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The Signpost: 09 January 2012

Business Optimization subsection

regarding "remove book. These others are classics and core references (maybe not Lee). Let this book win an award or two. A lot of business-oriented books have appeared."

Dear Kiefer, I wasn't aware of other business books about Optimization and its applications. I believe a subsection for such reading, from credible publishing houses, might be of interest to less mathematically inclined individuals who are investigating Optimization. To my knowledge, there no awards for Optimization-related books, so that seems an awfully high hurdle for the subject of my post to attain. A fair number of the current, Classic references on the page are 25-30 years old and I submit that the page would benefit from a selection of more recent work. In that spirit, I'd like you to reconsider the removal my post. Centathlete (talk) 18:13, 12 March 2012 (UTC)Centathlete (Mike)

Hi Mike!

It was nice of you to write.

I am sorry for not writing you directly, following my removal of the book, because I usually explain myself (besides the edit summary you quote) again on the talk page of a new (or new to me) editor. So I am doubly glad that you wrote me.

There are many awards in optimization, e.g., the Lancaster prize awarded by INFORMS is usually given for a book, while there are various awards given by the Mathematical Optimization Society and related societies, often for papers (some of which becomes books).

I am unaware of any award to the author of the book you championed since the last MOS international symposium. What has the author done that makes his work exceptional? Has he won an INFORMS award for practical OR, for example? Did this book get rave reviews in the journals of optimization, or by an especially non-venial giant of the field? (For example, a blurb from Stephen Robinson can be trusted.) Do you have a review of recent books in optimization for economists or business that highlights this book? Is the book used at MIT or Stanford or CORE or Cambridge or Paris 6?

The graduate-level comprehensive books in mathematical programming (Minoux, which has another French edition, however) and Shapiro are older, I agree; however their contents are still core, apart from the group-theoretic approaches to integer optimization. Nobody has suggested removing them, and I know of no replacements. Lasdon's book has long been recognized as before its time, and seems even more appreciated now than in the 1970s. (Lemaréchal at least has long acknowledged its influence.)

For applied books, the book of Magnanti et alia is dated and weaker on nonlinear optimization, I agree. I suppose that Woolsey's collection, apart from its excessive pricing, would be hilarious, wise, and useful for applications. H. P. William's modeling book is strong on integer programming.

If we disagree, you can ask for a second opinion at WikiProject Mathematics or Computer Science or Systems. Users Isheden is especially active in writing about convex minimization, and user Ruud K. is knowledgeable about computer science and not a bigot (for example, teaching me to look more kindly upon heuristics).

Sincerely and with best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 19:31, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Interesting, perhaps

Hey, K-Wolf-- If you don't mind outting your identity to participate there is a fairly interesting Facebook discussion group emerging at CORPORATE REPRESENTATIVES FOR ETHICAL WIKIPEDIA ENGAGEMENT. Cullen and I are there and its always good to add a couple more grumpy old content creators to the mix... Okay, I'm grumpy and Cullen's not. Anyway they're starting to grasp that WP decision-making isn't a top-down fiat process and are looking for more voices to help them suss things out. I'd encourage you to chime in. Ditto for the dozens of lurkers reading this message. Cya. —Tim //// Carrite (talk) 23:12, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a really interesting discussion; I'd love to be able to contribute but the Facebook account is strictly for family interactions only! What a shame .... I'm over 50, as well, with 5 grandchildren. I think there are more of us about than many people realise. Pesky (talk) 08:31, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Tim,

It was interesting, but I think that I've run into Rklwtn enough to last me a lifetime, already. Let me know if I can ever help out there by email, to protect my privacy. Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:00, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

On second thought, since WP is turning into FB, why not create a KW account?  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:12, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, Robert seems much better than he did before, thoughtful and willing to change his mind, and he seems to write with Carrite-like clarity. (I do think that he should apologize for the statements regarding SG and She Who Does Not Want To Be Named, and I think that that I'm not over-reacting because of some sexist chivalry, on that score.)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:40, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Bayesian inference

Dear Kiefer, I notice that in some of your recent edits you have complained that edits to Bayesian inference are "ignorant nonsense" by a "wrecking crew" and perhaps suggesting that other editors are incompetent... I would just like to mention, as somebody who has been editing that article for a while, that if you think the article is wrong, then please just say so. If you have more knowledge of the subject than somebody like myself, and you put forward the reasons that the article is misleading, then I for one would be more than happy to agree. However, the edits are in good faith. Where material has been simplified or is incomplete (such as, for example, an abridged explanation of the philosophy), it has been to provide an explanation appropriate to the article. Gnathan87 (talk) 18:19, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

You removed the material that explained your errors, that I am now correcting. You should read and understand what you are removing from articles, particularly when it has in-line citations to the highest quality most reliable sources.

I tell you what, let's take this to the (frisky) mathematics and the (not so vivacious) statistics projects, and ask them to look at the errors you put into the article and the correct material you removed, without informing me (the author of the material). The claims you had in the lede were directly contradicted by material you removed, and this doesn't seem to bother you.

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Kiefer - I do not want this to become hostile. I have brought this here in slight indignation as to your comments on the authors, rather than the content. The decision theory section was originally removed by somebody else, at 04:48, 15 September 2011. My subsequent removal of that section was partly motivated by this earlier removal, and also notes Removed section on Decision Theory - a justification of Bayesian inference more suitable to Bayesian probability, and now mentioned in "Philosophical background". I do not question that the sources were reliable or high quality and, mea culpa, I did not think to look up and notify the original author. However, I simply felt that in the process of finding a better focus for the article (that is, a more general article focussing on the mechanics, uses and properties of Bayesian inference, rather than the philosophical justification, which could be covered at greater length in Bayesian probability). I have no doubt that there are improvements to be made. But, I state again, the edits were made in the process of improving the article groundwork and - if I may say so - I think it does now have better foundations to build upon. Gnathan87 (talk) 18:46, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

In what sense, if any, can you continue to insist that a discussion of frequentist statistics (decision theory, in your terms) belongs in Bayesian probability rather than Bayesian statistics---particularly when you include other applications of Bayesian updating?  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:50, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I gave up hope on trying to edit Bayesian probability long ago, particularly when the article is about personalist probability rather than Bayesian probability---and the page rolls happily along as though they were identical. Another editor would have to read a book on the philosophy of belief rather than relying on coffee-room asides about Bayesian inference, and you can see how much interest people at that page displayed in such topics....  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:56, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

At the time, I just came to the conclusion that the article should focus, as I say, on the mechanics, properties and applications of the Bayesian inference procedure itself, rather than more general relationship Bayesian procedures have to statistics, which could be discussed elsewhere. (Maybe, yes, in Bayesian statistics instead of Bayesian probability). On reflection though, I think maybe you are right that there is a place to mention this in Bayesian inference. Gnathan87 (talk) 19:16, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

One thing I would mention, and again I do so here to is that I feel the article must be made more accessible. Part of the reason for trying to simplify things (although introducing errors, as you rightly pointed out), was for this purpose. I can't help but feel that a sentence such as "Bayesian inference derives a "posterior" probability distribution as a consequence of two antecedents, a "prior" probability and a "likelihood", probability model for the data to be observed." as an introduction to the concept will be absolutely unintelligible to the layman, or even the mathematically inclined newcomer. Indeed, the purpose of that sectionw as first to introduce the conept in terms of a single hypothesis, before extending it to distributions in the next section. Even the lead as it now stands may, I fear, be much too inaccessible. What is apparent I think is that work is required on explaining the concepts while still retaining accuracy. Gnathan87 (talk) 19:35, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Gnathan87!

Sorry that I was irritated. Dealing with a Ukrainian troll :( kept me up past my bedtime and so delayed my Ukrainian breakfast. :) I have been running late today.... No excuse for rudeness, of course, and I'm glad that you weren't too upset.

A second thing to do is to move the article, replacing the Cambridge/fancy-pants "inference" with "statistics". "Inference" has been corrupted by the Fisherian "method" of playing pretend with a "statistical model", a "stupid fiction" according to Ramsey.

A related change is to stop the focus on Bayesian stats as a religion or philosophy, slightly better than Dianetics but on a par with Objectivism. Bayesian stats is not the answer to all decision problems.

Bayesian stats is used when somebody has an important problem that is so important that it is worth describing by a probability model---and this involves time by an educated statistician, so it is expensive: They want to make predictions about some important event that is exchangeable with some data and they have some information about the both (e.g. expert knowledge, or simulations of mathematical models, or prior experiments or surveys, etc.).

Let me quote from John W. Pratt:

"Howard Raiffa and Robert Schlaifer ... 25 years ago, and our joint paper of 1964 said:

'... we consider the problem faced by a person who on most occasions makes decisions intuitively and more or less inconsistently, like all other mortals, but who on some one, particular occasion wishes to make some one, particular decision in a reasoned, deliberate manner.... avoided any reference to the behavior of idealized decision makers all of whose acts are perfectly self-consistent; instead, we have taken a strictly "constructive" approach to the problem of analyzing a single problem of decision under uncertainty, hoping thereby to dispel such apparently common misconceptions as that a utility function and a system of judgmental probabilities necessarily exist without conscious effort, or that they can be discovered only by learning how the decision maker would make a very large number of decision'

I am sorry to sound so nasty. For some reason, statisticians who work in the foundations of the field often seem nicer in person than in writing. Shafer does, and I hope I do too."

Pratt, John W. (1986). "Comment ". Statistical Science. 1 (4). Institute of Mathematical Statistics: 498–499. doi:10.1214/ss/1177013523. JSTOR 2245799. MR 0874479. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

I agree with Pratt's remarks, especially the last.

Furthermore, Bayesian inference is a small part of inductive inference, which is a small part of inference, much of which is covered by Charles Sanders Peirce's pragmaticism (c.f. mode of inquiry). Peirce noted that thinking starts when there is a recognition of a problem, and then there is work to be done. Thinking is not easy. Gelman is right to have been allergic against the snake oil that everybody must use Bayesian updating all the time to think, if they are rational, imho.

Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:45, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)Well, I'm glad you settled down there! And there I was, about to pin you down on the floor and lay about you with the eight-foot plaited leather bullwhip, whilst wearing the leather gear and thigh-length boots ... except that you might have enjoyed it ;P Pesky (talk) 14:12, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 01:35, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

WMF's "rate this page"

I opened a discussion of the WMF's "rate this page" initiative to recruit editors from readers. Such recruitment "surveys" are prohibited by the ethical code of public-opinion researchers.

FYIly,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Civility

Keifer, please consider redacting this comment in the discussion about the AFT. Implying that someone who argues against you may have brain damage (and the "momentary lapse" bit doesn't change that that's what you've implied) isn't an acceptable rhetorical technique - it's simply an insult, and is not likely to enhance the discussion. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 16:31, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi fluffernutter!

Ironholds responded to my comment, more accurately than you, and so I cannot redact it. I don't believe that you are adding anything to Ironholds's comment, which I have already read and, per policy, implicitly acknowledged.

Please review the civility policy about feigning incomprehension and Arbcom's civility enforcement case's statement about baiting, along with the pattern of the user's contributions on that page.

Have you redacted your insults and BS allegations against BadgerDrink? Stay away at least until after you have.

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, you're still able to redact it - a strikethrough would work, for example, to indicate that you've reconsidered your words. But if you've taken Ironholds's and/or my comments on board and, while not redacting, don't intend to pursue the line of argument that other editors may be brain damaged, I'll settle for that. As for your commentary about me, "insults and BS allegations", "baiting", etc aren't my style and are something I do my best to avoid, but if you feel that there are issues in that regard, please feel free to pursue dispute resolution through the usual channels. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

This is the channel. You signed numerous personal attacks against BD, and you are an administrator or sysop (whatever that is). You need to remove your signature from them, or otherwise make amends.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi again!

I struck through the brain-damaged comment on brain-damage, per your and Ironholds's wisdom.

I did not say that you were baiting. You are straightforward, I am happy to write. However, you did sign some statements that including discussions of BD's psychology, etc., which were inappropriate. I wrote that somebody at the WMF-survey discussion seemed to be writing especially obtusely!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:32, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Mathematical shop talk

Confessions of non-sober categorizations

I resisted not the temptation to include category-theorist Colin McLarty in "Category:Category-theoretic categories, which is my favorite Misplaced Pages category.

A sober mathematician, not necessarily Dana Scott, removed McLarty with only silent remonstration.

1. Author: Johnstone, Peter Editor: Banaschewski, Bernhard Editor: Hoffmann, Rudolf-Eberhard Primary Title: Scott is not always sober Book Title: Continuous Lattices Book Series Title: Lecture Notes in Mathematics Copyright: 1981 Publisher: Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Isbn: 978-3-540-10848-1 Subject: Mathematics and Statistics Start Page: 282 End Page: 283 Volume: 871 Url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BFb0089911 Doi: 10.1007/BFb0089911

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Categories: de Finetti's theorem, Choquet simplices, and (measure) convexity

Hi K.,

Brad7777 and me probably did not quite understand your remark at User_talk:Brad7777#de_Finetti. Could you please comment?

Thanks, Sasha (talk) 00:07, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, my friend! I was even more cryptic than usual, perhaps because I have lost most disagreements with Brad, and so feared to offer more than token resistance! ;)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I saw the edit summary for this thread and of course rushed here, but needlessly it seemed. Posting here nonetheless in Brad Cabal solidarity. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:49, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I am flattered, Brad₂, that you noticed! :)

Bradleys of the world should stick together. An injury to one Bradley is an injury to all Bradleys. ;)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 09:23, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Hilbert Space

Your version of the article states that Hilbert spaces are vector spaces. This is a (minor) mistake that is commonly made. Perhaps their intuitions are mutually applicable; however, factually speaking, based on definitions, Hilbert spaces are not necessarily vector spaces. Please review basic definitions: note that "linear combinations" in the vector space sense are must be combinations of a finite number of basis vectors. The finite restriction is lifted when speaking about hilbert bases for hilbert spaces. --Liuyipei (talk) 08:34, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I replied at the Hilbert space article. Briefly, in the definition of a vector space, finite linear-combinations appear in the algebraic-closure axioms (linear combinations of elements in a vector space remain in the vector space). There is no negation of the existence of infinite linear-combinations. Cheers,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Your input would be really appreciated

... over at the Civility, clear, plain and simple sandbox. Pesky (talk) 09:12, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

A civility policy needs to be written to empower administrative action. This is not a priority for me.

A statement of purpose would be more my style. We are here to write an encyclopedia. All our actions are to be judged in so far as they contribute to that goal.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 19:28, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Our rules need be no more complicated than the rules at summer camp. There are two kinds of people, nice ones and mean ones; if you want to stay, you have to be or work on becoming a nice one. We have activities as part of our program. Campers can ask their cabin-leaders for advice at almost any time. However, campers should respect that counselors and the camp directors have a lot of work to do, and respect them, in particular not by thinking before speaking---in particular, to avoid speaking to disrupt the group from its activity or draw attention to themselves rather than the group's activities.

The contentious applications of civility have to do with a camper overhearing the camp director chastise another camper for coming into their office and disrupting their work, and the camper exclaiming, "But you have to be nice!". At summer camp, the second camper would be quickly told the facts of life; at WP, the second camper causes a headache at ANI, too often---at least, the explanations of adults at ANI that there is work to be done and that the camp director has the authority to chastise a camper who is disrupting his work and wasting his time seems to be forgotten at RfCs and ArbCom evidence.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:03, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Why is the world not simple? Pesky (talk) 13:35, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 16:17, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

edits to Template:Optimization_algorithms

Hi KW, I saw that you are very interested in the Optimization algorithms template, and reverted some of the changes I made. Since you seem familiar with the template, I won't edit it more, but I have the following requests:

1. right now, linear and quadratic programming are listed as categories, but semi-definite programming (SDP) is not. I think it would be very useful to add it somewhere (if not, then I don't see how to justify keeping linear and quadratic programming); I think in my edit I may have put SDP where I meant to put IPM. For the same reason, I had added conic methods as a category (of course conic problems are not methods, but nor are linear programs).
2. the link to 'Interior point method' goes to the section on IPM at the linear programming page, but of course IPM are much more general. They are also one of the best results from the past 25 years, so I think interior point method should show up somewhere on the template.

Thanks for your work on wikipedia! Lavaka (talk) 17:28, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Lavaka!

Welcome to the neighborhood!

Your suggestions were very thoughtful, but the template is currently focused on methods, algorithms, and heuristics. You are correct that the left-hand side categories are problem classes, but the difference is that existing problem-classes contain at least a few start-class articles.

As I understand it, for SDP and more generally conic problems, WP seems to have a shortage of articles on associated methods: There was a young guy, probably now middle aged, at Carnegie Mellon (Pataki?) who was doing (a) pivoting algorithms for SDP; otherwise, we have (b) interior point methods for SDP of various stripes. Perhaps one could throw in problem-classes having (c) self-concordant or (d) self-regular barrier functions, since such properties are near essential for good complexity results. Leonid Fayobish (sic) at Notre Dame may have some fancy results, also. But I don't know of any articles on a, b, c, d, which would fill a conic-sdp category. Prove me wrong!

Cheers,

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:55, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a good point, there's not much on SDP on wikipedia. So for now, I'm happy to leave it off. But there should be more SDP on wikipedia! In the past 5 years, there's been a lot of work on SDP via non-IPM methods, mainly by first-order methods. Here are a few I can think of:

1. Row by row methods for semidefinite programming. I haven't read this for a while, and not sure how to categorize it, but I think it's fairly uniuqe
2. There's been a lot of interest in matrix completion problems using the nuclear norm, so this is an SDP. For example, Don Goldfarb has fixed point continuation (FPC) to solve the nuclear norm problem. FPC is just the forward-backward algorithm, which works in this case since the proximity function of the nuclear norm is computable with a SVD. Many SDP can be solved by the forward-backward or proximal point algorithm (usually under the name of ADMM or Split-Bregman), and so there have been much recent work. It would be great to add the classic splitting algorithms to wikipedia (forward-backward (not the same one that is currently on wikipedia), Douglas-Rachford, backward-backward, Peaceman Rachford). Some of these are on here, but without much connection to optimization.
3. Martin Jaggi and coauthors (and some earlier authors) have applied the Frank-Wolfe algorithm to various SDP, e.g. , and the Hazan paper from a few years ago (cited in that arxiv paper)
4. Lewis and Overton have a review of eigenvalue optimization from the mid-90s; I haven't read this for a while, but I think it contains several strategies for specific SDP.
5. For conic problems in particular, I don't know of applications that have cones any fancier than the PSD cone, but if one can project onto the cone efficiently, then it can be solved by methods like forward backward (or to get around problems when there is a linear term that makes it difficult, there are dual formulations --- such as my own method --- and some new primal-dual formulations such as ).

Anyhow, just a few things I was thinking of. Of course, no one has time to put this all on wikipedia soon, but I would like to start adding some major things, such as the forward backward algorithm. If I do, I'll let you know! Lavaka (talk) 20:02, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

You know a lot more than me! :)

Yes, the problem is time....

Conic problems do have a lot of research, but nothing has emerged as a core algorithm or iterative method, I'm afraid. I think that the other areas are rather settled; I am surprised to learn that Frank-Wolfe lives again, like a vampire improperly staked, for IPMs even outside of network problems! ;) (Even worse are cutting-plan methods for convex minimization, but terrible methods continue to generate insight and heuristics and sometimes algorithms.)

I have written on mathematical economics and (since deleted by a fundamentalist) the Perron-Frobenius theorem on the von Neumann model of an expanding economy, which has spurred methods by the mighty Robinson, Nemirovskii & Nesterov (in their off-cited but little read book), Ye, Anstreicher (or maybe he just has an interest in it)---no doubt more since I was "in the game".

You should join the computer science, mathematics, or systems WikiProjects. You can see associated user-boxes and links on my user page.

Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:11, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

King Crimson and Discipline Global Mobile

DYK nomination seeks reviewer

• Thanks for thinking of me Kiefer; however, I no longer get involved in DYK. My memory of it, though, was that it was fairly easy to get an article listed. You nominate it, and then leave it. Provided you have met the criteria, it gets listed, and there are rarely any questions or extra work to do. Good luck! SilkTork 16:27, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

You are right, of course.

I thought with 10 KC edits, you might find it fun. :)

Now that I think of it, I probably didn't need to write Santa Claus either, because I met the criteria then too!

Cheers,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:49, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Alternative hooks

(Re MF talk) The second part of my suggestion is better than my proposed clause in the middle. I didn't like "insist" but my rewording went too far in the other direction... Geometry guy 22:59, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Geometry guy!

"Insist" is too strong, I agree. The article's "eschew" sounds like the writing of a student who has been preparing for SATs. We can do better!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:46, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• ... that the music company Discipline Global Mobile prefers has the policy that copyrights belong to artists and consequently does not own even its corporate logo (pictured)?

The latest nomination benefits from the felicitous phrasing of Geometry guy.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:58, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Discipline Global Mobile

Hello! Your submission of Discipline Global Mobile at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Ishtar456 (talk) 23:27, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Ishtar456!

Thanks for the notification and for your attention to the responses of Geometry guy and Silver seren. who were the champions of DGM during my slumber.

Cheers,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:12, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Discipline Global Mobile logo.gif

Thanks for uploading File:Discipline Global Mobile logo.gif. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Misplaced Pages under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Misplaced Pages. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Misplaced Pages (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Skier Dude (talk) 06:19, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice, Skier Dude.

Steve Ball has generously donated a finer image, with a CC 3.0 BY SA license, so this coarser fair-use image may be deleted.

Thanks!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 09:41, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

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Fixed  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:07, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Album covers

Balefire or Puff the Magic Dragon: Revision deletion

{{Admin help}}

My new categories of album covers,

• King Crimson : Category:King Crimson album covers and
  • its subcategory by P J Crook: Category:King Crimson album covers by P J Crook,

functioned as galleries of "fair use" images, contrary to the spirit of WP:Fair use (and perhaps violating copyright).

Please revision-delete the history of those pages.

Thanks!

Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:17, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

No need - some kind editor (beat me to it...) has added the "No Gallery" tag - thus the images do not display, and therefore do not cause a problem with Fair use. A text list of links is perfectly acceptable.  Ronhjones  20:56, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick arrival, but ...

the two pages' histories each display a gallery , so trespassing against our fair-use policy and may violate copyright law. Thus, I think that a revision deletion is needed.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:16, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

No. The update of the cat to remove a NFU image is sufficient, in the same way that we would remove a NFU image from an article but not go so far as to revdel the entire history that had the image. --Stephen 03:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Steven,

Did you examine the history? The RevDeletes would remove roughly two edits by me, and none by anybody else. This is very different than revdeleting an article history, which would destroy the record of valuable contributions etc.

I noted your response at the talk page for copyright problems, where I asked for rev delete.

Thanks,

Yes, I looked at the history. There was nothing that met the criteria at Misplaced Pages:Revision deletion#Criteria for redaction. And, noting your comments at the copyright problems talk page, your request for administration help did not ask that I identify myself as a copyright expert or otherwise, therefore you shouldn't make any assumptions in that regard. --Stephen 05:21, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Stephen!

Thanks for your response. However, you seem to have skipped the first criterion, which endorses removal of copyrighted material.

My comment on the talk page for copyright problems merely states that you did not identify yourself as having any particular qualifications regarding copyright and neither drew a conclusion nor invited anybody else to think.

Please do not ask a statistician to commit the base rate fallacy. :)

Thanks,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 07:20, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I skipped no criteria. You are confusing removing revisions that contain textual copyright violations with removing revisions that include NFU images. --Stephen 12:35, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Stephen,

Our policy is to avoid displaying galleries of art, because such galleries violate the "fair use" policy and copyright law.

A violation of our policy appears in the page histories. Deal with it.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:41, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

P J Crook

Thanks for the kind words. I have been somewhat of an advocate for acknowledging album cover artists, and tried to petition to have the template infobox album include a line for cover artist (it was rejected). i have created categories for both the fair use images of albums by artist, and for the albums themselves, as you can see with Category:Albums with cover art by Mati Klarwein. I like the idea of linking the fair use image categories and album categories in this manner, and will likely create such a category for king crimson albums with covers by her. ive also done this for book jacket artists, such as Category:Book covers by Richard M. Powers. I feel your category for Crook is appropriate, and said so at the proposal discussion. Seriously, though, dont worry so much about any possible bad/ignorant intent from other editors (which i dont see). stating your case and refuting others cases with examples, rationales, should be enough. wikipeace.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 21:12, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello!

Crook is an interesting case. I suppose her other art should be covered, but her only mention is in the KC articles.

My time constraints and unmet sleep needs made me irritable the last few days. I don't doubt that the efforts at categorizing are well intentioned, but I think that the "don't template the regulars" advice should guide Twinkle-happy gnomes. They should have to check a box stating that they have read the lede of an article before they suggest moving articles and recategorizing things; they should be pushed to write informative edit summaries and they should be pushed to write on user talk pages, by Twinkle probably.

Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:18, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Category:King Crimson album covers by P J Crook

Category:P. J. Crook

Category:P. J. Crook, which you created, has been nominated for discussion. 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. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:34, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Look, Koafv!

Stop wasting time with these idiotic noticeboard discussions. Just propose a re-name and ask for assent, and do it. Less discussion and less waste of time. Go to the noticeboard only if you cannot get consensus.

Sincerely,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:46, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

For comparison, examine Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of Core Collection albums in The Penguin Guide to Jazz, which concerns a novel case that deserves community discussion. Please strive to restrict the noticeboards and templating to (a) failure to reach consensus through user's talk-page discussions or (b) novel cases that deserve deliberation by the experts. Thanks!  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:13, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Category:P J Crook

Seriously, stop it

A nice soothing beer for you!

It may help. It may not. One day, m'lad, you must make your way over to the Forest, and I'll treat you to one of the nicest beers in the world. Pesky (talk) 07:14, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

From Misplaced Pages to DGM—and back again!

Nice to see that Misplaced Pages's article led a reader ("seasonedsoup" on March 09, 2012) to the DGM Live!'s forum.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 21:26, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

My horses are resting ...

... for now at least. Malleus Fatuorum 18:30, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll follow you into the breach, once more, per usual! :)

Best regards,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 19:56, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

In the meantime, do you have any idea why the serial supporters of underage admins like Newyorkbrad remain at liberty? He's obviously a very anodyne character, but he's nevertheless full of shit. Malleus Fatuorum 22:06, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Malleus,

We all are full of shit. ;D

That said, both of you should have precise appraisals of each other's contributions to the project; such appraisals would be substantially higher than either of you have expressed lately.

It is difficult to change adults' behavior, and so greater tolerance needs to exist for the peculariarities of adult contributors. Brad has made sufficient self-deprecatory comments about his manner of writing that I have trouble finding his smoothness irritating, even when I disagree with him. I was impressed when he stopped the DYK proposal about failed blowjob attempts by Sexy Cora with a precise five-finger exploding heart tap suggestion that such a hook wasn't the best use of Misplaced Pages's Main Page; similarly, he pointed out an unwarranted assumption I made with Dylan620's RfA, and let me do the corrections and apologies rather than pushing me to take the corrective action. A stiletto hand-shake is more graceful than a Claymore. (21:31, 11 March 2012 (UTC))

I cannot remember any case where Brad has made any difference in the outcome of an RfA. RfA has a lot of problems, but Brad is not one of them.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:06, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you've forgotten Newyorkbrad's recent vote to have me banned, because it wouldn't be right if only one arbitrator took that position? Can you find any moral footing in that? And have you actually looked at Newyorkbrad's voting pattern? Malleus Fatuorum 00:13, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll have to review the ArbCom case, Malleus. I'm tired. I was not happy with any aspect of that case, and in particular I had expected more of NYB than to endorse such a misuse of "disruptive", even if all the other kids were jumping off that bridge. Or are you referring to the discussion before the ArbCom case? (I didn't follow the events a few months before your case.)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:23, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Don't take the trouble. It was a travesty, and Newyorkbrad played his full part in it. Malleus Fatuorum 00:26, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I looked at the case again. At least they did say that your editing was not disruptive (or perhaps slithered away with "falls short of being disruptive") in the findings section, before wantonly misusing "disruptive" to justify banning you from Talk:RfA. Please link me to the previous discussion at ArbCom, when the case was not accepted. I had trouble finding it at the later travesty.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 16:43, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

You mean this? That arose because the guardians of the 9/11 article didn't like being told it was shit (or it might have been crap, can't remember, but you get the idea). Malleus Fatuorum 20:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I just checked; I called it shit and crap. Malleus Fatuorum 21:06, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

You are seldom at a loss for words! ;)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 10:11, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

JayJay 21:18, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments, please!

On this :D Pesky (talk) 09:55, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

I tried but was largely reverted by Wikidemon, who likes to avoid awkwardness and disagreement, while being able to block without consequences.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:29, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Keep trying! We can do something here. Pesky (talk) 09:04, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

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Incivility

• recent diff

Hi.

Please take the tone of your rhetoric down a notch. personal attacks and incivility are simply inappropriate.

Please try to talk about the content in question and not an editor.

If this sort of thing continues, you may be subject to further sanction, such as being blocked. - jc37 23:43, 12 March 2012 (UTC)