compromise. . Most mass nominations like this are in my opinion attempts at forcing one's own way, because of the difficulty of responding adequately. . DGG (talk) 15:56, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Military history of the peoples of Britain

Britain is not the same area as British Isles. This article was moved some months ago to Military history of the peoples of the British Isles, and wrongly moved imo. And for the wrong reasons too by user Setanta747. purple (talk) 19:01, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Discuss where to move it on the talk page; I agree they are not the same. But unless we have articles on both, people who look up the wrong term can at least be directed to a somewhat relevant place that we do have. When there is a naming dispute, the name not chosen should always have a redirect. DGG (talk) 02:55, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you very much. I've emailed you back.--Jklein212 (talk) 19:20, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Redirects

Are you really going to make me go through an AfD for an almost improbable search term redirect? And no, I wouldn't "create a section" for one episode characters on a page designed for the more significant characters of the show.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:40, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

RfD, not AfD. And see my answer where I see you first raised the question, at WT:Redirect; you were right to ask it there-- a better place than here to have a discussion, if you want some opinions before going to RfD for these Smallville characters. DGG (talk) 02:52, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

tyop on redirect

You said very, but probably meant "every". It changes the meaning of your statement, so I thought it was worth pointing out. Cheers, tedder (talk) 04:19, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

English Travellers

Please see Talk:English_Travellers#Source --PBS (talk) 11:57, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Please don't be so credulous. Part of your job, too, as a Misplaced Pages editor, is to look for good refs. Had you done so, no doubt you would have concurred with the prodder that this is a hoax. Perhaps now you could do the appropriate thing, viz., look for sources, and then either add them if you find them, or, if you find none, nominate this and CMA Group for afd. Thanks. 160.39.213.97 (talk) 12:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

you seem to be right; I restored the prod. I must have been asleep at the time :). DGG (talk) 15:46, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Law enforcement stubs

Hello I don't care to contradict you, but Law enforcement in The Gambia was deleted for exactly this reason, a {{db-empty}} and looking over your contributions, I don't think that you got all of the ones that I tagged; others may have been deleted as well. If you need to respond, please do so on my talk. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:30, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I do things the way I think correct. It has been known to happen that another admin thinks differently than I about something. In practice, Misplaced Pages admins get along by not attempting to correct each other every time they disagree. DGG (talk) 04:36, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Strength

• Lunarcrete (AfD discussion)

Are you feeling less weak, now? ☺ Uncle G (talk) 10:30, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

yes, since you did the work (smile). DGG (talk) 17:06, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Shameless thankspam

removed image because it broke the syntax here and made some other messages unreadable, but it's in respect to the successful RfA of 'Flying[[User talk:FlyingToaster|

Law enforcement in ..

(from my message to Kintetsubuffalo)" The series of articles that you have written Law enforcement in Benin (etc) are ll being nominated by another editor as speedy deletion for lack of content-- As reviewing admin, I think they do not quite meet the conditions for speedy deletion, but they really are not adequate as they are, so I have changed them to proposed deletion, giving you 7 days to improve them with some content and references. I suggest at the very least, date of founding and number of staff, for the various services. DGG (talk) 04:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)"

Sorry, I wrote those two years ago, I don't even know which ones he's nommed and you changed, and if nobody's added content to them in that long, maybe they're not notable. I am in Japan now, so English language source material is nonexistent except for the Internet, and I am pretty sure those orgs don't have websites. Ah well, the people have voted with their keystrokes. Thanks for the heads up. Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 12:39, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I've been thinking it might not be that hard, actually, & I'll give a try. DGG (talk) 16:45, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Request for advice

Dear Sir,

I found you under the list of inclusionists and decided to ask you kindly for some advice. I would be grateful for your suggestions anytime you find convenient, I do see you are very busy on here. I am new to Misplaced Pages and do not know much about its inner workings. I created an article about a friend and colleague of mine whose efforts I believe should be noted. He attempted to change some things regarding standards for translations in the Eastern European Republic of Croatia. Among his numerous achievements (check article for details), he had academic papers published and one of those papers is being used as required reading at Germany's University of Tubingen. National television in Croatia covered his activism. All statements in the article are sourced really well with online third party sources as well as actual tv screenshots of his initiative being covered on national tv. Be that as it may, an editor of Misplaced Pages has tagged the article as questionable notability. I have since that tag added additional sources, provided my constructive arguments about the article's notability, jumped through hoops. Other than the editor's brief opinion that he did not believe article was notable, no real response was offered to my efforts (see talk page). It seems a little strange that one person's subjective view of something being notable or not (mind you, notable, not famous) can wreak havoc on another person's hard work. How are these differences of opinion resolved? How can I remove the notability tag that was placed on article? Do I simply have to keep the tag on for weeks or months and than provide arguments if it is placed for deletion at mercy of others? The article name is Kresimir Chris Kunej. Thank you in advance for your response, Respectfully, Turqoise127 (talk) 17:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I am not in the least sure that he's notable. The only thing that might be a deciding positive factor per WP:PROF is that the article is used for a course reading list, but that alone is borderline. The two small articles in the newspapers might be, but you need to link specifically to them or at least give the print source. They have to be more than mere mentions to count according to WP:BIO. The way this will be settled is when the community decides after it's been take to WP:AFD, if someone does. I may do it myself. It is not me who will make the decision. Administrators don't do that here, we just enforce the community decisions and the community standards. I will give you the advice based on my experience: the odds of it being kept are less than even, but AfD is not predictable DGG (talk) 23:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

CSD policy discussion

As it happens, this whole revision did begin as a discussion on WP:VPP. If you want to attract more attention, feel free to post a notice about the ongoing discussion there, or on other noticeboards where canvassing for this sort of thing would be appropriate. --Ryan Delaney 18:03, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Pwn

"The article has plenty of room for expansion." Expansion from what sources? Urban Dictionary? Encyclopedia Dramatica? Message boards? Seriously, you'd keep an article on my left big toenail, wouldn't you? :-P Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • 23:12, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

only if you're left-handed. (making the assumption that,as usual, the dominant hand is the dominant foot also). And only the big toe. I do have standards. DGG (talk) 23:14, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I actually am left handed. Nice to see that you can come up with a humorous answer to a humorous question too. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • 00:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

AfDs

I don't use email, please post in an appropriate manner messages on my talk page. LibStar (talk) 03:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

In the matter that I want to discuss, I shall not be able to. Pity. You could have helped me decide on something. DGG (talk) 03:27, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Simplify policy RfC

I see that you have not yet been informed of this. Please throw in your hat there, if you'd like.   M  06:48, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I did. I'm off to the dentist now, which I expect to find a preferable activity to dealing with this. DGG (talk) 15:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I !voted, too, agreeing with you, but others as well. Best luck on the dentist. Bearian (talk) 18:45, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The dentist went better than expected, so maybe its a good sign. DGG (talk) 18:59, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I have a bit of context loss on this one: - what final version and draft are you referring to?   M  00:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I left more comments and some info in the arbcom section of that CSD RfC.   M  02:43, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Re your note

Replied on my talk. EyeSerene 16:42, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Shameless theft

Hi I have quoted you on my user page. It is attributed, but please remove it if you'd rather it were not there. pablo_hablo. 15:31, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

thanks for noticing it ! DGG (talk) 17:14, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

It's been there a while, I've only just got round to confessing! It just seemed to succinctly sum up a way forward away from all the

"You have no standards"
   "Well you would say that because you want to delete everything"
"Inclusionist!"
   "Deletonist!"

rubbish that forms so much of too many talk pages. Mind you, I won't be arguing in favour of articles about 10lb hammer's toes, left, right or hammer any time soon. pablo_hablo. 19:34, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Nomination for speedy deletion of Chilean Resistance

There's no such a thing as Chilean resistance. That term was made up by a ramdom user. Please do a quick search on google to see that there's no connection whatsoever, between the term and the oppposition to Pinochet's government/dictatorship. Likeminas (talk) 18:14, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

you may take it to AfD, but I see and & and at least some of which are from the Pinochet period. DGG (talk) 18:21, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

17 is a flyer, not a source. 20 a video, thus, unreliable.

Only 18 and 19 seem to be reliable sources. And even then, the information could be well be merged into the article Chile under Pinochet.

Likeminas (talk) 18:38, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Considering I spent just 30 seconds on that search and found 2 good refs from the first p. of Google, it seemed apparent that there would be many good ones to expand the article. And there are: Look at Google News Archive and Google Scholar, I've added 3 book and 2 journals also, found in WorldCat -- You may go to AfD instead, of course, because WP:BEFORE is still only advised, not required as it ought to be. DGG (talk) 19:02, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

No. I won't fight this. I just think it is unnecessary to have an article on the opposition to Pinochet, when, it could be merged into Chile under Pinochet, thus, giving it more visibility. Anyway, thanks for at least adding some sources.

Likeminas (talk) 19:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • 22:08, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

my apologies, of course you knew better than to say that. I should have double-checked the sequence of indents. DGG (talk) 22:56, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

request for advice

Dear DGG, I would appreciate your advice regarding the handling of an edit war continued by an anonymous user in the article sipgate. The user continues to add/revert material that is unmistakenly against WP policy Misplaced Pages:Verifiability#Burden of evidence. Would you please review this? The article (about a company) itself has problems with notability in fact. Kbrose (talk) 22:49, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

yes, I'll deal with it. It could even have been called to admin attention earlier. DGG (talk) 22:56, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Would you also have time to look at PimpMyNumber. Primary author appears as insider (company IP infrastructure uses same DNS names as author), refuses to provide secondary sources to establish notability, and uses same IP network as our anonymous war editor, coincidence? Problems seems to be notability and COI. Thanks. Kbrose (talk) 23:32, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I looked, but it appears NPOV so far; I'll keep watching. DGG (talk) 23:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Unuseful advice

Telling editors that they should write an article on a subject other than the one that currently exists is not a particulary helpful opinion. If you want to write an article on Our Lady of Darkness that incorporates a mention of Megapolisomancy, go right ahead. I'm sure that you would do a fine job of it; but that's not really a valid defense of the article I nominated for deletion, and it doesn't address the reasons for deleting the specific article. Let's not allow differences of perspective to override the existing policies and guidelines, no matter how much you might disagree with them. If you want to dispute them, there are other forums, Deor (talk) 03:31, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

The advice I gave is just what I would do myself if I knew the subject better. I suggested you, as you said you knew the book. I would not have made the suggestion if I did not respect your skills here. I have written articles on books I haven't read when needed, but that's hardly ideal. Repurposing an article is a possible outcome of AfD. I don't see how it has anything to do with more general differences. I was suggesting a practical solution to the immediate problem before us. Perhaps I could more conventionally have worded it: Move to Our Lady of Darkness and and add the necessary additional material. Is it clearer that way? DGG (talk) 04:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Drug Coupon

Could you take another look at this one? It was redirected once to coupon by another editor before the user drugzoo added everything back to the article including its one and only reference drugzoo.com at which time I tagged it as promotional only. If nothing else it is a gigantic coatrack on which to hang the link to his or her website. Thank you. Wperdue (talk) 04:51, 23 May 2009 (UTC)wperdue

I removed that inappropriate link first thing. It may have been planned as promotional but there is the makings of an article there. DGG (talk) 04:53, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate you taking a look at it in a timely manner. Wperdue (talk) 05:26, 23 May 2009 (UTC)wperdue

Our Lady of Darkness

I haven't read it. But the Amazon official review says: "For an accomplished pro like Leiber, a sorry performance." I like Pramoedya Ananta Toer's Quartet, and I think I saw Salman Rushdie and Tom Robbins have new books out. I don't read as many books as I used to since I started working on Misplaced Pages. Did you finish Atlas Shrugged already? I guess you just couldn't put it down. :) Have a great weekend David. ChildofMidnight (talk) 05:05, 23 May 2009 (UTC) I guess I need to come up with something sci-fi and fantasy related though... Have you seen the latest Star Trek film? It's supposed to be good. ChildofMidnight (talk) 05:16, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

The Full Armor of God Broadcast

We have been deleted based on Lack of Notability. Please take a look at our situation and if you have any thoughts we welcome your input. NOTICE: Actions have also been made against some of the affilaites listed as references.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Full_Armor_of_God_Broadcast

TY! Ivanhoe610fa (talk) 14:50, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

If you want to reinstate it, you will need good 3rd party references, articles about it in magazines or the like. DGG (talk) 23:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Kudos, comment & question

Dear David, I salute you for the various ideas expressed, and your sense of integrity. Your experiences from Princeton & Berkeley were also significant credentials to bring to bear. I have a comment about your working group for science and academia. Someone in the group lamented on how to distinguish "men from boys". At least in the science world it's quite easy. Below the obvious Nobel level, the next 2 are well known -- Academicians and Fellows. If WP can include all people on these 2 levels, it'd be quite a complete collection. Of course I'm only speaking about the US situation. I suspect that they have similar pecking order in other countries. Now a question unrelated to the above. When you have a chance, take a look at the discussion page for Deep Ng, and see my proposal to delete. Please advise if it's reasonable, and if so, the next step. Much obliged. --EJohn59 (talk) 18:24, 23 May 2009 (UTC)EJohn59

commented there based on general considerations. You do realise it's not the least my subject.DGG (talk) 23:21, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Your comments are reasonable & helpful--EJohn59 (talk) 04:40, 24 May 2009 (UTC)EJohn59

Clarify...

EC at the MfD? Send diff? I'll check. Schmidt, 03:06, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah. Found it. Go ahead and switch our comments, since we were both responding to Dc. Keep yours indented and outdent mine. Thanks. Schmidt, 03:10, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding ECRI Institue, I have listed credible third party references and truly do not know why this keeps getting deleted - can you be more specific as to sections, words, etc.?

CarolKocherecri (talk) 17:08, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

the only references you have from outside the institute are ,which does not mention it, and which in a general article contains a quote from someone at the institute. But the article is being deleted as promotional: 3 different admins have now agreed. Most of the article talks about how it all the vice presidents, and the locations of the various buildings. If you can find and post here one reference providing substantial coverage from 3rd party published reliable sources but not press releases, or material derived from press releases, that talks about the work of the institute, I will restore the article and rewrite it for you so it is not promotional. It will take extensive rewriting, not normal editing, and I do not want to do it if it has no chance of being notable. DGG (talk) 17:24, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

RfC Invitation

Within the past month or so, you appear to have commented on at least one AN/I, RS/N, or BLP/N thread involving the use of the term "Saint Pancake" in the Rachel Corrie article. As of May 24th, 2009, an RfC has been open at Talk:Rachel_Corrie#Request_for_Comments_on_the_inclusion_of_Saint_Pancake for over a week. As editors who have previously commented on at least one aspect of the dispute, your further participation is welcome and encouraged. Jclemens (talk) 23:00, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Has the shit hit the fan? - WPOOK update, 05/25/2009

Maybe...

We've started the next phase

I was experiencing mental block on the article draft for "outline" and on the outline guideline draft. And this was holding the whole project back. Without these (which are intended to explain the type of lists known as outlines in detail), the danger is higher that a controversy could go the wrong way.

I requested help on them, but there was none forthcoming.

So I went ahead and started us on the next phase of operations without those 2 pages...

Our AWB'ers and I have placed about 1600 notices all over Misplaced Pages. And the plan is to place several thousand more.

This generated only one complaint, but it was a very vocal one, and attracted a few other detractors who seemed unfamiliar with the concept of hierarchical outlines and their benefits. However, just as many or more editors came to the defense of the OOK, and there was no consensus formed. But, dab is still trying to rally opposition to outlines at the Village Pump. See below...

Administrator noticeboard incident and Village Pump policy discussion

It appears that the banner placed on the talk page of the Outline of Switzerland caught the attention of an editor named Dbachmann who posted a rather forceful message on my talk page, another on WT:WPOOK, another at WP:VPP, and still another at WP:AN!

He went well out of his way to use negative hype to cause a stir.

It appears that Mr. Bachmann doesn't understand the nature of hierarchical outlines and their applications. And though he implied that he has never seen an OOK outline before, he was involved with a discussion on these when they were called "lists of basic topics".

His primary argument is that outlines are content forks of articles, and violate WP:CFORK.

But "topic lists", of which outlines are a type, have been around for almost as long as Misplaced Pages, and fall under the WP:LISTS and WP:STAND guidelines. They aren't intended as forks, as they are lists, bringing the benefits of lists to the corresponding subjects, such as grouping and navigation.

Someone suggested an MfD, but lists are articles, and are within the jurisdiction of AfD. Only the portal page, which merely lists the outline articles, falls within the scope of the MfD department.

The administrator's noticeboard was considered the wrong venue for the discussion, and the discussion was closed.

But Dab's discussion at the Village Pump is still active. Hopefully level heads will prevail there too.

Now what?

Am I disheartened or deterred? Hell no. I say "full steam ahead!"

But we really need to finish the article draft and the guideline. Otherwise there will continue to be confusion.

Over the next week or two, we'll be posting another 1600 or so notices. It's a good thing we didn't send out 10,000 of them all at once.  :)

The Transhumanist    23:49, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

ECRI

DGG Thanks for any help you can provide so we can get ECRI Institute on Misplaced Pages. As a proper reference, here is a report from the Agency for Healthcare and research Quality, listing us in the Bibliography, page 56, #9 https://www.ecri.org/Documents/EPC/Cardiac_Catheterization_in_Freestanding_Clinics.pdf CKKocherecri (talk) 00:48, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry, but you need more than a passing mention, or a listing in a bibliography. You need to find an article or news report that discusses the organization in a substantial way. It does not have to be entirely about you, but it has to present sufficient material that a person can tell that you are important. I think you might be, but it needs to be shown by actual evidence that people in published work discuss the organization, not just mention it. If necessary, I may look myself, though not immediately, but if you keep track of what is written about you, it can facilitate things. I hope you have a library, but at least you must be affiliated with some organization that does: ask a librarian for help. I am one myself, but I can't personally do all the research for all the Misplaced Pages articles.DGG (talk) 00:56, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Here is another - we are part of the World Health Organization - I'll see if I can find a reference there. See below. CKKocherecri (talk) 01:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC) http://www.frsoft.com/pages/InfoPage.aspx?PageID=303

1. you are not part of the WHO, you are listed as an outside collaborating center in a particular project. If that is important, there will be published material discussing it. 2. The references to the Institute must be published' by a responsible source, not just the web page of a company using your product. Responsible sources for the purpose are published business or technical magazines or scientific or technical journals, or major newspapers. They can be online, but they must be independent and not derived from your own press releases. Please look for something usable. Unless it is really definitive, some people here will probably argue you need two of them, so I suggest you look for that. Once I see them, I will try to rewrite the article so it is not primarily promotional. Please do not send me scattered mentions of web pages. DGG (talk) 01:21, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: Notices

Don't worry, the current notices, and the planned ones, concern the development of existing outlines. For example, notices of work that needs to be done to them, and notices to recruit editors to help out on them.

The Transhumanist    01:20, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: Another related thread has popped up at WP:VPR#OoK's expediency. --TT   04:44, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

seems under control. DGG (talk) 04:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Bilateral Tables

Looking for feedback on what I have been doing. You have been involved in some of the debates about bi-lateral relations articles, many of which are just stubs. My feeling is that the best compromise is to make tables in the "Foreign relations of" articles that can hold the stub content, then redirect the stub there. This approach seems acceptable to many other editors. Maybe the table entry will grow beyond a reasonable size. If so, it is easy enough to convert the redirect back into a full article. Or maybe it will not, but it gives some basic comparative information so has some minor value. So I have been busily, maybe a bit obsessively, created the tables and merging stub content into them without paying too much attention to the content itself.

But now I am looking at some of the table entries, and wondering if they make any sense at all. The one in Foreign relations of Cyprus got me thinking. It seems that the stub creator stumbled on an official source here and then here and started churning out stubs for each pairing - some of which are truly trivial. I tend to think relations between two countries are quite likely to be of interest. There is usually trade, migration, agreements and disagreements, stuff going on between them. But (this may seem like bias), there may be little or nothing to be said about relations between two small, distant countries like Togo and Tonga - the two simply don't interact at any significant level.

To me, the criteria for a country pairing belonging in a "Foreign relations" table can be a lot lower than for a stand-alone article, but there must be some rationale for inclusion even in a table. I don't like rigid rules because there are always exceptions. I would say the relationship is non-trivial if the two countries share a border or conduct a lot of trade. Also if one has a resident ambassador in the other country, has stationed troops in the other, has a large migrant population from the other. Maybe other reasons. I suppose simple recognition in some cases is significant with countries like Abkhazia given the controversy.

But even as a table entry, Cyprus–Paraguay relations? Any thoughts? Aymatth2 (talk) 12:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

the only way to fix the foolish mechanical production of these stubs is to write proper articles to replace them. The real question is how to organize this. It is a very large scale version of the common situation of someone writing an impossibly bad article about something important, and then someone with more experience has to scramble to fix it before it gets deleted. (This does not mean mechanical production of stubs is never acceptable: it's been done well for geographical places and for individual species of plants, where there are good defined databases to start with that provide what is necessary for a supportable article, and there is general consensus that the subject of each will be notable--though in each case they was some argument about it.) Doing large scale projects without prior thinking and discussion and a sample run is not the way to work on a large database, or any large project or system. Not many of the people here actually have experience with this in the RW. Librarians do--our systems and databases are so large and complicated--much more so than WP-- that we have the opposite problem--of ever getting enough evidence to safely make major additions and changes, which is why we are notoriously such a slow-moving profession. In practice we make progress by small test samples, and by the experience of many failed pioneers.

I agree with you that in many cases the bilateral articles are not fixable. My own guess is that between 1/4 and 1/2 of the total are not really going to be worth the doing. The difficulty here is that one cannot really tell without a proper search, because some apparently unlikely pairings have yielded interesting results--it is very hard to say a priori that something significant may not have happened. The way in which they have been nominated for deletion is every bit as bad as the way they were made--worse, because it multiplies the amount of work involved in dealing with them. There should have been much more careful screening to nominate the very least likely of them. To return to a common theme, if WP:BEFORE were obligatory, we would have much less of a mess to sort out afterwards.

I think the merging for the time being as you have been doing it is the best solution. You should not be discouraged that many of the entries in the table are trivial. This is the case with all tables of standardized data--they contain a great many blank or nearly blank portions. I see nothing wrong with even a list of all 200 countries, with some saying: no information available. In the RW, a lot of table entries have just that. In a non-paper system like ours, it takes fewer resources--both computer and human--to include them all, rather than select them. Do not undervalue negative results--for someone searching for information, the fact that there is none for a particular query is a significant result. It does not look stupid--it shows, rather, that we have done the topic completely, the way an encyclopedia ought to. no information available can be encyclopedic. There are many analogies. As a simple one, tables of deaths per region per disease will have many zeros. They show that the data is zero, rather than nobody having looked.

For the examples you have given at the end, I agree with the criteria, but they apply to articles, not entires. DGG (talk) 13:06, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you for your very thoughtful response. Yes, this whole collection could have been handled with much less effort if it had been viewed as a significant class of article, discussed, pioneered and reviewed to find what approaches would work or not work, and then the articles or table entries systematically created following a well-thought-out plan. Presumably the end result will be similar, after a huge expenditure of energy and emotion. Given the way Misplaced Pages works, I suppose we just have to look for practical and constructive ways to sort out these problems rather than spend too much time in futile debates. Your reply is reassuring. A table entry that indicates "non-existent" or "trivial" is useful. I will keep plugging away on the tables as time permits, probably not spend much time on the debates. Thanks. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks. Wish I had more time. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:54, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Invitation

On the CSD RFC, you said "The only reason I do not challenge more is the need to keep good relations with my fellow admins. I trust most admins to use discretion most of the time. I trust nobody among us to use it right all the time.". I'm not the most frequent CSD closer, but I'ld like to invite you to challenge me on every CSD close you have doubts about. For AfD, I will often send you to DRV, but with CSD's, I'm more likely to undo my deletion and (if needed) send it to AfD instead. I don't always agree with you, but I don't think that your usually well-reasoned opinion will cause any friction. If it does anyway, I'll try to politely withdraw this invitation :-) Fram (talk) 13:09, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I have a similar arrangement with one or two other people. They know who they are. Even so, I haven't looked all that often, but that's really because of competing priorities. Just as I can't personally fix all the articles, I can't personally review all the deletions. But a pairwise arrangement might be workable, I'll accept if you will in turn audit mine. For the moment, I'd like to keep it to CSD. because, as we both know, you & I are more likely to disagree on AfD closures, and, as you say, that's often a bigger deal altogether--when it isn't a simple error, I agree with you that Deletion Review usually is the more appropriate method. (Also, I expect to get the advantage this way, as I do more speedies than you, though almost no afds. :) ) DGG (talk) 13:26, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't intend it to be an obligation, just that if you happen to come across one (or many) of my CSD's, you shouldn't be afraid to discuss them with me. I'll take a look at some of your CSD's as well, and let you know if there are any obvious problems. Fram (talk) 13:53, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

A cursory check of your latest 50 CSD deletions only shows one dubious one, which you self-reverted half an hour later. Also one A3 which may have been better tagged as G11, but that's such a minor squibble that I'll not bother mentioning these in the future (incorrect G3s, G10s and G12s are bad, as they reflect badly on the creator: other tags IMO don't have such connotations, so whether something is e.g. A3 or A7 is not really important, as long as it isn't a systematic error). I'll give your deletions another check now and again, but I frankly don't expect too many problems. Fram (talk) 15:14, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

My first look also shows nothing substantial in yours' for May--I have not gone back further. DGG (talk) 15:45, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Southbeach Notation

Hi, Thank you for your advice re writing style and use of citations for the Southbeach Notation article, which now has a 'this looks like a news release' tag on it at the moment. I have added a lot more detail, further references, and comparisons to other notations to illustrate the notable differences. Can you confirm if this is now in an appropriate state to have these tags removed? Or is there further work required? Your advice is much appreciated. Mbonline (talk) 20:30, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

well, 1/you overdid the detail a little. 2/the first paragraph is unclear: what is "situation improvement" ? I don't think it's an English phrase 2a/ much of the rest is unclear also, such as "power of expression is derived from the interpretation of the models made by the people using it." Does it perhaps mean that it's flexible to accommodate different concepts? And what is "perspective alignment in individuals" ? I think I know what you may have in mind, but I'd have to guess. 3/most of the semantics section seems standard concepts, not particular to this scheme 3a/ Ditto for the sections on ".1 Multi-perspective Situational Modelling" and especially "Structured brainstorming" 4./The "Example is a tutorial, and not appropriate content 5/and most important, I continue to see no references at all to show that anyone except the people who developed it think it important. DGG (talk) 20:53, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Re:email

I have replied to your e-mail with an explanation. --Patar knight - /_{contributions} 20:49, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of extraordinary diseases and conditions

DGG,

I have an enormous amount of respect for you and have no wish to damage your reputation both personally or as a Wikipedian. I hope you can take my initial response ("Are you having a laugh") as a reaction to you making (IMO) an astonishing mistake rather than perceived incompetence, inexperience or ignorance. Perhaps I misunderstood what you thought the book could be cited for, or perhaps you were "voting" to keep a list that wasn't actually quite the same as the one I believed I was sending to AfD. Indeed, many of the keep "votes" seem to be for a "list of rare diseases", which is quite a different thing. I am genuinely sorry if my response was hurtful. Colin° 21:02, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

no problem. I may not have been clear enough in the first place. DGG (talk) 21:04, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Keep Hope alive!

Hey David. I was wondering if you would be willing to reconsider your delete vote in the case of Connie Bea Hope? At the worst I think a merge (which I have no inclination to support) to the tv station WKRG would seem a better route. I've been finding more sources and putting more pieces of the puzzle together as far as the show and its history go. For example I'm working on a source that includes the show as an early favorite in the channel's history. I think this biography is well worth including, even though it's notability is regional rather than national or international. Thanks for your kind consideration. Oh and I'm working on an article on the program itself now too Woman's World (tv) so we'll see what comes of that. Perhaps a merger may be in order down the road. But the show has had notable guests, so I'm going to see what comes of it. And I also found a source with an archival tape of the show. Thanks for your kind consideration. How was the new Star Trek movie? Have fun. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:03, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

my opinion is the same, but I am not the arbiter of what gets into WP. However, I think you'd really be stretching it to try two articles. If the CBH one is kept, merge the show in; if it isnt, merge her into the show. DGG (talk) 22:22, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: Comment

Alright, thanks for the heads up, and I agree with your change.— Dædαlus 05:57, 26 May 2009 (UTC)